Hay grinding

I was just wanting to hear some pros anc cons on grind hay for cattle. I know some guys mix other products with it. If you don't is it worth it or is it just another added expense for the operation. They seem to eat it better, but are you covering the expense involved.

As far as I know,you want the hay to have been stored inside. I knew a guy who ground a bunch that had been outside and he said the spoilage mixed with the good hay and they wouldn't eat any of it.
This was back in the days of the early loosely packed bales.

I have a small feeder steer herd. about 25 head. I grind 5 bale of alfalfa hay and 8 bale of bean stubble with ear corn . This is a good way to get rid of rained on hay also.. I have ground some really nasty bleached out hay that wasn't even worth baling. no waste... steers ate it all. A lot more labor but I never loose a hay crop and steers seem to gain good ..... Doug

It works mix hay with corn or DDGs neighbor says he can get 3lbs a day IF you have some good stock.

I grind all my hay for my cattle and sheep. For me its a no brainer because they waste so much if I just put a bale in the ring. I don't remember what my grinder guy charges per hour but the last time we ground 40 bales and it cost $280. That also included a 6 mile trip to the other farm to grind for the calves and sheep. They just eat it so much better with almost zero waste. I will never go back to feeding bales in rings. We have been grinding for probably 25 plus years. We have ground alfalfa, prairie hay, oats hay, straw, and corn stalks. The guy I get now has a Haybuster truck mounted with a 600 horse Cat engine for the grinder so she eats the hay really fast, although more than once with the prairie hay she almost killed out.

We have a large semi mounted 700H.P.tub grinder come and he can grind one bale every 2 minutes and by mixing cornstalks with hay there is a very little waste.Our hay is inside and wet hay wont work.I think he gets around $250 an hour.We start the winter at 2 bales cornstalks to one hay and go to one to one about 2 mo before calving and after calving use 2 hay to one cornstalk but it depends on quality of hay.

It all depends on what you are doing. If you are on a weight gain schedule to get animals to market you need to have the right rate of growth. To get rate of growth you need to be feeding an adequate ration. In order to feed an adequate ration you need to test your hay and then add concentrates to bring it up to the needed protein, energy and ndf. etc. that is where grinding and nutritionist come in. It is very difficult to combine hay with concentrates if the hay is not ground.

We grind all our round bales with a jaylor verticle tmr mixer they keeps the hay longer.than haylage! Works good for us!

Here are some general things on hay grinding:

1) You need to think about how your going to feed the hay. A full loader bucket will only be maybe 600-800 LBS of ground hay. It is fluffy.

2) Ground hay that gets rained on in a pile will usually shed the water off fairly good but do not grind too much. I alway like to feed it up in a month or so. IF you can store it inside then you can grind more.

3) The hay needs to be fairly dry to grind. Wet hay of any type will not grind. A little wet on the bottoms will not hurt anything but a bale that is tough/higher moisture on the inside may not grind. So do not think you can grind fresh baled hay unless it is BONE dry when you bale it.

4) You can have the grinder guy mix the quality of hay and stalks as he grinds it. Others have talked about feeding corn stalks with hay. That is a good way to feed brood cows. They do not need high protein Alfalfa hay so you can cut the protein down with lower quality hay or corn stalks.

5) It works the other way too. I have feed hay that the cattle would not even sleep on, after it was ground. I blend some corn silage in with it.

6) If your going to be feed ground hay you will need some way to feed it. Meaning feeders that have bottoms to keep it up out of the ground moisture. Also a TMR wagon is the best way to feed it as you can add different things in easier. It is real common to use a liquid molasses based supplement with ground hay to cow. You can feed straw treated with this liquid molasses and they will eat every little bit.

7) Check on the actual grind cost in your area. We pay by the hour($350) with a minimum charge of $250 just to show up. This is a fully contained unit. He can load the grinder with a grapple. There is another guy and he charges less but you have to have a tractor loader to load the grinder he does not have the boom/grapple to load with. So if you do not have a larger skid steer or tractor loader the second guy would not work for you. I like just being able to line up the hay bales and not having to wait around for the guy so I pay the extra and have the guy with the boom/grapple grind ours.

I usually have the cows grind it ,,.. ///I do grindDRY alfalfa hay in the farmhand, artsway , massey ferguson , newholland and gehl feed grinders over the yrs,, the gehl is most problematic ,, causing me to dispise for a lifetime all gehl /vermon /VERMEERE equipment,,. bottomline .. always grind grain and add mineral mix 1st ,,,.then delute with hay,,biggest problem is getting out of grinder if it sets over nite or weeks ,, it will bridge up,, the moisture will fool you...

NEKs, Grinding Hay does add cost to your bottom line. But owing a tub grinder is a very useful tool to have around.
Back in the 80s we put up a 60 acres of a Silo Milo crop, it was 12 ft tall and still actively growing when we cut it. I was wet in the pit and stayed that way, our yearlings would go off feed after 4 days straight.... We had to grind one round bale of sudan hay to every truck load of Silage to dry it up so the cattle would stay on ration.
We later acquired an attachment, and small screen to grind corn too..
Grinding will enable you to utilize lower quality crops for you cattle ie Maize Butt. as we call them here in Central Texas .....After Milo...Maize is combined, swath down the remaining crop and bale as usual! this product is hugely Steamy and not easily chewed up even by full grown Cows! after grinding even yearlings can utilize it! just put out Syrup tanks or Protein tubs to make up any nutritional deficiencies.
Hope this helps.
Later,
John A.

Cows have molars and 4 stomachs for a reason, they are perfectly capable of grinding their own feed.
All Tub grinding does is increase the cost and the workload.
If a cow don't want to eat a certain feed it prob ain't worth feeding to start with
People always think they can improve upon nature.

just saying :wink:

I'm my opinion with the price of hay there is no reason to not grind hay. I had to buy grass hay for 280 a ton last year and I look at grinding as a way to save hay which to me is the more responsible way to feed. I do not have a tm mixer as I only have 20 head of stock cows and some sheep. I grind the hay and it sits outside in the pile and does not spoil much. The pile is right by the slant bar feed panels and hand feed them it doesn't take much time and works good for my operation. That being said could I save money and feed bales in rings but I look at the hay savings as being more important to my bottom line than the money savings from not grinding. I also do not miss dealing with frozen bale rings and other assorted issues with feeding bales.
To each his own though I am just explaining my situation and know that every ones is different.

I couldn't imagine why you would grind hay unless you were mixing other stuff with it. I hadn't thought about the reduced waste offsetting the cost of grinding, especially with today's hay prices. Learn something new every day.

Like others said, turns hay that is not desirable into something they can use. If you are feeding good short upland hay, grinding hay may not save you a lot in the long run. If you are like most, good upland hay is getting hard to find or afford to have. We put up a lot of lowland hay and corn stalks. We grind it up and mix in with silage for cows and also add grain for the calf ration. We run a 1100 haybuster grinder and a 4890 case. 6 grand for the grinder and 9 grand for the tractor, have been using them as a pair for close to 10 years. Probably 150 hours a year. We put 4 grand in the grinder this year for hammers, sieves, rods, and belts, should be good for another 10 years. I would guess a custom grinder would be a better bet if you have a small herd, and they can run a lot of hay through in a short time. Were up here on the frozen tundra so the cows just get fed on frozen corn fields and in grassy areas during spring thaw. Feeder cattle get fed in tire bunks. Easier to feed ground hay than rolling out bales. Fill your wagon, hook up and go. Bale processsors are another option, but they are expensive and you aren't able to mix poor and good hay as well.

Around here last year grass hay was as high as 350 a ton with alfalfa bringing 380 a ton. To me its a no brainer but it also is good as a guy can get more out of the hay you have.