tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2012091795932325815.post5189389991897582417..comments2018-11-29T21:54:37.049-06:00Comments on Watch Out For The Bull: A Few Thoughts About Grazing Sorghum-SudangrassRichhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11412944120622315804noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2012091795932325815.post-56034610042883835932014-12-07T18:56:50.401-06:002014-12-07T18:56:50.401-06:00Cattle usually need to eat about 3% of their body ...Cattle usually need to eat about 3% of their body weight in hay each day, which would be about 35 lbs. for a 1200 lb dry cow. <br /><br />During the winter, I typically just figure out how much hay I need to feed each day and feed a couple of days worth of hay at a time. If the hay is better quality hay (higher protein and better palatability) they'll eat more of it in a quicker time, but if hay is lower quality they'll waste more and they'll take longer to eat it. <br /><br />In 2011 in the middle of the drought, about half of my winter feed was wheat straw (it did have a lot of chaff in it since I took the chopper off and baled it right out of the back of the combine) and I had no other choice but to feed it. I alternated feeding straw and hay along with cubes. On the days when I fed the straw bales I fed more cubes trying to get them to eat the straw, but you could tell that they weren't happy about eating straw. <br /><br />On the days when I fed hay, you could easily tell the difference in the way they acted around the feeders and in the morning when I fed the cubes. <br /><br />So far, they seem to be acting like they're eating hay when they're grazing this field of sorghum-sudangrass, and if they start acting like they did when they had to eat wheat straw, I'll start supplementing them with some hay.<br /><br />When they're out on this sorghum-sudangrass, if I'd baled it I might have baled about 3 bales/acre, but I'm making a pretty conservative guesstimation that I have about 2 bales/acre worth of hay to feed (accounting for waste, weathering, leaving enough residue to feed the soil, etc.). <br /><br />The leaves are probably the better part of the dead sorghum-sudangrass, so I've divided up the field so that they don't just eat all the leaves in a few days and then just have the stalks for the rest of the time they're on the field. <br /><br />So after all that explanation, I'm just watching the cattle to see how they are acting each day (are they are chewing their cuds, are out on the field grazing, do they look full, or do they seem hungry) to gauge how much feed value is left in the sorghum-sudangrass. At the same time, I'm also making a rough calculation about how many days of grazing they should be getting from what's in the field, and I'm looking at their manure to get a rough idea about how much protein they are getting (too much protein loosens up the manure, just enough protein firms it up, and too little protein makes the manure stack up). <br /><br />It's always a guessing game, it's relatively easy to figure out how much hay to put out each day, but so far it has been easier to graze this field than I originally thought it might be. Richhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11412944120622315804noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2012091795932325815.post-7694763535575098192014-12-07T07:12:40.323-06:002014-12-07T07:12:40.323-06:00Never having been around grazing animals, I have t...Never having been around grazing animals, I have to ask a dumb question. How can you tell when they've completely grazed an area? I'm guessing you don't wait until they start bawling in hunger. Can you recognize how much forage is left that they will eat and what is left that they won't? If I had to guess from the tone of your post, you too are just guessing and doing rough calculations on what your hay would have yielded. Interesting stuff to read.Edhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13214319366049620074noreply@blogger.com