When to start feeding cattle hay
Early Start to Feeding Cattle Hay
hey folks it's drawn out here on the
ranch in Arkansas as conditions get
drier and our forward supplies are
getting shorter and we're having to
start feeding a little bit of hay the
first of August is definitely in early
times we started feeding hey we'd like
to wait until mid late December but we
got to keep our cattle fed this
year's drought hit at the wrong time and
we just really just really able to stop
college just beginning of summer so kind
of running we're running pretty short on
on grasses for cattle eat going to keep
them fed keep them producing milk for
their cabs so we've got a couple
pastures we started feeding hay to and
and there's several different ways to
feed hay but our idea is to minimize our
wastage especially when spas are short
and we want a boat we want to be the
most efficient that we can feed Hank so
I kind of want to show you a little
couple things a couple different ways of
beating hey miss hey Bella right here
was fed on the ground and as you can
tell the cattle trampled it quite a bit
when they were eating it and the center
of the bell is still there and there's
going to be a lot of waste on this
ground and not only is a lot of wasted
hey but we're damaging our forged and in
the pasture that's underneath this power
the cattle will trample it and smother
out some of the grass and so luckily
next year this will be a patch of weeds
and we go in through we could go in here
and burn this hay pile off after the
cattle pick it out and Trump it down and
that will help a little bit of recovery
but there's still be a wasted spot and
I've got a couple spots over here I can
show you when the cattle you know these
were bells the bed last winter even in a
hiring there's still a lot of damage to
our to our forages and everything so one
way to prevent this is rolling out bells
and some producers will will roll out
hey and that spreads your organic matter
out across the pastures help them to
fertilize your pastures and it also
keeps from damaging your forged plus
this is another method feeding hay using
a herring you can use a metal round ring
to go around the hey bill and the cow
stick their heads in and to eat the hay
and that keep
from trampling the hay but it also
leaves a big pile of hay in the middle
of and we can use an upright feeder like
this one this will lift the bell up keep
a couple of feet off the ground the
cattle are able to reach the hay
underneath a little easier and but
there's still some waste with this so
rolling out is probably the best way
around here it takes a little more
labour a little more time when we're
feeding hay but if we don't overfeed the
cattle they should be able to clean up
this Paula hey pretty easy so there's a
lot of different ways to feed hay a lot
of ways to conserve hey and we're trying
to minimize our waist so it's just
whatever fits in your opportunity or
whatever fits in your operation whatever
equipment you may have may make it the
easiest way to feed hay so I know
drought conditions aren't only in
Arkansas a lot of large parts of
Louisiana and Texas and Oklahoma New
Mexico have been affected as well so how
are forged supplies in your area I know
some places are pretty wet or have you
started feeding hay already as we move
into August so let me get some feedback
on this I'd love to hear from different
parts across the country and be sure to
join us on Wednesday nights on Twitter
we're going to have a hey talk chat use
the hashtag hey talk all one word and
we're going to be talking about
different aspects of hay production hay
storage hey feeding weeds and different
management styles across the country
this would be a really great way to talk
with livestock and forage producers
across the country only an hour hour and
a half out of your wins tonights to be a
great way to network across the country
so I advise you on Twitter look me up
it'd be a RN square ranch hand or you
can look up the hashtag egg proud to
look at my post so invite you all to
come join us wednesday nights at eight
o'clock eastern on the hay talk chat on
twitter i hope you all have a great week
and we'll talk to you later
