STRAIGHT FROM THE HORSES MOUTH

Duane A. Lienemann UNL Extension Educator Webster County October 29, 2010 Edition A year ago at this time we had already gone through two weeks of winter, which never seemed to lose its grip well into early spring. That caught a lot of us off guard and we did not get to utilize stalks like we normally do and it of course had a huge affect on feed inventory and condition of our cows going into spring. Speaking of inventory, last week I centered my discussion on taking inventory of what you have for your herd. Now we need to take a look at some other factors to finish getting ready for winter care of our cattle. We know that it is just around the corner. How do you feed? One important factor that we sometimes don’t think about is that we to consider how you feed your forage sources. Are round bales simply placed out in pastures or lots as is? Are they fed in hay rings or bale feeders? Are they rolled out on the ground? Is silage or wet distillers grain fed on the ground or in troughs or feeders of some type? Feeding any type of forage on the ground dramatically increases the amount of loss you experience. Repeated research and experience has shown that losses in round hay bales fed on the ground can exceed 30 percent. Simply placing a hay ring around the bales so cows cannot stand or lay on hay as well as urinate or defecate on it will dramatically reduce losses. The same is true of feeding silage or WDGS. Feeding in troughs eliminates most of the waste. These savings can quickly pay for the investment you have in feeders and troughs. For example if you are comparing feeding round baled hay on the ground to feeding in a bale ring, consider the two levels of loss on a purely economic basis. University studies show that feeding hay on the ground with out a ring or similar feeder can create a loss of $1000 per 100 head over a given feeding period. A producer can afford to invest in several rings for less than his losses in one year and save those dollars in subsequent years. Take a Cow Herd Inventory: Your forage and other supplementation needs will be largely determined by your herd inventory. Questions you have to ask include: What is the size of my cow herd, including cows, larger calves (which will be held over), or developing heifers and bulls. A very basic rule of thumb is that the average cow will eat about 2.5 % of her body weight in dry matter per day. In other words, a 1200 lb. cow needs to consume around 30 lbs. of dry matter every day. This is easy to calculate if a cow is eating only dry hay. The hay probably averages 85 percent dry matter or better. This means that a 1200 lb. cow would need to consume about 35 lbs. of hay per day. Therefore, this is from all sources, standing grass or crop residue, hay, silage, grain, etc. Other factors which may affect this include temperatures (heat – they eat less, cold – they eat more), moisture conditions (wet, dry, muddy, etc.), stage of production (dry, trimester of pregnancy). Therefore we need to build in a “fudge factor” of 20 percent or so. Take Inventory of Cow Condition: How do we do this. I have discussed this in several articles, but it bears repeating. Learn about Body Condition Score (BCS) and then utilize it. By the end of summer the producer needs to go through and assess what the average BCS is of his herd. In many cases it is very common for producers to come into the fall and winter of the year with a herd at a lower BCS than would be preferable. Remember it is common and actually physiologically natural for a cow to lose a certain amount of weight as she goes through winter. Let's say one body condition score. For a cow averaging 1200 to 1,400 lbs, this is about 100 to 150 lbs of body weight. Therefore, if she comes into this period in better condition, i.e. a BCS of 5 instead of a BCS 4 she will lose down to a BCS that is still workable (i.e. a BCS 4 instead of 3. Research has shown that a cow will breed optimally at a BCS of 5 to 6. If she enters winter at a 5 and loses down to a 4 it is much simpler to get her back to a 5 than is she comes in at a 4 and loses down to a 3 and subsequently you need to get her back to a 5. The difference here is for her to gain back only 100 to 150 lbs as opposed to gaining back 200 to 250 lbs or more. Obviously the first option is less expensive, in many ways, not just financially. To accomplish this actually requires looking at your herd and determine how they came through summer grazing and if you have them on stalks – how do they look? Did they ever recover from last winter? Hopefully a wet spring went a long ways towards this goal. No matter what, at this point in time it is obviously too late to accommodate for deficiencies in last year's program. This will need now to be a goal for next year. At this point, the producer has to examine where the herd is currently and what he will have to do to get through calving (assuming a spring breeding season) and rebreeding, subsequently maintaining or building BCS up until that point. If he has a fall calving herd it is a matter of determining what must be done now to maintain condition and possibly build it from calving to rebreeding and then subsequently holding BCS as much as possible as the cows with young calves are wintered. The most important thing to me about BCS is the months just prior to and after calving. It has huge ramification on calf and even cow mortality, the ability for the cow to keep the calf and more importantly to breed back in a timely fashion. Assessing the Difference: Now that we have done our inventories, looked at forage supplies - what you have produced or laid in, and what you need, you can determine where you stand and make calculations based on the typical Nebraska time frame for hay feeding season that normally runs from November 15 until about March 31 or about 135 days. Are you ready? Are your cows ready? I hope so. Best advice - adhere to the 5 P's -Proper Planning Prevents Poor Performance. The preceding information comes from the research and personal observations of the writer which may or may not reflect the views of UNL or UNL Extension. For more further information on these or other topics contact D. A. Lienemann, UNL Extension Educator for Webster County in Red Cloud, (402) 746-3417 or email to: dlienemann2@unl.edu or go to the website at: http://www.webster.unl.edu/home