Blog Posts

Hay and Haylage Management

1/17/2016

My first hay/haylage feeders were built from spare lumber. I do everything I can to minimize my hay costs. This has more do do with the time it takes to haul round bales to the farm than with the price of the bales. I have found with time that the round bale feeders that are most efficient (have the least amount of wasted hay/haylage) are the ones that are like a giant covered dinner plate. This type of round bale feeder prevents the 30% or more hay/haylage loss that one gets with other round bale feeding methods. Even though I am baling my own hay now, I try to minimize loss.

This type of feeder saves some hay: the bale is not on the ground and there is no spoilage from the wet ground. Wooden feeders like this do not hold up well, 1000 to 2000 pounds over time causes it to fall apart.

All most all of the hay/haylage is eaten by the cattle with this type of feeder. 30% savings on each bale over a winter adds up to alot of round bales saved. This feeder is from http://www.dillerag.com.

Metal round bale feeders hold up much better than wooden ones, at least with my carpentry skills. This type of feeder saves the 30% or more of hay that would be lost if the bale is placed on the ground. When the winter is rainy like it has been this year, a cover or roof is needed if the bale is not eaten in a day or two.

For a small cattle operation like mine, where a round bale will last for a week, it is best to have the round bale feeder covered. If it is not covered and it rains, the hay/haylage in the bottom rots and you loose 20% or more of your hay. For larger operations with more cattle, the bale is eaten so fast that a cover is probably not needed.

The Bry Chute

11/17/2015

If you are going to raise cattle, you have to manage them. This at times means holding them still so you can brand them, vaccinate them, or propagate them by means of artificial insemination. I researched several systems to hold cattle still and I decided on the Bry Chute. Longhorn cattle represent a special challenge because of their long horns. The Bry Chute is Longhorn friendly because the horns can stick out of the sides of the chute. The Bry Chute is adjustable so you can manage cows and bulls of different sizes. To see the system in use follow this link to YouTube: www.youtube.com/watch?v=LhM1saqda6o

First Calf Born on the Farm

10/11/2015

Our first calf was born on 9/30/15. The bull father is named Mavericks. I purchased the mother, Terri Jean, pregnant. My neighbor who stops by my place daily called and told me the good news. The calf was born naturally without any assistance to the mother. This is one of the strong points of Longhorn cattle. They bare their off spring without the need for any human intervention 99% of the time. It took me a while to figure out if it was a male or female. Females urinate between their hind legs. Bull calves urinate just behind the midpoint between the front and rear legs (the underside middle between the front legs and rear legs). Yesterday the urine flowed from between the legs, a female! Since this calf has a bull father that is not our farm bull Rockefeller, we can keep it for breeding to Rockefeller.

Making Haylage: 15 Hours = 25 Wrapped Bales of Haylage

7/26/2015

It rained most days from Memorial Day until this past week. That was no problem for me as I planned to do my second haylage harvest at the end of July. I started mowing with my Vermeer M7040 mower at 11 am. I wanted to wait until the dew dried off. The field is uneven so I can't go real fast. I finished mowing in 4 hours. This time I mowed much more evenly and also I did not drive on the uncut grass and mash it down like last time. I took the tractor back to my home base and parked the mower. I then hooked up my Vermeer VR820 rake. I was able to rake the field in 2 hours. At 6 pm I started bailing. I did not want the windrows to be covered with dew as would be the case if I left them out all night. I was able to bale the whole field by 10 pm. My John Deere has very good lights. I was very happy as I had 25 good bales when I was finished. Three rolled into the woods, but these were easier to retrieve then last time. In the future everything gets dumped onto the flatter middle portion of my field. The next day I wrapped all the bales with the McHale 991 BE Wrapper. I was told I had to wrap the bales within 2 hours or they could catch on fire. I felt no heat on any of the bales the next morning. My rule is going to be the bales must be wrapped in 24 hours. Other sources on the internet state a similar time frame. I was able to wrap everything in about 3 hours. All in all this second haylage harvest went very well.

Making Haylage for the First Time

6/23/2015

One is bound to make mistakes when doing something as complex as making haylage for the first time. I had knee high grass by Memorial Day weekend and I was anxious to try out the haylage making equipment for the first time. I cut the grass on the Thursday before Memorial day weekend. My first mistake is evident in the photograph on the right. I am driving the tractor on the uncut grass when I should be driving on the cut grass. The tractor wheels are crushing the uncut grass which makes it stay below the mower blades when cutting on the next pass.

Haylage can be cut, raked, baled and wrapped all in one day. Hay needs to dry out for several days or longer depending on the weather. Despite the picture perfect weather that Thursday, it rained Thursday afternoon. Friday morning was sunny again so I let the cut grass dry out until noon. I then raked the grass into 4 foot wide windrows and let it dry out for another 3 hours. At that point I started baling. I am in a very mountainous area and my very first bale rolled down the hill and into the woods. I just wanted to cry. I carried on and started releasing the bales only onto the more flat areas of the field. I later retrieved the bale in the woods with my tractor and bale grabber, putting my tractor at great and unnecessary risk.

In the above picture you can see where the tractor wheels crushed the grass and the grass did not get cut on the next pass. The next day it has sprung up again. I ended up getting 20 bales but I damaged 4 in various ways. One I ran over with the tractor. If it was hay, it would not matter. Haylage is a different matter. Each bale must be in good shape and condition or the wrapper will not work for that bale. I need 50 round bales of haylage to get trough the coming winter, so I will need to bale twice more: end of July and end of September. After the bales are made, they must be wrapped within 12 hours. Each bale is wrapped in plastic so that the fermenting process can begin. In my next blog post, I will go into the wrapping process more.

Everyone is Happy at Feeding Time

5/17/2015

The goats and Longhorns eat pasture most of the time. In the winter they eat haylige or hay. When I come to the farm, all the animals know it is time to eat grain. I feed them a mixture of distillers grain and corn meal. Distillers grains are a byproduct of whiskey and fuel ethanol production. They have a very long history of being fed to livestock. I am usually at the farm for 2-3 days and I put the grain out upon my arrival usually around 11 pm and again before I leave. I put out 150 pounds each time. I spread it out between 4 troughs so the animals have plenty of room to eat. The smallest cows/newest arrivals get pushed back into the pasture but the tiny baby goats have no problem standing in the middle of a trough and getting plenty to eat. In general everyone seems happy. Even the small cows eat plenty; when the others are finished they get to come back in. I think once the smaller newly arrived cows have been around for a month they will get better treatment. Some people have told me the cows will over eat and get sick. I have not seen this as a problem. There is usually a lot left over the next day and they will go back out to the pasture to eat grass before coming back to finish all of the grain.

Cherry Blossom Sale

5/2/2015

Home where Friday night dinner was served by Miss Ann

Longhorn Bull

Nora at the house of Miss Ann

Nora and I went to the Cherry Blossom Sale in Culpeper Virginia. It was the first Longhorn sale we had been to. We drove from Delaware to the home of Ann G in Warrenton Virginia on Friday April 17th. It took about 3 hours. That night Miss Ann opened up her house and served everyone dinner and drinks. She paid for everything. Nora and I met and talked to other Longhorn cattle breeders/ranchers. We tried to learn as much as we could. Nora started out being mad at me because I did not tell her to wear cowboy boots and her nice shoes got all muddy. Also we were way over dressed as everyone else was wearing a cowboy hat and jeans. Well of course, these were Texas Longhorn people, what was I thinking. The sale the next day was interesting: typical animal auction. Not knowing what to expect, I was not surprised by the selling prices which ranged from $500 to $8000 per Longhorn cow. I got a speeding ticket on the way home which I blamed Nora for because I was too sleepy to be driving and she should have been at the wheel and it was her turn to be unfairly blamed.

Spring Means New Life

4/4/2015

I think the best indication that spring has arrived is when new life comes to the farm. Twins for Billy Bob. Mom goat was very thin and eating mostly tree bark, so I brought her back to Delaware and fattened her up for 4 weeks.

Winter is About Never Ending Feeding

3/21/2015

I go to the ranch every Thursday night some weeks. At other times I go every other Thursday and rarely I will allow 3 weeks between visits. I usually leave on Saturday night. Of course at various times during the year I will spend the entire week. In order to make sure there is enough food out for the livestock, I have expanded my food serving options.

I feed the livestock haylige continuously throughout the winter. Every two weeks I put out 300 pounds of grain (corn mixed with distillers grain). Longhorns will not over eat grain. When they are full, they layoff until they are hungry again. Some breeds will eat until they are sick. It takes 10 cows about 3 days to finish the 300 pounds of grain. That is 30 pounds of grain per cow per 2 weeks. I do not count the little that the goats eat.

Winter Will Never End

3/14/2015

In West Virginia during March, it always seems like winter will never end. It is not uncommon to have snow in early April as well. May will often have frost over night. This tests the endurance of the rancher and the cattle.

On Offense

3/7/2015

It will often snow 2 to 3 feet at the ranch. This means I have to spend several hours plowing before I can even start my work. Not with this John Deere Gator with tracks installed. Now I ignore the snow and ride over it. I can move my grain around with ease. It even has a heated cab. The tracks are all season so I can use it in heavy rain as well. I have not had trouble with the deep snow when using the 115 hp John Deere tractor because it has such large wheels and is 4 wheel drive.

Some Days Nothing Goes Right

2/21/2015

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My son Andrew was with me this week. He had a Friday off from school for some reason. We planned out what needed to be done. We would go pickup two round bales and put them out with the 115 HP John Deere tractor. The rest of the day we could shoot the guns and goof off. We got the round bales ok from the farmer who sold them to us, but when we got back to the farm there was no way we were going to get the trailer up the hill to the pasture to unload it in the deep snow. No problem, we would take the tractor down to where the trailer was stuck and unload it there. It was minus 5 degrees F and the tractor would not start. Guess what, diesel fuel really does gel up in cold weather. When you have cattle you can't just say to bad, maybe next week. They have to be fed or they will crash the fence to find food. Andrew and I spent several hours shoveling the driveway and we finally got the trailer up to where I could just back the whole thing into the pasture and use it as a round bale feeder. Round bales of haylige way over 2000 pounds each. There is no way to move them without the tractor which would not move due to the diesel gelling up issue. So the round bales stayed on the trailer. The cows got fed. Andrew and I had no time to shoot the guns but he learned the motto of the Marines: Improvise, Adapt, Overcome. I learned the importance of adding an anti-gelling agent to all of the diesel fuel during the winter months.

Unhappy livestock wants food.

Happy now!

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Inexperience Can be Stressful and Hay vs. Haylige

2/14/2015

The winter is long and cold in West Virginia. This year we had multiple days below 0 degrees F. I underestimated how many round bales I would need. I had to get a trailer, as I did not have one that would carry more than 2 round bales of hay at a time. I spent February and March hauling in enough round bales to get through the rest of the winter. I underestimated because I was thinking cows eat only a little more than goats. Cows eat a lot more than goats.

I started with round bales of hay but now I am using haylige. Haylige is less dried out then hay when it is baled and it is immediately wrapped in plastic so no oxygen gets to it. Haylige is fermented grass. It smells like a Clemson South Carolina bar on a Sunday morning. When you feed haylige to the Longhorns you do not have to feed grain, or at least you can feed a lot less grain.

New trailer loaded with 4 round bales of haylige.

New Longhorns Procured from G&G Longhorns, Catlett, VA

2/7/2015

http://www.gandgtexaslonghorns.com/

I purchased my first bull and also 2 more heifers.

Rockefeller my first Longhorn bull on the right inside the fence. He will be ready to breed in 2 years. Two new heifers on the left inside of the fence.