Feeding suckler cows

[Masseyman88]

Does anyone feed their suckler cows an additional feed at this time of the year with grass nutrition not as high.

 

[topground]

Not enough money in it to feed them anything other than grass and when that runs out the cheapest available forage.
If your sucklers need supplementary feed you might like to consider changing the breed to something else.

 

[Werzle]

Does anyone feed their suckler cows an additional feed at this time of the year with grass nutrition not as high.

Straw to spring calvers maybe to bind up the grass in them now that the evenings and mornings are misty with heavy dews. Binds up the calves on creep too.

 

[Northeastfarmer]

Usually start giving mine some silage or hay the first week in October

 

[Pan mixer]

Bit of hay only, mine only think that buckets have minerals in them.

They complain about it, tell them that they are tarts.

 

[Jdunn55]

Ours are on grass and being buffer fed silage from 8ish years ago to get rid of it, stuff is ok but wouldn't trust it to be good enough to look after them on their own. Mag buckets out from 1st September, normally wouldn't be feeding anything other than grass until October when they would have hay, but I want to empty the clamp as we moved over to 100% bales a couple of years ago when we bought a baler. Plus if the cows eat it I havent got to spread it in a dung spreader...

 

[M-J-G]

A spring calving cow will be getting more than enough nutrition from grass at this time of year and should be in no need of further supplementation while grass is available.

We give straw from now on, while they have enough grass, which allows them to digest grass better by slowing it down in their gut.
Silage or hay after grass isn't keeping up with grazing.

 

[PaulNix]

I'm about to start feeding mine a small amount of hay, mostly so I can spread the hay across a couple of hilly fields while it still dry enough to travel to see if it works as a cheap overseed and to stretch out the grazing a bit longer if we have a dry autumn.

 

[milkloss]

No. But I have wondered if it might be a good idea. Calve in spring (late April, calves sold mid feb) and struggle to keep condition on the cows coming into the buildings.

 

[@dlm]

A spring calving cow will be getting more than enough nutrition from grass at this time of year and should be in no need of further supplementation while grass is available.

We give straw from now on, while they have enough grass, which allows them to digest grass better by slowing it down in their gut.
Silage or hay after grass isn't keeping up with grazing.

A spring calving herd should be getting more than enough nutrition from grass this time of year. But if you have had no rain to speak of in 18 months then not necessarily the case sadly

 

[M-J-G]

A spring calving herd should be getting more than enough nutrition from grass this time of year. But if you have had no rain to speak of in 18 months then not necessarily the case sadly

I covered that case by pointing out "while grass is available"

We fed silage for a couple of months last summer, but this has be a year of plenty for this area.

Didn't I read somewhere that you bought more sheep than you planned to recently?
Isn't it a bad year to do that if you have such poor grass performance?

 

[livestock 1]

Ours are just on rough grazing as they always are. It’s been a good summer for grass growth here one of the best. We’ve had a lot of oversize calves here in the last ten weeks or so indicating what they are eating is actually too good. The vet has told me it’s not just me it’s a pretty general problem this time.
As far as feeding cows go it is easier and cheaper to keep some flesh on rather than loose it from now on then put it back on when they come in. We always have a sort through around now and pull any lean or older lean ones off onto some better going. Leave the rest possibly some straw later on. As long as they aren’t loosing flesh all is good. We give mag liquid to help prevent staggers from around now. The knacker man has told me they are flat out with cows that have died of staggers

 

[Hfd Cattle]

Ours have had hay available sinc e beginning of August but they only picked at it to start but now even though they are in plenty of grass they still look for the tractor coming down the road . Normally I would be putting beet out now but my supplier hasn't lifted any yet . Starting lifting on Mon next so cows will then get some . As previous post it's cheaper to keep the flesh on them than to try and get it back in the shed. Have just come in from mowing 12 acres and will bale tomorrow but won't bother wrapping cos it will go straight to the cows . (Won't be many bales )

 

[Poorbuthappy]

Ours have had hay available sinc e beginning of August but they only picked at it to start but now even though they are in plenty of grass they still look for the tractor coming down the road . Normally I would be putting beet out now but my supplier hasn't lifted any yet . Starting lifting on Mon next so cows will then get some . As previous post it's cheaper to keep the flesh on them than to try and get it back in the shed. Have just come in from mowing 12 acres and will bale tomorrow but won't bother wrapping cos it will go straight to the cows . (Won't be many bales )

Isn't that just adding cost to the job?

@Masseyman88 , are you talking autumn calvers or spring?
As above, surely grass, presuming you have sufficient, should be quite sufficient for a spring calving suckler cow?

 

[beardface]

Started buffer feeding here a couple weeks ago as we have very little grass on some fields. Never mind as dry as one nun it's as dry as a nunnery here, there deserts in Africa with more moisture than us right now!

 

[Agrivator]

A spring calving cow will be getting more than enough nutrition from grass at this time of year and should be in no need of further supplementation while grass is available.

We give straw from now on, while they have enough grass, which allows them to digest grass better by slowing it down in their gut.
Silage or hay after grass isn't keeping up with grazing.

Using straw to dry the cows up will also help them absorb more of the Magnesium in the overall diet before it is skittered out of the back end.

I don't know of any other roughage which can be relied on to help dry them up. In my experience, hay and silage can have the reverse effect.

 

[Bill the Bass]

We have one group of cows on a grazing rotation, they have plenty of grass, another group that is set stocked may need feeding soon hopefully we can get to October before they need anything. Next year we need to get the whole lot onto rotational grazing.

Has anyone tried grazing foggage at the backend? I am quite interested to strip graze some with spring calving sucklers after the calves are off them next year.

 

[michael N123]

Mine are getting some dry silage bales to pick at

 

[livestock 1]

Problem with our cattle is that they would rather be inside than out and once you start feeding them they loose interest in what’s there and bellow about waiting for the silage to arrive

 

[Hfd Cattle]

Isn't that just adding cost to the job?
Don't think the cost is as important as condition of cattle. My view is if the cattle eat it then they are glad of it .

@Masseyman88 , are you talking autumn calvers or spring?
As above, surely grass, presuming you have sufficient