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west central Iowa | A lot of good ideas from other guys, only a couple I can add. I use an M-C rotary scythe for windrowing the stalks and really like it. It is just a 9' cut and I only do the 9' behind the 6 row combine with the spreader shut off and the baler doesn't quite pickup all the windrow so I don't leave the ground too bare.
The corntstalks I fed all fall and part way into the winter were harvested with a $500 Fox chopper with a pickup head. I just dumped them in a pile in an old silage pit. I would have done more and fed them longer if I would have had the whole pit empty . The stalks that I ran through the chopper are much nicer to handle then tub ground stalks, they flow better in the feed wagon and are not as dusty. The cattle also seen to eat them better.
I filled the Harvestore with chopped stalks and wet distillers with water added this year, we'll see how that turns out. I don't feed enough cattle to keep up with wet distillers so this is a way for me to utilize it. If this turns out well I might try to fill the pit this way next year.
If you still grind hay with a grinder mixer like I do the best thing I ever did was buy a 2" screen. The hay goes through way easier and still gets ground plenty good to mix. I have a recipe for feed I use for creep and starting calves that uses ground hay and corncobs. I only have another years worth of cobs so I don't know what I'll do after that unless I can buy some from sombody harvesting them for an ethanol plant. They are starting to do that around here. | |
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