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Little River, TX | To find out about your hay take a hay sample and send it off to TAMU or better yet to a certified forage testing Laboratory.
Then you will know just what you have.
With all the rain we had this year it was difficult to impossible to time the harvesting of any type of hay for any quality. Haygrazer to be a good feed needs to be cut just as it is starting to send up the flag leaf. If it has seed heads the protein will be down and the fiber content will be way up. If this is the case put out a lick wheel or tub with molasses and urea. That will provide the protein for them to digest all that fiber.
Personally I do not like any of the sorghum sudan crosses because they have such a small opportunity window for any quality, and that is right when it is fixing to rain. Much like oat hay in this country.
As to feeding hay in Central Texas, I know every one does it but, it is costing you money to feed hay. The best option is to allow your pasture to provide stock piled forages, and graze that. That only works if you have the land and if you control the grazing. Remember this Fertilizer is Cheaper than Land. 2008 will be a drought year for us. First the La Nina effect is starting, second the long range forecast shows about a 30% less than average rainfall till June, and most important we have had one wet season and two dry seasons over the last 15 or so years.
In Texas it was stressed 60 years ago not to stock more than two thirds of your average ideal stocking rate. If 13 mama cows is what conventional wisdom says, then cut back to 9 or better yet 8 mama cows. Something no one does by the way. All most everyone overstocks for a wet year and feeds hay the other years.
If you can break away on January 15, 2008 drive to Waco to the BIG conference and Equipment Show. It is at the convention center. Just get off I-35 at the Brazos. Go west and head for the Hilton Hotel. The convention center is right there. Besides a good BBQ dinner and lots of good looking equipment and stuff, at 2 PM there will be a forage conference and this year it will be about summer pastures.
Just for your planning, here, a good 5X6 ft RB is really worth $90 to $100. Hay is selling for a lot less but that is what good hay is really worth, Figure at least $30 in fertilizer value, and about $20 in harvest cost. Land cost is much of the remainder of the value/cost of hay. Hay in 2008 will cost a whole lot more just because of the added expense of fertilizer. Cut back on fertilizer and production falls way off.
This country should produce 6 to 10 RB's/A with fertilizer. In a dry year it takes more fertilizer not less to grow that amount of hay. | |
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Winter feeding
