Jim, I think that you continue to confuse as-is weights with dry-matter weights. If you indeed have a 20 T/A corn crop,at 65% moisture, that would be 7T of dry matter. If you were to achieve 50% utilization, that would be 7000 lb DM, or nearly 200 cow-days per acre. I have been told that the ear is 1/2 of the weight of silage, don't know if that is completely true. I have also been told that a ton of silage contains 7 bushel of corn, which roughly correlates if you figure a ton of silage is 700 lbs of dry matter and 7 bushel of corn weighs 392 lbs (at 15%), or 333 lbs of dry matter.

I have heard of strip-grazing, where you give your cows just a couple rows at a time. I would be afraid of excessive wastage by mowing, and giving them a large area at one time. I know our dairy cows would waste most of it if I did that. I understand that beefers are less picky eaters, but if you can make it so they have to reach under a wire to get it, they are not as likely to crap in it instead of eating.

In order to understand what they are eating, you should always to try to think of feed as pounds of dry matter, since they can drink more water if needed.