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Baldwin City, KS | We run a cow herd that is about 65% fall calvers and the balance spring calvers. I am constantly trying to find a sustainable and economical winter ration that uses the resources we have available. We have plenty of brome or brome/fescue hay, ability to harvest corn silage from our row crop acres if desired, and access to DDG or corn gluten at around $0.11 #. I will be putting in around 26 acres of alfalfa next fall. I am currently feeding Loomix and hay to my main cow herd and plan to start feeding a little alfalfa before long. I also have 37 fall calving cull cows that we purchased and they are getting +/- 25# very average corn silage w/5# DDG and free choice hay.
Not being a nutritionist and having limited experience with doing things the right way, I am at the mercy of the folks that I ask questions of. I tend to get alot of different answers as well. I have had a couple of feed salesman/nutritonist folks tell me that I should just kick the corn silage out of the equation all together. I like the idea of feeding my cows silage, but I can't really give a good argument as to why, other than the fact that it is readily available in my operation if I choose to harvest it and the cows seem to do pretty good on it.
My question is, for you guys that have historically fed ensilage (corn, sorgo, etc.) what is the main idea or value behind including the ensiled product in the ration? Unless I figured wrong, using $6, 120bpa corn for the opp cost, the silage still figures close to the value of my hay on a per ton basis. Not to mention I would much rather fill silo for two days just up the road, than run all over and put up some of these hay meadows and haul round bales.
Thanks for the input.
Edited by proud2Bafarmer 1/1/2011 19:50
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The value of feeding corn silage to beef cows?
