|
Farmington IL | Thats a good question and it may be tough to put a number on. Our thought process was more about how much could we save in feed losses and what options would it open up in our feeding rations. We normally have access to some pretty reasonable wet gluten and we have lots of corn, corn silage and stalk bales and not much hay. We allready had a bale processor we had used to feed cows in the winter time and had tried unsucessfully to use a little auggie to feed some high ruffage rations. Seems like about anything you can get mixed with silage and or gluten the cows or calves will clean it up. We have noticed a nice change in condtion of the cows since going to the mixer. Now the cows cant just stand at a feeder all day and eat. The calves really do well with the rations we have used and we are far more efficent in the use of our feedstuffs.
So the question remains is it affordable for 30 head? There are a 1000 ways to feed cattle, none of them perfect. We were willing to trade capital, fuel and labor to be more efficent with our feed stuffs and to cheapen up our feed program. Its comfort thing for you. Will you like how it changes your operation? I bet you will be very happy. Will it pay for itself? Yea, but it will take awhile. You probably wont wear it out for a very long time but paying back intital purchase will take a while. If you are really serious about this there are several other things you need to be thinking about but first you need to decide if you want to put up some capital and commit to daily chores of loading and mixing feed if you dont normally do daily chores like this it will add to your everyday workload. I think it is safe to say we have no regrets and the only thing we should have done was purchase a bigger mixer. If you have any more questions just holler. | |
|
new mixer wagon
