Throughout the summer and fall, the Southwind District has been in D2 (severe), D3 (extreme), or D4 (exceptional) drought. This has compromised pasture quality, reduced surface water availability, diminished cattle condition, and increased hay prices while reducing quality and quantity. This article discusses different cattle feeding methods to increase feeding efficiency and profitability.
Feeding Efficiency – Quantity and Quality
No matter the feeding method, bale waste is directly affected by how much hay you are providing cattle at one time. Providing a daily hay ration can reduce hay loss by 25% compared to providing two or more days’ rations at a time.
Note: Forage analyses are an inexpensive technique to know what you are feeding your cattle. Forage probes can be checked out at any Southwind Extension Office. Additionally, we will help you select the proper analysis for your operation.
Feeding Hay on Pasture
Let’s evaluate four hay feeding methods for cattle on pasture. Many producers stockpile tall fescue in the Southwind District and feed supplemental hay while cattle are on pasture. While most fescue greened up with recent precipitation, not much growth has occurred. However, producers may still seek to feed cattle in pastures where water is available.
Method 1: Hay Rings or Round Feeders
The tried-and-true method to get hay to cattle. Almost every livestock farm has at least one of these, and it continues to be the most used method to feed hay. Feeding out of a hay ring is simple and takes little effort with a loader tractor.
Let’s consider that there are many bale ring types, each offering their own benefits and shortcomings. We are focusing on data from Oklahoma State University showing percent hay waste with three commonly used bale rings, and one “ideal” hay ring type that is not commonly used.
Type 1: Open Bale Ring. The open bale ring is the simplest bale ring. The open bale ring is a ring of metal tubing to hold the bale in place while cattle eat. This ring type has shown to result in 20% hay loss by weight as hay can fall out of the bottom and cattle can drag hay out for bedding.
Type 2: Poly-pipe Bale Ring. The poly-pipe rings are becoming very popular because of their durability, light weight, and maneuverability. Poly-pipe bale rings are functionally the same as open bale rings, thus resulting in similar losses.
Type 3: Sheeted Bottom Bale Rings. These bale rings feature a sheet of metal along the bottom half of the feeders, limiting hay from falling out of the bottom as the bale unravels. Most sheeted button rings also have stanchions on the top half to limit the number of cattle that have access to the bale at a given time. Sheeted Bottom Bale Rings with 16 stanchions resulted in 13% loss by weight.
Type 4: Modified Cone Feeders. In this study, an “ideal” bale ring was constructed. A “cone” was added to the top of a sheeted bottom ring. This cone only allows small amounts of hay to be dropped down the feeder at a time. This modified cone feeder had only 5.3% waste by weight.
Method 2: Unrolling Bales
Unrolling bales on pasture is another commonly used method to feed hay. It is as simple as unrolling a large round bale with a tractor, hydraulic bale bed, or using gravity to unroll down a slope. If you plan to unroll down a slope, plan to have all children and animals out of the way of where the bale is to unroll to prevent injury.
