How Much Hay per Head?

If you could CUT your hay bill by 3-5-10% would you?

In Minnesota we feed hay on average 7 months of the year. The balance of the year cattle are grazing pastures. Hay is often the single most expensive part of farming.

How motivated would you be when hay is $50/ ton. Or think about when it's $300/ ton.

A load of hay is delivered to the ranch

Most of us saw those extremes in the past 10 years. And that cost really hit home on those cows that rarely leave the feeder. Animal Science people have done studies on how much time a cow spends eating a variety of forages a day. They have found that most cows eat 2.5-3% of their body weight in dry matter a day.

What if:

What if a cow only eats 2.3%? What if she can gain weight, and do all of this with a 8-10 month old calf at side?

Say, what?!?

You got it. It not only CAN be done, WE ARE DOING IT!

Making our cows more efficient, we have reduced our cost of hay and summer grass. It took some time to get the data together at our ranch too. But it was worth it! It's made our herd much easier to buy hay for.

Sometimes we forget the upkeep cost of owning cows. A 2-4% reduction in feed expenses is considerable when there's 20,40,100, or 1000+ cows. It might have gone unnoticed in a small herd. But if you own that cow for 10 years, the numbers will accumulate.

When we're marketing our bulls to ranchers, they are very aware of these costs of land and grass, as well as hay. I'm sure yours isn't free either! So those efficient cows are critical to your bottom line.

To learn more about our most efficient cows, give us a call.