With a gain of three points for the week ended Tuesday, Alberta Agriculture, Forestry and Rural Economic Development (AFRED) pegged the combining of major crops at 99.2 per cent complete. That’s 22 and a half points ahead of the five-year average and 16.5 points above the 10-year average. Also, this year’s harvest edged out last year’s by a half point.

Dry conditions along with above normal fall temperatures helped to speed along the last of the harvest. As of Tuesday, AFRED placed soil moisture levels in the province at 28 per cent good to excellent and one per cent excessive. That’s down from the July 12 levels of 77 per cent good to excellent and five per cent excessive.

By region, the south was officially complete at 100 per cent, with the northeast at 99.4 per cent and the central at 99 per cent. The northwest and Peace regions registered at 98.3 per cent finished.

Dry peas were listed as 100 per cent combined, with barley at 99.9 per cent, spring wheat at 99.8 per cent, oats at 98.7 per cent and canola at 98.1 per cent. The report noted that the quality of hard red spring wheat, canola and dry peas were above their five-year averages. The quality of malt and feed barley was on par, while durum and oats were below their averages.

Thanks to ample rains in June, Alberta ended up with sufficient livestock feed supplies for the coming winter. A very large number of straw bales were at the ready to supplement any shortages that could arise.

Of the province’s dryland hay, 89 per cent came from the first cut, which yielded 1.6 tons per acre. That was slightly better than the five-year average. Where a second cut was possible, yields were one ton per acre.

Irrigated hay saw 60 per cent of its production come from the first cut at 2.1 tons per acre. The second cut yielded 36 per cent of the hay at 1.4 tons per acre and a third cut provided four per cent at 0.4 ton per acre.

The post Alberta issues final crop report for year appeared first on Canadian Cattlemen.

The earliest processors, with their singular purpose of spreading straw, are no match for today’s machines. The modern bale processor can be towed, mounted on front-end loaders or oscillated 300 degrees from a three-point hitch position, allowing pinpoint delivery. A variety of square or round material can be delivered near or far, piled for TMR rations, dropped in windrows, spread for land reclamation projects, fired over high walls or gently deposited into low bunks.

Standard and optional equipment includes hydraulic arms and chutes to lift bales into the machine, plus balance extra round or square bales, gravity flow grain tanks, scales, engageable drives for chains and rotors, and adjustable choppers that can be aligned for coarse or fine product lengths.

Dissecting the trial numbers

“When you are looking at lower quality forages such as slough hay, straw or timothy aftermath, these low-quality products could have a five to 10 per cent improvement in digestibility (when processed),” says Barry Yaremcio, beef forage specialist with Alberta Agriculture.

Yaremcio explains that Dr. Karen Beauch­emin of Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada in Lethbridge has found that if the particle size is 3/4-inch or less in diameter for lower quality forages, digestibility increases.

The most important priority to Yaremcio is making sure these smaller particles get into the animals where they can make use of them. In 2009, together with staff at the Agriculture Canada Research Station in Lacombe, Alta., Yaremcio completed a feeding trial with 55 two-year-old bred heifers. Researchers fed the heifers round bales that contained 90 per cent meadow brome and 10 per cent alfalfa.

“We put tarps down before it snowed in the feeding area, then we ran a bale processor over the placed tarps, making a windrow across the top of the snow on a fresh area every day,” says Yaremcio.

Researchers used plastic tubs to collect samples of the delivered material. They then screened samples through a plywood box that had 3/4-inch holes placed on a two-inch grid. This was done to determine the percentages of coarse (longer than 3/4 inch) and fine material (less than 3/4 inch). Researchers recorded the percentages of each, at time of delivery.

Coarse and fine samples were sent in separately for feed analysis. After completing the trial, researchers collected the snow and wasted feed from the collection tarps. Once the snow melted and feed dried, they weighed samples.

“We found that 75 per cent of the wasted material was 3/4 of an inch or less. That is the highest-quality portion of the plant that was not consumed by the heifers.”

Cutting waste

The trial also revealed that when feed was processed directly into bunks, the waste was negligible or virtually zero. Using portable bunks ensured the material with the most protein and energy was consumed, including the leaves, flowers and immature stems.

“The best thing you can do is feed into a concrete bunk, fence-line feeder or portable bunks, so that the cows can’t walk over the windrow. That is the key in the whole process,” says Yaremcio.

One potential option for Alberta producers is accessing the province’s large supply of drill stem for building portable bunks. Another is using an electric fence set up at the right height and distance from the windrow. The goal with the electric fence is to keep cows from walking over the feed, but still allow them to clean it up.

Losing the highest-quality portion of the feed is expensive. By feed testing at the start of the trial, Yaremcio and his colleagues found that the protein content of the bales was 11.6 per cent.

“When we did the calculations backward on what was wasted, what the cows were actually consuming was material that was only 8.6 per cent protein. We were losing 26 per cent of the protein, 33 per cent of the calcium and 23 per cent of the phosphorous. And we were restricting their feed intake, feeding 22 pounds of hay per day or 1.8 per cent of body weight, so we didn’t have them wasting feed due to over-feeding.”

Before purchasing a bale processor, producers do need to consider and calculate equipment cost plus fuel, depreciation, insurance and operator’s time. Technological and computerized advancements give better control to monitor an animal’s consumption rates, which in turn should result in more feed consumed and less wasted. For example, a scale on the processor is a valuable tool as similar-looking bales can vary by 100 to 200 pounds. But it is still important to calculate all combined costs.

A connected benefit of a bale processor is the ability to move the feeding area, naturally spreading the produced manure. Yaremcio cited a trial by Paul Jungnitsch done at the University of Saskatchewan that found nitrogen retention from the manure and urine deposited naturally onto a field was 40 per cent higher than the nitrogen retention from manure hauled out of pens.

“The nutrient impact is huge. It’s not being piled or composted. It’s there on the soil exactly where you want it to be.”

While the abilities of the modern bale processor are varied, quantifying the time saved, the operating efficiencies and the eliminated waste isn’t easy. As the requirements of each operation will vary, it’s important to evaluate realistic needs to make the best use of all possibilities.

The post Running the numbers on bale processors appeared first on Canadian Cattlemen.

Feedlot Alley has received 150-200 per cent of normal precipitation over the past 60 days. Snow and rain, along with extreme cold followed by warmer temperatures, have caused pen conditions to deteriorate. Cattle performance has suffered and the rate of gains is not up to par. Feedlots are struggling to keep cattle dry with straw now trading around $125 per tonne in the Coaldale-Picture Butte area. Needless to say, it’s a difficult situation and there’s no rush to bring in replacements until conditions improve.

In central Alberta, medium- to larger-frame 950-lb. tan mixed steers with medium butter dropped the gavel at $156. (This is down about $40 from the December 2017 highs.) A group of mixed black larger-frame fleshier heifers averaging 920 lbs. sold for $148 in the same region. There were some markets in Alberta that quoted fleshier medium-frame steers weighing 900-925 lbs. at $150-$154. Prices in eastern Saskatchewan and Manitoba were $2-$4 higher than in Alberta but there was minimal support. Prices also failed late in the week.

Calves and cattle fit for grass were down $4-$6 on average from week-ago levels. Given the weaker live cattle futures, feedlot margins could be deep in red ink through the summer. Therefore, ranchers and the small farmer-cattle operator were not willing to take on the risk this week and tied down their bidding hands. Tan steers weighing 575 lbs. traded at $222 in central Alberta while similar Simmental calves averaging 515 lbs. were quoted at $231 in southeastern Saskatchewan.

The barley market was subdued in Saskatchewan but in southern Alberta, offers ranged from $245 to as high as $250 per tonne delivered. Road ban season is underway and difficult off-farm logistics have slowed farmer selling. It’s not only the price, but sellers cannot deliver on time. By the end of the week, feedlots are working down to the last kernel.

— Jerry Klassen manages the Canadian office of Swiss-based grain trader GAP SA Grains and Produits Ltd. and is president and founder of Resilient Capital, specializing in proprietary commodity futures trading and market analysis. Jerry consults with feedlots on risk management and writes a weekly cattle market commentary. He can be reached at 204-504-8339.

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Straw can make up a large portion of the ration when hay is in shortage as long as it is accompanied with a concentrate such as oats, barley or grain screenings pellets. It is important to plan a winter feeding ration, since straw does have its limitations when used in beef cattle diets.

One of those limitations is that it does not contain enough energy, protein, minerals or vitamins to be the sole source of winter feed. Cows cannot eat and digest enough straw to meet their nutritional requirements. Since straw is digested at a slower rate than hay, cows consume less straw than hay on a daily basis. Grinding or processing increases intake, but without proper balanced supplementation of energy and protein, problems can appear. Malnutrition, impaction, reduced milk output and lowered conception rates are just the big ones that can hit your herd if you put too much emphasis on straw to carry the cows through.

In most cases, Peardon says, straw has lower energy content than grass hay and quite a bit less digestible protein. Adequate protein levels are necessary to avoid impaction on a straw-rich diet. Rumen microbes need a certain level of crude protein just to maintain their ability to digest fibre. Diets low in protein lead to lower dry matter intakes and lower fibre digestibility.

Due to its higher fibre content, straw takes longer for a cow to digest than it does to digest hay or grain, which results in limited intakes. For example, a 1,200-pound cow may be capable of eating 25 or 30 pounds of straw in a 24-hour period but the microbes in her rumen are only capable of digesting 15 to 18 pounds in that same time period. Impaction can and does occur.

Feeding limited amounts of hay, even poor- to medium-quality hay, will improve any straw ration. The cheapest source of protein will likely be alfalfa or alfalfa-grass hay. It is advisable to feed cows hay instead of straw starting at least six weeks prior to calving and throughout the lactation period until the cows are turned out to spring pasture.

A mature cow can safely consume about eight to nine pounds of concentrate such as grain or pelleted screenings at one feeding. If the level of concentrate being fed each day exceeds that amount, consider dividing the concentrate and feeding equal portions twice a day. Ionophores can be added or mixed with the concentrate to reduce the incidence of bloat.

Ensure that adequate and balanced levels of the main minerals, calcium, phosphorus, magnesium, potassium and sulphur plus trace minerals copper, zinc, manganese, iodine, cobalt, selenium and vitamins A, D and E are incorporated into the ration. The requirements for minerals change throughout the various stages of pregnancy and lactation.

Developing a balanced ration is the key to successfully feeding straw, Peardon adds.

The post Stretching your hay supply with straw appeared first on Canadian Cattlemen.

However, producers further north in the grey and black soil zones, and those in Alberta producing high-quality feed for export, saw near-record hay production.

Terry Kowalchuk of Saskatchewan Agriculture in Regina and Ed Shaw, director of market development for Green Prairie International, a forage supplier at Lethbridge, agreed many cattle producers, especially in southern areas, are going to have to scratch around to find feed this winter.

Localized shortages will prompt industrious producers to find other sources, Kowalchuk said. How soon depends on how much hay they have stockpiled. Many cattle producers have a year’s supply to get them through times when lower-quality forages are tight.

Lower-quality grain crops harvested in drought-ravaged southwestern and south-central Saskatchewan may offer cattle producers an alternative, he added.

As well, he said he expects to see many farmers cutting ditches, using straw and chaff and finding other sources of inexpensive feed this fall and winter.

Adding to the problem, many farmers in southwestern and south-central areas have had to take cattle off grazing lands early to preserve pastures. Early feeding brings an added cost most producers can ill afford.

“If we have an early winter and it’s extremely cold, there will be serious pressure on the cattle industry in particular,” he said.

“If they’ve already exhausted alternative supplies and costs don’t pencil out, then you start to look at destocking.”

He estimated producers in the southwestern and south-central regions cut about 50 per cent of the hay they have in previous years.

Meanwhile in Alberta, Shaw said this year has been one of the best he’s seen for high-quality forages. Green Prairie exports timothy hay and alfalfa overseas and mixed hay, timothy and alfalfa to the Florida horse market. It has also started a pet food line which has increased demand for supreme timothy.

“The weather was very good, the quality has been very good, the yield, the yields were pretty fair. For the most part, world market prices are decent.

“So, it’s almost like a homerun where you get the pricing, the weather, yield, quality all together. That’s not too common.”

One problem, he said, is a lack of enough lower-quality forages wanted by some of his cost-conscious clients.

As well, he acknowledged, on the local market, a shortage of lower feeder quality hay may develop.

— Terry Fries writes for Commodity News Service Canada, a Winnipeg company specializing in grain and commodity market reporting. Follow CNS Canada at @CNSCanada on Twitter.

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In Alberta early snow covered many acres of annual crops grown for greenfeed, raising concerns that it may not dry before it had to be baled.

Bales containing 18-20 per cent moisture (or higher) have the potential to heat. Some of the sugars will be used by the microbes during heating, reducing the energy content available to the animals. If temperatures within the bale get above 40 C, the bales will smell sweet or like tobacco and the colour turns dark brown or black. When this happens, some of the protein will be tied to the fibre and not available to the animals.

Before you feed it request an acid detergent insoluble nitrogen (ADIN) or ADIP protein test in addition to the regular feed analysis. Use the lower adjusted protein value when formulating rations.

Moulds also arise in higher moisture bales, reducing quality and making the bales unpalatable. Don’t put mouldy bales through a processor. Better to roll them out so the cows can sort through it to find sound feed.

Nitrates are another issue in weathered greenfeed, especially in crops that were well fertilized or manured. Such crops cut three to five days after a light frost are ripe for nitrate accumulation. When the bales heat nitrates may be converted to nitrites which are 10 times more toxic to the animal. Heating may cause the bales to slump or lose their shape. This is a sign that you need to test for both nitrates and nitrites before letting the cattle at them.

Don’t stack higher-moisture bales in stacks or under a hay shed. If the bales start to heat, temperatures could get high enough to cause spontaneous combustion.

In Ontario an early dry spell cut into forage supplies sufficiently that people are looking for ways to stretch their winter feed supplies.

Forage and grazier specialist Thomas Ferguson offered a couple of suggestions.

Corn stover or straw are two obvious alternatives.

Corn stover can provide feed well into the fall and winter as half of the energy in a corn plant is in the stalk. Immediately after combining, corn stover may have a TDN as high as 70 per cent, however, as the season progresses and the cattle eat the more nutritious parts of the plants the TDN will drop into the 40s.

Strip grazing with an electric fence can slow down this slide by forcing them to clean up each section before they move on.

Generally when the husks and leaves have been stripped off the animals will require additional feed. One acre of corn stover can provide feed for one to two beef cows for a month.

Straw will supply much of the energy needed by mature dry cows in the second trimester but will need to be supplemented with a protein source. At this stage a diet of straw and quality hay, along with salt and mineral can provide all they need. As the nutritional needs pick up some grain supplementation will be needed.

Oat straw is the most nutritious, followed by barley, soybean and wheat.

The easiest way to incorporate straw into a diet is through the use of a TMR mixer to thoroughly mix the straw and the hay with any grain that is required, however, the feed needs to be managed to ensure that the animals are not sorting through to eat the high-quality feed first and leaving the straw until the bunks are almost empty. This can lead to acidosis in the greedy cows that get too much energy.

Feeding straw and hay in separate bale feeders doesn’t help. The cows simply eat the hay first and avoid the straw.

Then there’s grain. One kilogram of corn can replace two kilograms of hay in up to one-third of the ration. Barley has roughly 90 per cent of the energy value of corn while wheat is equal or slightly higher than corn.

Distillers grain has higher protein content than ground corn and can be an economical feed source.

“In most cases when feeding grain, cattle will be limit fed, they need to have enough bunk space so all of the cattle can eat at once, otherwise the dominant cows will consume more than their share, putting them at risk of acidosis, bloat and getting fat,” says Ferguson.

If more than two kilograms per days are being fed he suggests breaking it up into multiple feedings per day to prevent acidosis and grain overload.

The post Get the most from weathered feed appeared first on Canadian Cattlemen.

Yardage is the labour and equipment costs involved, the time, fuel, repairs, depreciation and opportunity costs that go into the work of feeding livestock.

Some might call this “unpaid labour” but I despise that term. Yes, sometimes in a bad year we don’t make as much profit as planned, but to plan a profit centre that includes unpaid labour, that’s insane.

What is the feed cost? Let’s look at feeding hay in this example. Say the price of hay you buy this year is worth $0.04/lb., so a 1,200-lb. bale of hay is worth $48. The market sets this price for feed. It can change every year and most people call this a variable cost.

But I can’t control it; market value is pretty much market value. So does that make it fixed? I have to pay what the market dictates. Whether you buy hay or make it yourself, it is still worth the same market value for the same type and quality.

Yardage, however, can be different depending on how I feed that hay. This is usually considered a fixed cost in most types of analysis, but I have the ability to change it! So is this then the variable cost?

To get a true yardage cost takes quite a bit of work and it takes a lot of direct costs and overall business costs into account. But I like to make things simple, so here is my from-the-hip yardage cost.

First, give your equipment cost an hourly rate. Make sure it is a reasonable rate similar to any other type of equipment of similar value from other industries. For example, I can hire a rubber-tired backhoe to do some work for me at $100/hour. This includes the operator. Is this what a similar-sized farm tractor should be worth? You tell me, it’s your farm.

I value my bale truck at $65/hour as it is an older truck and is pretty much depreciated (including the driver). In this hourly rate, the fuel, oil, repairs, maintenance, depreciation, opportunity cost and any other business overhead costs should be all covered if your rate is realistic.

Now, how many hours a day does it take to feed your herd? Let’s say in our example we have 200 head and it takes on average 1.5 hours a day to feed and bed them. 1.5 hours at $100/hour divided by 200 head gives you a yardage cost of $0.75/head/day. Now add in the $1.28 (32 lbs./head/day at $0.04/lbs.) for feed costs, and you end up with a $2.03/head/day. Be honest with yourself. Time yourself from the time you turn the key to when you turn it off again. I’ve seen farms where yardage alone is over $2/head/day.

Bale grazing on the other hand, allows me to lower my yardage a great deal. If I have the bales delivered to the field by the hay supplier for bale grazing, all I need to do is pull the twine. If I pull twine at 25 bales/hour, and I charge for my quad or snowmobile sitting there turned off at $50/hour, so five bales a day costs me about $0.05/head/day. For a five-day graze period I would need 25 bales per paddock and it would take me an hour to pull twine.

Some years I have a semi self-unload the hay in my pasture. I then have to set my bales out with my bale truck (100 bales/hour at $65), take the twine off (35 bales/hour at $25), and then ration that feed off with an electric fence all winter (1/2 hour twice a week at $50 an hour), my yardage would be a bit higher. With the same number of cows feeding the same ration it would be about $0.12/head/day. Every year is different and every farm is different.

Do your own numbers to see but include all your labour and equipment costs. I’ve heard the average yardage rate for Alberta is around $0.70/head/day. A difference of $0.58 in our example. ($0.70 – $0.12)

The biggest issue with bale grazing for most producers is the thought of cows wasting all that expensive feed. Is it really waste? At Greener Pastures Ranching, every day that a dry cow is bale grazed with imported feed, I charge out $0.30/head/day in fertilizer costs to my grazing profit centre payable to my feeding profit centre. If I did not feed on my land, I would not be getting the fertility. So is my feed cost $0.30 cheaper than I think? ($1.28 – $0.30 = $0.98/head/day plus yardage) I think so because I’ve seen the pasture improvement after bale grazing. I have seen a paddock covered by bale grazing, more than double the following year compared to an un-bale-grazed paddock. And that improvement continues on for at least five years or more. Why do I say “with imported feed”? If you are using your own feed off land you manage, you are only transferring nutrients around from one field to another. It is not a net gain because of the cows. It’s still good for the production but don’t credit the $0.30/head/day to the cows.

Feed is a bigger factor than yardage, right? Wrong, let’s assume that with bale grazing, I’m going to leave more feed on the ground, but for the difference of $0.58 I can save on yardage, I can waste a lot of feed. Even if I waste 15 per cent of the bale, (which I think is quite high) that only costs me about $0.19/head/day in waste. (1,300 lbs. x 15% = 195 lbs. x 5 bales = 975 lbs. at $0.04/lb. = $39 ÷ 200 cows = $0.19/head/day) But that $0.19 is fertilizer for the next five to 10 years. (And this is assuming we waste no feed with our alternative method of feeding.) Most farmers don’t worry about how high their yardage costs are, but panic if there is feed waste. If I save $0.58 on my yardage at a waste cost of $0.19, I see it as a no-brainer. Plus I get the fertilizer next spring.

Let’s use my fertilizer value and see, 200 cows at $0.30/head/day for 200 days equals $12,000 worth of fertilizer value. For free! It was only a management decision that caused it. I also saved all those labour and equipment costs in the process.

In addition to the “waste,” most producers are concerned with “dead spots” after bale grazing. This is the impeded growth the following summer due to the extra residue left covering the ground. I have found that the grass quite easily grows through the bale circles by midsummer.

Dead spots depend on what type of feed you used, how palatable it was and how well you made them clean up. It will take longer for the grass to grow through mature green feed or straw residue than good hay. I have had pea straw bales that left dead spots for up to four years. But normally on my ranch with decent quality feed, I have very little impeded growth the following year. The tendency is to want to harrow the residue. I never do. I would need to own the tractor and the harrows, burn the fuel, and spend the time turning circles. And I see no economic benefit to any of it. My time is more valuable than that. If you have dead spots, don’t stress over it. It will grow.

Bale grazing — it’s an easy sell. It saves you time and money and does a fantastic job at pasture rejuvenation. It just makes “cents.”

The post The economics behind bale grazing appeared first on Canadian Cattlemen.

In the 1980s at Melfort Research Centre we evaluated every conceivable design of round bale feeder. We still got major wastage. I had found a tapered cone-style round bale feeder on a friend’s dairy farm in Ontario that appeared to meet all my requirements. It was manufactured in Pennsylvania but unfortunately the shipping costs were prohibitive. Over the years several American universities have evaluated different styles of round bale feeders and all the studies promote the use of this tapered cone-style round bale feeder with an enclosed tub around the bottom. The University of Wisconsin found the tapered cone-style ring feeder significantly reduced hay wastage compared to the 20 to 25 per cent loss from using a bale ring without a solid panel.

A few years back at Lacombe we did a major study involving feeding dry round bale hay rolled on the snow compared to distributing chopped silage on the ground or processing hay through a bale processor and fed on the ground. Barry Yaremcio, beef and forage specialist with Alberta Agriculture and Forestry, and Ken Zeigler formerly with Alberta Agriculture and manager of www.foragebeef.ca did the painstaking work of separating forage particles from frozen snow and cow manure. They laid large tarps on the ground prior to freeze-up. When the snow came, they fed the cows the feed on top of the snow-covered tarps. Later they gathered up the tarps and did the separations.

“There was 20 per cent loss of greenfeed and dry hay processed through a bale processor. Round bale silage loss was 23 per cent and chopped silage fed on the snow was 26 per cent. All losses consisted of the forage leaves and fine particles, which has the highest nutritional quality. This could mean that you could be losing as much as 25 to 30 per cent in feed value by using these methods. With the high cost of hay this winter it wouldn’t take long to pay for some portable bunk feeders to feed your cows out in a field,” says Yaremcio.

Similar results have been found in studies done in the U.S. and we have excellent information on different ways of reducing feed wastage at foragebeef.ca.

Storage losses in the feed yard can account for the biggest economic losses for the beef farmer. Storing round bales in big piles works if you live in an area with extremely low rainfall but storing bales in a pile can be a major disaster when it rains.

At Melfort we had a very large hay-harvesting study that evaluated all types of hay-harvesting equipment and methods of storing hay. We tried every possible method of storing hay so as to reduce storage losses. Again at Lacombe we continued with this work.

The bottom line… there needs to be an air space between the bales otherwise the bales will rot. We found that moisture from the rain concentrated at all locations where the bales touched. Bales that were placed in long rows by the bale wagon had about one foot of spoilage at each butt end of the bale due to being in contact with the next bale. Bales piled in big pyramids had moisture concentrate along the sides of the bales where they touched. We had major problems in handling these bales as a large portion of the bales were frozen solid due to this moisture. Bales that we piled two vertically and one sideways as a top (mushroom style) had major frozen and spoilage areas all down the sides of the bottom two bales. The livestock crew was not very happy having to work with all this spoiled and frozen hay and straw.

Bales need to be stored on a raised, well-drained area so as not to absorb soil moisture. We found storing bales on a gravel pad or on used tires or on corral rails worked very well in creating an air space under the bales. If you are going to carry over hay or straw bales until next winter I highly recommend that you reconfigure your bales so that there is an air space between the bales. This way your loss due to next summer’s rain will be minimized.

“The University of Wisconsin found net-wrapped bales of alfalfa hay did shed rainfall better than twined-wrapped bales,” adds Yaremcio. “They also found that the bales that were compact with hard cores shed rain better than soft-core bales or bales that were loose by not applying enough tension with the twine. However, some of the advantage of improved water-shedding ability was lost if bales were not stored on a well-drained surface like crushed rock, wood pallets etc. They found that the rainwater ran off of the bales and accumulated at the bottom. When the bales sat directly on the ground, they acted like a sponge and absorbed moisture and significant spoilage occurred at the bottom of the bales.”

In this study, the outside hay rind in net-wrapped bales had significantly higher dry matter and nutrient composition than the twine-wrapped bales. The bale cores were not affected.

Average total dry-matter losses for bales stored outside on the ground were 11.3 per cent for plastic twine-wrapped bales and 7.3 per cent for net wrap. Both of these methods had significantly higher losses than bales stored under cover. They concluded that net wrapping bales for uncovered storage did not substitute for inside storage.

Yaremcio’s own research found storing hay outdoors unprotected, resulted in hay deterioration beyond the visibly damaged layers of the bale. Damage was greater for the leaf fraction of the bale compared to the stems. Chemical analysis of this material indicated that deterioration had occurred even when it wasn’t visually detectable.

Some recent University of Wisconsin research evaluated the preferential consumption of hay from large round bales covered with a new breathable film that sheds precipitation but allows internal moisture to exit the bale through microscopic pores. Bales were either stored indoors with conventional net wrap, outdoors with conventional net wrap, or outdoors with the new breathable film wrap. In all five trials the cows preferred hay wrapped in breathable film over net-wrapped hay stored outdoors. In two trials it was preferred over hay stored indoors.

The exorbitant prices of hay this fall might encourage you to consider building a covered hay shed with four-foot drop-down sides at the roofline to store future hay when the prices are more reasonable or carry-over from one year to the next. We had these types of sheds at Melfort and Lacombe and the stored hay bought in times of low prices really saved my bacon in years of scarcity.

Duane McCartney is a retired forage beef systems research scientist at Lacombe, Alta.

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But let’s think about that for a minute. Why is the cow only 20 per cent efficient? Maybe there is another purpose. Maybe it is not for the benefit of the cow at all but for the benefit of nature to recycle nutrients. In a rainforest, there is no need for ruminants as the soil is always alive with microbiological life that can break down and recycle the plant material 365 days a year. However, in an environment with a dormant season, like our winter, the soil life goes dormant and the nutrient recycling activity stops. It is the ruminant that allows the microbes to live in an environment that they can survive in and still do their job. The cow provides the bugs with a place to work, inside her rumen. Nature gets to recycle nutrients and the cow takes her 20 per cent wage off the top, 80 per cent goes back to nature. The problem in agriculture is we see the cow as the be all and end all of our operations. In reality, she is only one tool in the big picture and until we wrap our heads around that, we will not be sustainable.

To all you grain farmers out there, what if I told you that you could sell a second crop off your field in the same year with no extra cost? Would you be interested? The ruminant can also help recycle your crop residues. Chaff bunching is a fantastic concept that more grain producers need to take a look at. I am a market for my local grain farmers. If they have a poor crop to salvage, or residues to recycle, I market my services to help recycle their residues. Or I should say, I offer the services of my cattle. I even put up the fencing in the fall and remove it in the spring.

This year will be known as the drought of 2015 in my area. The price of hay is skyrocketing. When I look around it shocks me because I know we have a very economical feed source right at our fingertips and only a handful of producers utilizing it. Crop residue grazing is almost unheard of in my area. Baling up your straw is only exporting more valuable nutrients off your land.

A chaff buncher is a very simple device that attaches to the back of a combine to collect the straw and chaff. It simply works like a teeter-totter and dumps the chaff in piles across the field. It is a series of long tines that once the straw builds up on it, will also hold the chaff. It makes small piles all over your grain field. Once it fills up, the buncher tips and the stubble pulls the piles off the tines and leaves a nice little pile.

The key to this method of feeding is to strip graze it. I would never just turn my cows into the whole field. Strip grazing across these piles with a one-, two- or a three-day graze period gives you more even nutrition to the cattle and much better utilization of the feed. (You can decide which is better for you depending on your labour and equipment costs.) Small piles are also cleaned up a lot better than large piles as the cows stand around it to eat and when they lay on it, they don’t soil it as they usually lay with their back ends off the pile.

We live in a dormant-season environment. The land needs ruminants on it! I believe all grain farmers need to somehow incorporate winter grazing on their land. It is great for the land as a lot of your residues are only weathering and not really recycling properly without the use of a ruminant. I know that this is a tough sell to diehard grain farmers but we need to think long term. We need to break out of our paradigms and think about economic sustainability for generations.

I told you that we have already built a replica of the cow. We argue about which colour is best and which one is the most efficient. We call this tool a combine. We harvest the plant material by removing about 80-90 per cent of the nutrients and export it off our land. We only leave 10 to 20 per cent to be recycled but in reality, most of this weathers. Is this sustainable? Not near as sustainable as our ruminant model. What happens when we can’t get fertilizer? Or it just gets too expensive?

It does come down to profitability and that means you would have to do your own numbers. It could be a neighbour looking to find a new feed source this year and he would pay you to recycle your nutrients. They would even take care of the fencing I’m sure. I would think it would be very appealing to get a second crop from your fields on any given year, even more so in a drought. You might just find that your profitability goes up in the long term, even though your efficiency goes down.

Chaff bunching is not difficult.  It actually lowers my labour and equipment usage a great deal. With a little fall fencing to make the strip grazing easier, I think it is a no-brainer. Yes, huge snowfalls can cause issues but I have had more issues with not enough snow, as well. Piles are easier to find than swaths. We are farmers, so there is risk with almost everything we do.

Try one small field this year and graze for a month or two. Learn how to set it up and once you have your confidence, maybe next year, try a bit more. I hope to be grazing well into January this winter on a couple of fields of chaff piles. When bunch grazing, I would always recommend a feed test and supplement accordingly for protein and minerals. I usually like to supplement a bit anyway as most grain crops I get are monocultures, which are not natural for cattle. The cattle can develop mineral imbalances while grazing a monoculture. Even better, try to graze the residues of a polyculture crop; but that is even a harder pill for grain farmers to swallow, so I will leave that alone for today. I will be bunch grazing a pea/canola field this fall. Polycultures rock! Check out the seminar posted on my website about grazing residues.

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Let’s start with some basic economic and nutrition facts. Typical grass hay averages 11 per cent crude protein (CP) and 1.23 and 0.66 Mcal/kg of net energy for maintenance (NEm) and gain (NEg), respectively (DM basis). At the time of writing, hay prices are $200 per tonne or higher in many areas of Western Canada. In contrast, barley grain depending on location is trading at prices between $180 and $220 per tonne. At 11 per cent CP and 2.03 and 1.37 Mcal/kg of NEm and NEg respectively, barley grain is far and away a better value for your feed dollar! For example, when both feeds are priced at $200/tonne, five pounds of barley grain will provide approximately 160 per cent more NEm and 200 per cent more NEg than an equal amount of grass hay. Now there are limitations with respect to feeding barley grain to beef cows (which will be discussed in the next issue), the point however, is that under drought induced feed shortages one needs to think outside of the box in order to meet the animal’s requirements and keep costs reasonable.

Are there other alternative feed sources that can be used to supplement or replace typical hay-based feeding programs? In terms of supplements, the first class that comes to mind is the various byproducts of the grain and oilseed-processing sectors. These industries typically generate a primary product such as ethanol and one or more co-products suitable for livestock feeding such as dried distillers grains with solubles (DDGS). Byproduct feeds vary in nutrient content, price and availability. The following is a brief description of the more common alternative feeds typically available across Canada.

DDGS are an excellent source of energy and protein that are priced relative to barley or corn grain. Crude protein (CP) levels average 38 and 30 per cent for wheat- and corn-based DDGS, respectively, with energy values that equal or exceed that of barley grain. Numerous research reports have shown that DDGS can replace barley grain at levels ranging from 20 to 40 per cent of the diet (DM basis) in growing and finishing rations without any drop in performance. Work conducted by the Western Beef Development Centre has shown that wheat DDGS can be fed as the sole energy and protein supplement to wintering beef cows grazing stockpiled forage.

Canola meal, a byproduct of canola processing is relatively high in crude protein (38 to 40 per cent) but only moderate in energy content (1.63 and 1.02 Mcal/kg of NEm and NEg). It is typically priced relative to other protein supplements (soybean meal), thus it is best utilized as a protein supplement. Byproducts such as wheat midds and grain screening pellets are generated from the grain-processing sector. Wheat midds average 16 to 18 per cent CP and are similar in energy content to barley grain. As with DDGS, wheat midds can be used as a supplemental source of energy and protein for wintering cows, particularly those on poor-quality forage. A typical grain screening pellet will average 13 to 15 per cent CP and 1.68 and 1.07 Mcal/kg of NEm and NEg, or 82 per cent of the NEm value of barley grain. While not as high in energy as some of the other byproducts, screening pellets are a good source of both energy and protein for pregnant beef cows. Fortified grain screening pellets include a cereal grain such as barley in the formulation and thus are closer to barley grain in energy and price.

All of these byproducts can work well in wintering diets for beef cows — the question is availability and pricing! If you have not booked your supply, it is advisable to do so as soon as possible.

Alternative forage sources are more difficult to source. Annual cereals (i.e. barley or oats) cut at mid-dough have been a time-tested substitute for hay during drought years. Their feed value is relatively similar to good grass or grass/legume hay. Cereals baled as a salvage crop are liable to be more variable in nutrient content and will require a feed test to determine actual value. Cereal straw is low in CP (3.5 to 4.5 per cent) and energy (0.77 and 0.23 Mcal/kg NEm and NEg, respectively). In recent years, the availability of cereal straw has varied widely, thus if you hope to convenience your neighbour to drop straw, this is a good time to start arm-twisting!

Oat hulls are a byproduct of the oat-processing sector and are similar to or slightly superior to cereal straw in terms of nutrient content. In my next column, we will look at the challenges involved with developing and feeding rations based on alternative feed sources.

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