By Chris Hicks, County Director – UT Extension Smith County
As a livestock producer, have you ever done the math on how many 5-gallon buckets of feed you carry each winter? More than likely you are too busy for such nonsense, but I recently did the math to make a point during a presentation in another county. The results were pretty surprising and might explain some of the lower back pain many of us deal with.
In the example I used, we assumed a beef producer was supplementing some average quality hay to make sure his cows had enough energy to perform well through the winter. The forage test on the fescue/johnsongrass hay revealed it had crude protein of 9.91 and TDN (energy) of 46.5.
While this protein level isn’t critically low, the energy is nowhere near what a lactating or even a dry cow needs to get through winter. We examined various mixtures of grains and commodities such as corn, soybean meal, corn gluten, and distillers grain to see what our least expensive option was to provide the cows the energy and protein they needed.
It turned out that a mixture of 6 lbs. of corn and 4 lbs. of distillers grain per cow per day would be sufficient to supplement the hay without decreased performance. This mix would cost only $0.83/cow/day, but again would have to be fed every day.
If we figure a 5-gallon bucket holds about 25 lbs. and that we are feeding 30 cows this 10 lbs. every day, that comes to 12 buckets per day for our cows. If we have a long winter and have to feed hay for 150 days, that comes to 1,800 buckets to get our cows through the winter.
Of course, in this example you could choose not to supplement with this much feed, or with any feed for that matter. That would certainly save on your feed bill, as the cows in our example will each eat $124.50 in feed alone, not to mention the hay they eat. But keep in mind when a cow’s energy and protein requirements are not met, you sacrifice growth performance, reproduction, animal health, and the long-term health and production of their offspring.
So, what could we do in this example to limit our feed bill? Are we all destined to choose between carrying 5-gallon buckets of feed through the mud all winter and seeing animal performance suffer? A couple of things come to mind.
First, we could lower the number of days feeding hay and supplement by stockpiling tall fescue and/or planting a winter annual forage for grazing. Every day an animal harvests forage that isn’t carried to her is money in your pocket.
Another solution would be to feed higher quality hay. I know that’s easier said that done, but if the hay in our example was 11% crude protein and 62 TDN, it would be good enough not to require any supplementation. That’s not an unreachable goal even for tall fescue or johnsongrass.
Now is a good time to have your hay tested for quality if you haven’t already. We can use the results to determine if supplementation is needed. If you would like more information on forage testing and supplementation, contact us at the UT Extension Office at 615-735-2900, or email me at cbhicks@utk.edu.
