March 2012 Articles

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Preparing for Winter

Cowherd Management Tips- Preparing for Winter, Karl Harborth, Beef Cattle Specialist, LSU AgCenter
It’s not too early to start preparing for your herds winter nutrition needs. Making sure you have enough hay and supplementation plans can save you money and time later in the yeaer when feed resources are historically higher priced.
How much hay are you going to need this winter? With hay in very low supply in many parts of the south calculating your winter forage and supplement needs are a must.
A basic rule of thumb is a cow will eat about 2% of her body weight on a dry matter basis of an average quality hay. Average quality hay will have about 55% TDN. If she is not lactating this may be enough to maintain her current weight and condition, but if she has calved recently and is in lactation she will still most likely need supplementation.
The following is a quick estimate for a 1300 lb cow if you have average quality hay: (Body Weight * Hay Intake)/ (dry matter percentage of hay) = Daily Hay Consumption
(1300 *0.02)/ (0.88) = 29.5 lbs of average quality hay needed per cow
Keep in mind that this intake number does not account for wastage and will fluctuate based on hay quality and other factors such as the weather. Also this example assumes that the cowherd is only consuming hay. If you have stock piled forage or other roughage sources you will over estimate hay needs.
With the above example in place, if you have 50 cows and are going to feed them for 120 days, you will need 88.5 tons of hay to make it through the winter. Once again this is not accounting for any wastage or other available standing forages. If we were to account for the amount of hay that we are going to waste I would recommend adding a minimum of 15% to this amount.
You need to makes sure that there is enough hay to meet the quota that was established above. If you do not have enough hay stored to meet these needs you will need to purchase hay or align your cowherd size appropriately.
Hay should be purchased on a quality, size, and weight basis in order to maximize the amount of hay that you are getting for your money (Easier said than done.). Testing hay and other feedstuffs can take the guess work out of formulating diets and will ultimately save money. The quality of your hay is dependent on many factors including, but not limited to, time of harvest, soil fertility, and rainfall amounts. For example, a high quality bermuda grass hay has a crude protein percentage of ten on average; if it is harvested at a later maturity it may only have seven or even five percent crude protein. Hay with seven percent crude protein can be sufficient for a dry pregnant cow in the late second or early third trimester of pregnancy. A crude protein percentage of five will probably not be sufficient and will need to be supplemented. Regardless of the quality of your hay, it cannot be accurately fed unless the nutrient composition is known based on a forage nutrient analysis.
Reducing Feed Cost with Feed Additives In the current era of high feed cost producers are constantly looking ways to save money. One option that has been available for many years, but not widely used is the use of the feed additives called ionophores. An ionophore is the technical name for a class of additives commonly fed to cattle to improve feed efficiency, rate of gain, and as a coccidiostat. Trade names for the most common products in this class include Rumensin®, Bovatec® and Cattlyst®. While ionophores are classified as antibiotics, they do not work in the same fashion as the antibiotics used for the treatment of diseases such as Bovine Respiratory Disease. Ionophores modify the bacteria populations in the rumen by reducing the population of less desirable bacteria and thus allow the animal to more efficiently use feedstuffs. There are various label restrictions and these products should be feed according to the label.
While ionophores are widely used in confined cattle feeding operations they are labeled for use with growing cattle in drylot and pasture situation, and mature reproducing cows. To decide which ionophore will work best for your operation you must determine the target animal and mode of delivery of the additive that will work best for your operation. For more information on which ionophore will work best for you please contact your local feed dealer or county agent. If you have any questions regarding this article please feel to contact me by phone 225-353-8391 or by email at kharborth@agcenter.lsu.edu.