feeding Dexters overwinter

[Tremewan]

I'm hoping they'll be some debate over this.
There certainly is in my neck of the woods.
If you're feeding small bale hay to 2-4yr old cows and heifers, how much would you give them per day? 1/2 a bale, 3/4? Obviously it depends on the quality of hay, so for the sake of argument, lets say good quality, meadow hay, baled in late June last year. And this is with no other feed, i.e nuts, silage etc.

[Louisa Gidney]

The old rule of thumb used to be half a bale per beast per day but that was in the days of Shorthorns. At the moment, I'm using 2-2.5 bales per feed for 10 assorted Dexters, with one feed of sugar beet pellets.

[JamsHundred]

I've seen other references over the years in UK discussions as to "nuts" as feed. What are nuts?

judy

[Louisa Gidney]

Nuts are bigger than pellets and rolls are bigger than nuts. My cattle will eat nuts but prefer pellets. Nuts are a choking hazard for the sheep, so I only get nuts when the feed merchant has run out of pellets. I hope that makes sense across the pond!

[SteveM]

Our cows are fed beef nuts in the morning, and bedded with barley straw. Late afternoon we give hay, based on around a bale to 4 cows.

Generally straw is in mini-hesston bales, hay normally small bales but some mini hesston, or round depending on contactors access to the fields.

upto a couple of years ago we fed beet or turnips in the afternoon as well but now only hay

they eat a fair bit of the bedding straw in the morning as well

[Tim Watson]

Firstly I suspect there will be a difference whether they are in or out. All ours are out all the time. They only come in to calve and then they're out again.
We have two lots at the moment in two separate 6 acre fields.
Herd 1 - 7 cows (aged from 9.5 - 3yrs) and one bull - Fed 1 small bale of hay per day and four feed scoops of suckler cow rolls.
Herd 2 - 5 heifers (3yrs to 9 months) - get 1 small bale per day and two scoops suckler cow rolls.

All looking fine at the moment. Herd 1 possibly looking like the winter hasn't been as hard as it should have been so they'll be kept on tight ground for a bit longer.

[Tremewan]

thanks all, really interesting, mine are all in the shed, 11, divided into:
pen A: 7 (2 in calf due May) 4 hopefully in calf due September) 1 nearing readiness to be slaughtered. 2.5-3 bales a day with barley bedding straw given every other day.
pen B : 4 of which, 2x 9 month old steers, 1 x Cow and 1 x 6month calf at foot 1.25 bales a day with barley bedding straw given every other day.

I have beef nuts but only use them as bribery to get them into the sheds in autumn / for worming in the fields or TB testing.

Once the grass starts growing the main herd will go out (mid April hopefully) and the two close to calving will stay close to the farm and be fed beef nut supplements for the last three weeks before they are due.

I deliberately don't feed nuts in the shed, really because I have a glut of excellent hay which I baled last year and I don't want the expense of nuts on a daily basis. However, I'd be interested in thoughts on how much feeding nuts / rolls adds to the development of the beasts - do you think its really worth paying for - can you see noticeable differences in growth, well being?

[ann]

mine are on silage apart from a young bull and 3 in calf heifer which i have kept out all this winter, which is amazing as normally it would be to wet for me to keep cattle out all winter as our land is heavy and normally it would just get to muddy.

Everything inside approx 30 cattle of mixed age have a round bale of silage between them each day.

Youngsters outside get a scoop of hard feed each and approx 1/2 bale of hay each day between them, however as the weather is picking up they are eating less hay.

[Carol K]

How much do your small bales weigh out of interest?

Carol K

[JohnnyP]

My 4 cows and 3 calves spend all winter outside in the woods, they get 90-100kg of haylage per day (2 mini-round bales) and a mineral lick.

My first winter I referred to "Crofting Agriculture" by Fraser-Darling, which has a useful table showing different fodder crop feed values and dry matter requirements, but now, I just tailor amounts until the animals are pleased to see me in the morning, amble over to the feed, don't fight and don't make a racket.

[Saffy]

Carol K I would say our small bales weigh on average between 18Kg and 25Kg depending how firmly they have been baled, the type of grass in them, how "well" the hay has been made and also how fresh they are.

Also some balers do make slightly smaller small bales, I think those are very old balers. A young lad comes and does mine with a 1970s tractor and usually brings a 1970s baler but he once brought one that is a good 50 years old I was so busy rowing up that I didn't photograph it and I really wish I had!

Stephanie

[Malkin Dexters]

5 animals two small bales a day, try to rotate/vary and give them haylage too - one large round bale of haylage lasts about a week. Also have a mineral lick. Indoors since end of October. (One non short full pedigree bull, one short cow, one 18month old short heifer, one four month old non short steer calf and a two year old belted Galloway steer) Bull and Beltie are the big eaters !!