Winter feed

[M Blake]

Are there real feed shortages North of Cornwall?
We have been relatively lucky and the grass is going well prior to the final cut.
How much is good round bale haylage making ?
Be interested to know how others are fairing.

[Broomcroft]

Things have been dry where we are near Shrewsbury. I think I've made enough haylage as it happens, but grass is still a fairly rare commodity. We'v been feeding haylage out in the field for 2 months now to just some cattle and I've got the bulls and some steers indoors.

I'm now feeding barley straw to some, and pouring a bit of molasses on it to get them to eat it. I've just been to look at my big group and the grass they're on is getting very short, so I could be starting proper winter feeding in a few weeks time. Last year this would have started mid-late November!!!

Hay price round here is expensive (£120 a tonne 'ish for good quality), and haylage/silage is moderately expensive. I'm paying about £80 a tonne for barley straw.

I stitched Winfred forage/rape into one field and that hasn't taken much at all, and I've also ploughed up 10 acres and put Italian Ryegrass/Red Clover mix in, which took a month to take off as no rain at all. It didn't start to show till last week.

[Louisa Gidney]

Tad damp up here in the NE. Grass is growing well but little feed value, the stock are now keen for molasses licks. Was lucky and got about 400 (very) small bales of hay @ £3/bale out of the field in early August. Have ordered some Heston bales of straw and round bales of silage but nothing so sordid as money has yet been discussed. Otherwise small bales of hay are ranging from £4-6, which is painful. I think I'll have some thin cattle at turn out next year. Having said that, they did much better on straw and sugar beet pellets last winter than I had anticipated.