cattle futures from here, brainstorming,

[Kay/NC]

The farm we rented out for grazing has excellent grass, warm and cool season padocks and atockpile fescue ones to boot, plus energyfree watering stations with indestructible paving, and seven- strand exterior high- tensile, which was put there for sheep. We are not staying in that any longer...predators just create too much pressure.

The gences here are also 7. A-strand high- tensile, and we have the irrigation and hog manure for fertilizer here. We have put in minimal watering underground yet, though, because we have a nice watering hole pond. Tose are inexpensive and we have our own tencher to do,the installation, plus plenty of the same paving materials (salvaged concrete gang hog slats) on hand.

I think the idea to clean up the fences we have let get messy here is a no- cost start. We will make moves as need or desire dictate after that. Just floating new ideas, now that we have commited to movign out of sheep.

[buckfarmer]

Pritchh, we usually have a Angus bull but for cows we always have just whatever we could buy cheep or heifers we decided to keep. We had a Hereford bull for a few years and a couple Liminzine. Those three bulls were in the 90s when prices were low so we kept a lot of heifers then. When we had more cows we fed grass round bale hay and lots of corn silage. Silage was fed on top of what was left of the hay from the day before. We would take a bale to the top of a hill and unroll it. As gravity did its job the bale unrolled. This did lead to some calves laying in the hay but allowed the whole herd to eat at the same time as opposed to only the few that could gather around a feeder.

[k-289]

JR  - well stated - on the demand side our check off money is squandered with chatter concerning exports of product -interesting to say the least ---  

[Shaggy98]

Check with the people at Roto-Mix.  I've listed their link below, just ask for a scale technician.

http://www.rotomix.com

[pritchh]

THANKS.....

[pritchh]

Again thanks if shariubng yoyr #a.s Ithink few have iut taht good but has me thunking.  In NE PA SE NY active dairies are down 80% vs teh 1960s. Miost were 40- 80 head and lacking economics.  Cow-calf we did a but early 70s to keeop pastures used and made it worth harvesting our hay. 

Now as related, am considring starting something to retire fm my "cityjob",  7-9 yrs out. Small farm had me thinking rare breed and that is probably the route I will go. But there a lot of hay ground near by some good, 5 mile radious, pastures as well , though the fencing investment eliminates that.  Larger would make a big baler investment possible, more efficient lower cost harvest. Upping the lime alone I think would have us at 2 Tn/acre, modest fertilzer would have us at 2.5-3. Doubt if we could go over 40 head, need toi figure out  more pasture. Non perm fencing?  but maybe we could break even!!  Anyway you got me thinking.

1 Q, is rondbale hayledge vs dry hayt too rich for wintering cows?

2 Our herfords went right through barded wire, better chice of breed ?

any newly invented fences, not high tensil, but movable, that can hold in beef cows?

THX

[Shaggy98]

If your Herefords went through your barbed wire fence, either something spooked the cattle or the fence was no good. Herefords are the Labrador Retrievers of the cattle industry, very seldom do you get a wild one. We had Herefords for many years being retained by only a smooth electric wire with minimal troubles. Something out of the ordinary has to be causing this problems.