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Brad and Joe discuss getting ready for winter in this potpourri-like episode. Water, using hay efficiently, spring run-off, pasture renovation, spring scours, and age-groups are all on the table. Thank you for listening!
Hosted by members of the University of Minnesota Extension Beef and Dairy Teams, The Moos Room discusses relevant topics to help beef and dairy producers be more successful. The information is evidence-based and presented as an informal conversation between the hosts and guests.
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Dr. Joe Armstrong: Welcome to the Moos Room, everybody. It's just two of us today. No, Emily. She is doing something that I'm sure is making her very happy. She's in Canada watching figure skating, one of her great loves, and if you follow her on Twitter, you know figure skating is a big deal to Emily and she's getting to be there in person. We can't blame her for not being here. Just Brad and I today. Brad, how are you doing?
Dr. Bradley Heins: Doing well. A little jealous of Emily, but we all get to travel once in a while, so it's good for her to get a break and do something that she loves. In Western Minnesota, it's raining today at the end of October, so that's good. A lot of drought in Minnesota and the upper Midwest, so it's good to see that once in a while. We need a lot more, but it's something.
Joe: Yes, we can use plenty of it. There's several counties in the state that are officially natural disaster areas for drought and as such have access to certain funds through the Minnesota Department of Agriculture and the USDA. Definitely, something to look out for if you're in certain counties.
Bradley: Droughts, they're becoming worse and worse. I think this year is actually worse for us here in Morris than what it was last year because we didn't have the rains in the fall like we normally do. It's been really difficult, and I hope the Farmer's Almanac is right and it predicts a lot of snow, that we'll need. Even though I'm sure some people don't want a lot of snow, I think we need it, otherwise, it's going to be tough.
Side note, I've been talking with some extension educators as well, and there are co-ops and farmers in Southern Minnesota that are not putting on anhydrous ammonia because they're breaking their shovels and breaking their equipment in the fields because it's so hard and dry. Equipment is breaking, that's how dry it is. That is unheard of. If you're out in the field, stay safe, definitely, for fall tillage because it can be a challenge.
Joe: Yes, that's a huge challenge, and unfortunately, it's something that we're just going to deal with more and more. Yes, we do need that snow this winter to recharge everything. That comes with its own set of challenges, having all that snow and cold. We are getting to winter, and whether or not we're ready for it, it's getting here and it's getting here quickly. We're running out of time to get prepared for winter. I think today's a great day to go over a little review, little random thoughts we have about getting ready for winter and what you need to do to get the cows ready.
Of course, Bradley is uniquely positioned to talk about this because he puts his dairy cows outside for the winter, which is not something you see very often, but it's definitely possible if you do the right things. What's on your mind, Brad, as you get things ready for winter and making sure the cows are comfortable?
Bradley: Well, some of the things we're trying to figure out, where are we going to put the cows and where are we going to put the heifers? I think we've been starting to look at different places to put the dairy heifers this winter, and that's one thing to think about, too, because there's a lot of aspects. Instead of just saying, "Oh, we'll put them there," we have to think about where there's water. We have heated waters in some of our pastures.
I have to think about environmental circumstances because of what happens in the spring. If we put these animals in a certain place, will we have runoffs in the spring, which we don't want at all? We have to take that into consideration. Where are we going to feed is another issue. We've been tossing around some ideas here.
One thing that I've been doing now with our cows, we're letting them hammer a pasture and we're feeding out there so we can restore that next spring. There's aspects when we think about, for us out-wintering, how can I have pasture renovation? That's one way, is I've concentrated the cows and manure on one pasture to reinvigorate that next year. It's a pasture that's needed some help.
For those of you that might know, we haven't been grazing cows for probably a month here in Morris because of lack of rain and drought. We were done about September 28th or something, is about when we were done grazing. It's been a challenge for us, but now we're in full winter gear because it is the end of October and it already has snowed out here in Morris and in Minneapolis and Saint Paul. Winter could come at any time.
Joe: It's where we're at. Getting ready now saves you time later. Make sure you don't have things you got to do later. We've talked a lot about out-wintering cows and their biggest requirements and we're going to review that just quick and then we're going to get to some of the other things that Brad mentioned. First of all, keeping cows comfortable in the winter. The number one is a windbreak. Keeping them out of the wind is massive. It reduces the amount of calories they need to stay warm. It's much more comfortable, all those things.
After that, you got to keep them dry and have them have a place to lay down, preferably behind that windbreak, and that's in the form of a nice bedded pack that you start relatively early so it's ready to go when the cows need it. After that, Bradley already mentioned water. We're going to talk more on that in a second. Then food. You got to feed them, you got to know that when it gets colder, they got to eat more to stay and maintain that body condition and not lose body condition trying to stay warm.
That rule of thumb, and I don't know if it's the same for the dairy side, so Bradley can correct me on the dairy side, but on the beef side, for every degree below 32 degrees, we feed 1% more, and that takes into account wind chill. If you've got a ton of wind and the cows are in it, you have to account for the wind chill as well. The example that I've been using is if it's 32 degrees one day and you're feeding 30 pounds of hay and then it's 22 degrees the next day, you've got 10% more that you have to feed. You should be feeding 33 pounds of hay when it's 22 degrees out. That's the rule of thumb. Is that the same on the dairy side, Brad?
Bradley: Yes, pretty much. As far as nutrient requirements. It's maybe a little bit more for a milking cow because you have production factors going on versus a dairy heifer. I think for us, a good rule of thumb is to let the cows tell us too. We feed to what their requirements will be, but if it's colder and it's like, whoa, maybe the cows are eating a little bit more, then we increase it maybe 5% the next day. We watch the cows, let them tell us what they're eating. We certainly don't want to starve them in the wintertime because it's pretty cold. That's a good rule of thumb that we do too, is let the cows tell us and I hope everybody would agree with that.
Joe: Absolutely. [unintelligible 00:07:48] bunks, looking at the cows, making sure you're on point. All the things we've talked about in the past that make it easier for that process is having uniform and consistent body condition across the group, which comes down to bunk space, having two feet per head so everyone can eat at the same time. Some of the things that we haven't really dug into in the past have been the hierarchy of [00:08:10] determines where you put cows. Brad was mentioning the one that I think is almost always the limiting factor, and that's water, especially in the winter, water that won't freeze, to be specific.
It's expensive. That's the first thing. Having water lines that won't freeze, having waters that won't freeze, all of that. You can comment on how expensive it is too, but what other challenges are there with water?
Bradley: One of the big things is having enough water access for animals. It's difficult to put out a lot of heated waters because of lots of expense, you name it. Water access is very important to us and we have Ritchie water tanks, heated water tanks in some of our areas to allow enough access for cows and heifers in areas. We can't stress water enough. That is probably the number one factor that we think about when we're trying to put animals for wintertime, is where do they get water? That's the number one thing. It's not easy. Those are big expenses when we're talking about waters.
Joe: Well, and one of the things that I see with water a lot is that, and because it's expensive to run those lines and to have that heated water, a lot of times that heated water is up by the barn away from feed, the windbreak, and the bedding, which can be a problem, in my mind. It's not so bad for cows to get exercised. That's not a problem most of the time, but when I think about the most comfortable cows in the winter, especially in a dry light setting, they have a very nice triangle of concrete to keep dry and clean between the bedding, the feed, and the water, and the bedding being behind the windbreak. That little triangle, where they can still walk between them, but they don't have to walk miles for water is a big difference.
Bradley: Yes, I agree, Joe. We have things in separate areas. The water is away from the feed or the feed and the water are away from the bedding. There are separate areas for that. Otherwise, you get, inevitable, the water freezes, cows make messes with water, and it starts to chunk up around the water and the feed bunks get frozen. There's just a lot of aspects to think about. It's like our grazing dairy, things happen on a daily basis sometimes, depending on the weather.
Joe: It can change in a hurry, and cows make messes, and that's another big piece of this. Figuring out how to feed is huge, especially if you have beef cattle and a day job. It's so different when you've got to do chores in the dark, probably starting a month ago you're doing chores in the dark because of the way things have changed with the sunlight in the time is a huge factor. Round bale feeders become a big piece of this.
One of the big things I love to see with a round bale feeder is, first of all, have enough space for everyone to eat so they're not crowded and you don't have your boss cows standing around the round bale feeder, kicking your smaller cows, or if you're mixing age groups, your younger and smaller cows off the feeder, where they stay skinny and your fat cows stay fat.
Then, like Brad alluded to, cows love to make a mess. If you give them access 24/7 to that round bale feeder, they're using a lot of it just to play with and mess with and it turns into bedding, and we all know the expense of hay at this point. You got to be careful how you're using your hay. There's a couple different strategies to work on that, but the first step is making sure everyone has enough space to eat at the same time. Then we talk about limited access, and there's a lot of different strategies there.
The data will tell you that you should only give cows between four and six hours a day access to that round bale feeder if everyone can eat at the same time. For me, in the normal workday, it's hard to do if you have a day job, eight hours or whenever you leave in the morning, give them access, whenever you come back at night, kick them out, all that kind of stuff is the way that I try to think about that.
Bradley: Round bale feeders are always tough in the wintertime, Joe, it's never easy. I debate whether we should have them or not because feed is expensive, cows do waste some, but for us, it may provide good fertility, in some regards provides bedding for those animals, not very limited numbers, but that's a tough one. Some years we use round bale feeders, some years we don't, that's a tough one in the winter.
I know a lot of people like them and they're convenient, but I don't know, sometimes I figure they've waste 25% to 30% of the hay, and if hay's expensive because of droughts, I don't know if we can be wasting that much hay, but I don't know everything. Cost is a big factor in a lot of the decisions that we make in the wintertime too.
Joe: Always, and it's the most expensive piece of keeping a cow year round, is feeding them in the winter if they're a grazing animal. Brad, you're spot-on, it is, if you give them the 24-hour access, it's 25% to 30% of that bale gone, just gone. On the ground now, is it 100% wasted if you're calling it bedding or Bradley likes to say that it's also-
Bradley: Soil fertility.
Joe: Yes, soil fertility. There's other benefits to it, but if we're concerned about the price of hay, 25% to 30% is not going in that cow. You got to find a strategy for that. Now, if you give them limited access in an 8 to 12-hour window and you kick them out the rest of the time, you're still going to have some waste, but it's only going to be about 10% compared to that 25% to 30%. That's one thing I like to harp on. The other thing is storing hay, which I think gets to be tricky in the winter for a lot of people and it ends up outside a lot. What do you guys do with your hay in the winter, Brad? Where is it stored?
Bradley: Some of it is stored inside, I shouldn't say inside a barn, but it's under a hay shed, it's got a roof on top of it, an old pole barn that a lot of people might have in the Midwest. We do store some under that. Otherwise, we do store some outside. We've started to do a lot of net wrapping in our bales to help with mold and moisture, things like that. We can't put everything underneath a roof. It's both places.
Joe: That's how it works for almost everyone, and hopefully, you put the stuff you're going to feed first outside so you can get rid of it and keep the stuff under the roof as long as possible. My biggest thing is that when we look at if you're going to feed a round bale feeder 24/7 and lose 25% of your hay there, and then you're going to make a six-foot round bale and store it outside, and let's say the outer six inches gets spoiled, and we're going to call that waste, the outer six inches contains 25% of the hay in that bale.
Now, between the two sources of waste, you've wasted 50% of that bale. 50% waste with the hay prices, that's basically just-- go ahead and double whatever you paid for the price of your bales and that hurts a lot. I think it's a good thing to think about as you're going into winter, how am I going to use that hay efficiently?
Bradley: Feed inventory is a big thing to really look at right now. We're at the end of October and you certainly don't want to run out come middle of February and we're still in winter or March or whatever it might be. I think a big thing that we look at now is our feed inventory as well and how can we stretch the feed inventory? Will we have to purchase a little bit of hay? Do we have enough corn silage, haylage, all of that on-site?
We really look at our feed inventories in the fall and try and gauge what we might need and if we'll be able to make it through most of the winter without having to do that. It's always a good guessing game. We have plenty of corn silage on site. We feed a lot of corn silage in the wintertime, so we have a lot of corn silage here. We'll be able to get through a lot of the winter on a lot of our corn silage.
Joe: I guess it varies from year to year, but in general, if you take inventory now and then you purchase now because you think you're going to be short, is that better? Prices are going to probably be much better than waiting until everyone's looking because they found out they're short, late in the game, right?
Bradley: Usually, we've tried to play those feed games a lot. It's like, "Oh, maybe we should wait, it'll be cheaper. Maybe we should buy it now and it's going to be cheaper now than what it will." What we've really found is it's pretty much the same price all the way through the winter. [chuckles] It's not going to change much at all. The inventory is there now, so if you need some, you probably should get it now versus running out in the middle of the winter and then you're really trying to scramble and find expensive hay. It's not easy. Yes, difficult.
Joe: There was a couple of other things that Brad mentioned on how to decide where to put animals, and one of those was runoff in the spring, looking ahead to spring, and then also, pasture renovation. Two things looking ahead to spring. I've got one that I think about on my end, looking ahead to the spring, but let's talk about those two, Brad, gradient of that pasture and proximity to water are two of the things that matter most for runoff. Doesn't that dictate everything every year? Are there just certain pastures that are just off-limits, they come off the table no matter what?
Bradley: You're right. Some of the pastures that we have, they're just off-limits. They just won't work. You think about it from a spring runoff perspective, we just don't even think about those pastures, but we do, and I think we try to be good stewards here. We have an image here as well, and people look up to us to provide that information to them. That's a big thing that we think about too, and it's not really where can we put the cows today or what it's going to look like in November and December when the ground is hard, it's what's going to happen in March or April when the ground is thawing and it's raining? Those are the things that we have to consider, even four to five months from now.
It's a big thing that's probably at the forefront of our mind as well, is environmentally. Some of our pastures are rolling and some are flat, some of them are just off-limits, and we have a river that runs through our research center. We're pretty cognizant of not trying ?to put animals close to the river for runoff purposes. I think that's one thing that even in the upper Midwest we're going to have to consider even more, is environmental issues. We might not think of that, but they're being looked at more and more and more.
It's one of the things that we're thinking about now, especially when we're trying to decide where we're going to put these heifers for the wintertime. We're actually going to change a spot. We're going to some new spots because of maybe potential less runoff, you name it.
Joe: I'm interested in the pasture renovation side of this. You're heavily grazing those areas to get them really chewed down. Are you going to leave cows on those areas all winter or are you just grazing them hard now? If you were to leave them out there all winter, would that really affect how well you can bring that pasture back?
Bradley: Yes, I think so. The pasture that we're renovating now, we're going to pull them off in a couple of weeks and maybe move them to the barn. The problem is we leave them out there all winter, it's just going to have a lot of manure, feed waste, you name it, and then it becomes too thick in the springtime. If we leave them too long, then it creates issues in April and May when we want to go out and seed the pasture and maybe renovate it. We think about that and not keeping them on the same ground too long. They're going to move into the barn in a couple of weeks.
Joe: That's good to know. I was wondering. I'm sure it depends on how many animals and how much space and all of that, but all winter's a long time for them to really dig up everything and deposit a ton of manure and really get it torn up, especially around the water.
Bradley: If you came out here now, you'd look at it and go, "Whoa, maybe you should probably pull those cows off today." There's a lot of stuff out there, but the ground is still soft and I think it's providing some good nutrients. This is a pasture that has thistles and really hasn't had good productive grass growth. I did some soil sampling, and this was probably one of the worst pastures that needed a little extra nutrients to help with spring grass growth. That's where we've decided to go to. There's a few other pastures that need some help, but I can't do everyone all the time.
Joe: There's only so much time and so much money and so many cows.
Bradley: Exactly.
Joe: One of the things that I think about when we're talking about thinking ahead to spring, and this probably doesn't apply to Brad and the dairies as much because of some of the infrastructure they have, but I think about spring scours when we're talking about calving in the spring, especially with our beef animals. Choosing where you put your cows in the winter and then where you're going to calve has to be planned out.
If you're going to calve in the pasture downhill from where all the cows spent all winter, it's probably not a great idea. You got to flip that around because all of that runoff, all of those pathogens that have been sitting and building up all winter are going to run right down into your calving pasture and you're going to have issues. The same thing applies to dry lots, if you have a calving lot that you're going to calve in, it's tempting to use that space to keep cows in all winter. If you try to calve in that lot, you're going to have major scours issues. Maybe not the very first year you do it, but if you do that more than a year in a row, you're going to have major issues, huge death loss, huge morbidity as well.
That's the other thing I think about, thinking head to spring is where are you going to calve and how am I going to prevent myself from screwing things up for future me when I get to spring calving? Bradley, one of the other things that I think about in the winter is age groups. You've already said that you split your heifers, and I think that makes sense a lot that people do that and that's pretty well understood. Do you split any other age groups when you go for winter?
Bradley: We don't. We have two groups of heifers, that young age, 6 to 12 months, and then 14 to 18 months. I guess we have a springer group too, so we do split them because feed requirements are a little bit different. When you think about it from a space requirement too, competition, old heifers will pick on the younger ones. That's probably the biggest reason why we do that, is to prevent competition.
If you have animals that are not of the same age together, they will have competition and the younger ones are going to lose out, and they're going to be the ones that don't look so good. You're going to walk out there and they're going to, "Whoa, these kind of skinny heifers aren't growing. What's going on?" It really has to do about competition. I think having some different age groups is a positive to keeping animals healthy in the wintertime. That's a big one.
The heifers will go backwards really fast if you aren't watching them and that you think they're eating, but they're not really. We've seen that, even within the group. If we have a group of 50 heifers that are all six to nine months of age, maybe we got to watch those small ones even in a younger group because there can be competition there too. It's not easy. It's not just about throwing animals in a group together and hopefully they're going to make it. That's not it at all. Winter is probably way more challenging with this kind of stuff than the summertime is, because there's plenty of grass and lots of feed and everybody's happy on pasture. The winter's a totally different time.
Joe: Space is what it comes down to if you're going to mix age groups. A lot of people are really good about pulling out the younger animals. If you're working on a beef place, your replacements stay separate. You don't put your replacements in with the whole group, usually. The animal I worry about the most is the second-calf heifer. That animal is still growing, is raising a calf, and there's a lot going on with that animal, and she's still quite a bit smaller than a mature cow. The the first and second-calf heifers, those are the animals that need the most care. What I think is the solution is, if you're going to mix age groups, you have to do everything else perfectly.
You got to do a big bedded pack, where everyone has space at 100 square feet per animal, you got have plenty of water so you don't have a Bos cow guarding the water and keeping the heifers off the water, plenty of bunk space at two feet per head at the minimum, and then a big enough windbreak to cover everybody so no one gets pushed off the windbreak because you know who that's going to be. If you're going to mix age groups, everything else has to be immaculate. That's the incentive too. If you're short on space, you have to make it work by creating a bigger windbreak, a bigger bedded pack, more water, more bunk space, or you just got to have less animals to make it work. That's just the way it is.
A lot of things to think about. Splitting engage groups, great idea. I think we've covered plenty for today. We stayed off some of the topics that we usually harp on when we're talking about getting ready for winter. I'll include links to some of our past discussions. We'll just add to that discussion with what we talked about today. Anything else, Bradley?
Bradley: No, I think just watch your animals. They'll tell you what they need in the wintertime, and that's probably the main thing that we try and focus on, is just watch the animals.
Joe: It sounds good. Take your direction from your animals. If you have comments, questions, scaling rebuttals to today's episode, please email us themoosroom@umn.edu. That's T-H-E-M-O-O-S-R-O-O-M @ U-M-N dot E-D-U. Follow us on Twitter @UMNmoosroom and @UMNFarmSafety. Find Bradley on Instagram @umnwcrocdairy. Check out our website, extension.umn.edu. You can even call us if you want, 612-624-3610. Leave a voicemail. We'll answer your question potentially live on the air. I think that's all the ways you can get ahold of us. Please reach out if you have questions. Thank you for listening. Catch you guys next week.
Bradley: Bye. Talk about whatever the hell we want to talk about.
Joe: Exactly. There's no boss here today. We can do what we want.
[00:29:08] [END OF AUDIO]
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