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Beef Cattle and Drought
Supplementing pasture with alternate grazing
The first problem you usually face in a dry year is lack of
pasture. If there is some grass, you can stretch it by feeding grain and hay or
straw in the pasture. Barley chop at 5 pounds per cow daily is like 20 percent
more pasture.
The most important consideration is getting the cows bred so
there will be a calf crop next year. Energy is important. So is vitamin A and
phosphorus. These are in short supply on dry pasture. An average milking cow
needs about 75,000 IU of vitamin A daily either by injection every sixty days or
in the grain. Intake of 1:1 calcium:phosphorus mineral should be about 4 ounces
(100 grams) per cow daily. Mix with salt or feed with grain to make sure it is
consumed. ~
If there is no grass you should consider sowing cereal crops
for use as emergency pasture. Although feed can be purchased and transported to
your farm, growing as much of your own as possible is usually the cheaper
choice. Using cereal crops to extend fodder supplies is probably the most
economical way of carrying your livestock through a period when pasture
conditions are poor.
Oats can provide substantial emergency grazing if it is seeded
on summer fallow or on low lying land where moisture is most plentiful. Barley,
winter wheat and fall rye can yield as well as or better than oats and are also
suitable to establish and produce high pasture yields early but taper off rather
quickly in summer. The spring seeded winter cereals are a little slower to
establish than spring cereals and produce high pasture yields later in the
summer. Their yield tapers off in early fall but they do continue to produce low
yields during this period as well. Fall rye can be grazed for a period and still
harvested for grain if there is sufficient moisture. Some test have revealed
that grazing in the spring reduced yield 10 per cent; fall grazing reduced yield
17 per cent and grazing in fall and spring reduced yield by 25 percent.
Cereals can be grazed approximately 4 to 6 weeks after
seeding, and can be stocked heavily to use all available growth. It is advisable
to seed a second field 3 weeks after you seed the first so that when the first
one is grazed off, the second will be ready and so on. If drinking water
supplies are adequately located this system can provide continuous pasture well
into summer. If it rains enough later in the summer, the fields your herds
grazed early in the season may regrow and produce either additional pasture or
hay in the fall. In times of drought, the previously mentioned cereals usually
out yield other annual forages such as millet and sudan grass by substantial
amount.
Other management considerations for coping with inadequate
pastures are as follows:
- Confining cattle to a small part of the total pasture area
for as long as possible in order to give the remainder of the pasture
additional time to grow. The rotational grazing concept will increase forage
production in dry years as well as in times of adequate moisture.
- Grazing grass hay land rather than legume forage stands if
it becomes necessary to pasture hay land because legumes provide much better
second-cut potential than grasses.
- Cutting green feed from a portion of cereal crops intended
for harvest as grain. Weed field would be the most likely candidates.
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