hay for my dexters this winter?

[tiggermeriffic]

I was wondering about hay for my Irish Dexters this winter. If anyone has these animals and could give me some idea about how much to have put away. I live in Western Washington and know Dexters eat alot less than a full size cow. This is my first winter with them and was just wondering what those with Dexters do. Thank you again.

[walls0stone]

Plan to feed hay from the end of August to May. If you don't and you don't have enough.....That's what ALL Oldschool farmers do.

Also, your milking right? so you should shood draw a line and ask exactly what your ration should be..second and first cutting ect.

[Deberosa]

Hi ,

We do have Dexters - two of them although one heads for the freezer in December. And we live in Western Washington!

We just hauled in 50 more bales last night - had 100 in the barn and figured that would be more than plenty but we've run out of grass already - a combination of the cold spring and needing to get pastures into more productive shape - this is our first year with Dexters, got them in October of last year so fed them all winter on Del's hay!!!!

If you live near Shelton, the woman down the road from me is haying right now and looking for customers at 4 dollars a bale. That's the best we could find around here. We have a call in for some round bales that even if we don't need them for the cows they will make good mulch for the gardens and bedding for the chickens and pigs. I also want to try some of those silage "marshmallows" and even use them to make more compost possibly. I've learned that they are too "sweet" to feed Dexters full time but they can supplement the hay. I've heard they may go bad if the cows don't eat them within a week of opening them and with only two cows I know I'll be composting much of it if I use it.

As for how much they eat - I am allotting one small 50 pound bale every two days for two cows. So one bale would last 4 days feeding day and night for one cow. Even at that I think we might be over feeding but not sure. They sure aren't skinny!

Around here if you can get it cheap out of the field do it! It's up to 16 dollars a bale at the feed store and not going to get any better as the winter draws in. I'm just glad we have the barn to store it in.

How many Dexters do you have? Do you have a bull? I am looking around now for a bull for my Daisy since she apparently was not pregnant after all - must have just been fat!

[tiggermeriffic]

Thank you for the info. I have 3 Dexters and one Jersey. I have one 15 year old momma her 3 year old heifer and a 3 year old bull. The jersey is for milk until the dexters start producing. I live in Bellingham area. 2 hours north of Seattle. I think the bull got the girls pregnant last heat cycle. I just want to make sure I don't have to buy hay in the middle of winter. Where are you in Washington Deberosa?

[Deberosa]

I am just outside of Shelton.

I bet the Bull would eat more but not sure. I only have a three year old cow and her free martin heifer calf born last May (Daisy had twins). Since the calf is likely sterile she'll be headed to the freezer the end of the year and with only one cow we should have plenty for the rest of the winter.

[QueenoftheFlock]

I would think maybe before you determine how much hay you'll need, you might want to figure out how much decent forage you have access to now - pasture, etc.

Also, what type of hay would you be feeding? Straight grass, alfalfa, blended etc?

Do you have a good place to store it if you would get a good deal on hay now?

Would you be feeding square bales like Deberosa asked about or the big round haycocks?

Are you supplementing now with grain and will you continue to do so over winter or start up supplementing in winter (depending on maternity, body condition, weather, etc.) and what type of supplement will you/do you use (COB, etc.)?

[walls0stone]

I would think maybe before you determine how much hay you'll need, you might want to figure out how much decent forage you have access to now - pasture, etc. *

much like people plan for the worst in other ways...think about the much more likly loss of patsture. Think of hay as money..or food canned in the celler. If one were to have a drout or very poor pasture season, then you could be forced to feed hay all summer..costing you dearly and you'd need to bring in hay from another town..becouse no one in your area has it.

One summer farmers here were sent hay from the Dixie, and the following summer, we sent hay back to them.

One might also have snow till the end of May. We did here. so we feed hay very late this year.

[QueenoftheFlock]

I concur :D

I used to work for a feed company though and so am obsessed with "balancing a ration" for any critter that happens to come along!

[Drawbar]

General rule of thumb is 100 average square bales per cow, per winter.

If you have four cows, you need 400 bales. It goes down a bit if you have calves, but its still a good rule of thumb so that you have plenty of hay come spring.

[Drawbar]

I am just outside of Shelton.

I bet the Bull would eat more but not sure. I only have a three year old cow and her free martin heifer calf born last May (Daisy had twins). Since the calf is likely sterile she'll be headed to the freezer the end of the year and with only one cow we should have plenty for the rest of the winter.

What a shame. We have found over the years one of the twins will do well, and other twin will not do so well. Since you cannot figure out which one is which, the answer is obvious. Don't take a chance and ship them both.

Sheep, horses and other livestock...twins is a great thing, but for cows we cringe when we see two calfs emerge. Sorry for your loses Debrosa. :(

[walls0stone]

can test them...not all twins are that way, it is posible to get lucky.. little gizmo they use at the stock yard. Looks like a small egg on a stick

[Deberosa]

What a shame. We have found over the years one of the twins will do well, and other twin will not do so well. Since you cannot figure out which one is which, the answer is obvious. Don't take a chance and ship them both.

Sheep, horses and other livestock...twins is a great thing, but for cows we cringe when we see two calfs emerge. Sorry for your loses Debrosa. :(



Well, she raised both twins very well - and her first time around, but this calf will still fit nicely in the freezer. Even if she were fertile I wouldn't want to propogate that trait.

Dexters don't take near the hay that full size cows need. Mine are getting very fat on one quarter bale each a day. Add a bit more for good measure and I think we are set. We better be because haying season is shot here now with heavy rain all day...

[AlchemyAcres]

As a guide...the general rule of thumb is 3.5% of body weight of maintenance quality 'dry matter' per day.....lactation requires a bit more and higher quality.

So...a 700 lb. Dexter Cow requires approximately 24.5 pounds of 'dry matter' per day.



~Martin

[Drawbar]

I'll take AA's word for it. Just so everyone knows, that is about ½ a bale since most square bales are in the 45 pound range.

[Dobelo17]

Hi Guys,
I had four Dexters last winter 3 pregnant cows and
1 bull. THey got alfalfa hay and no grain. THey went through a 1500 lb round bale in a little over a week.
I don't no the weather there but we get down to 30-40
below zero and it stays that way sometime for weeks
at a time. I live in WI. The guy I bought them from said
lots of grain was not good for them. Of course he ran his as beef like I did so if you are milking It might be different.

Becky

[walls0stone]

Lots of anything is not good...but some grain is fine for cattle. I'd also say that quality of hay is to be taken in. We have large cattle but one field of hay bailed did not come out so well. larger sections of hay wasted. Somthing to think about.

[AlchemyAcres]

Hi Guys,
I had four Dexters last winter 3 pregnant cows and
1 bull. THey got alfalfa hay and no grain. THey went through a 1500 lb round bale in a little over a week.
I don't no the weather there but we get down to 30-40
below zero and it stays that way sometime for weeks
at a time. I live in WI. The guy I bought them from said
lots of grain was not good for them. Of course he ran his as beef like I did so if you are milking It might be different.

Becky


Make sure you're feeding high quality hay.
You need very high energy forage for cattle to remain healthy in those kind of conditions.
Only feed hay that's high in carbohydrate (at least 10% brix..the more the merrier)...there's an amazing amount of garbage hay floating around....mulch is a more appropriate term.
You can test the forage yourself for brix level.

Cattle will thrive if pasture and forage have a high brix level


~Martin

[Drawbar]

I am all for grass fed beef and lamb (and raised them myself LONG before it was vogue), still grass fed animals are the long way out to do it right. You just can't drop the grain and not make up for it with grass. You really should have your feed tested to see what is in it and make up for what it lacks. Grain does this easily, so in essence grain feeding is the easier way out of good livestock husbandry.

For instance selenium is deficient in most of New England. You can get most grain places to test your feed for free and interpret the results. Just be careful, when we had some low selenium levels show up in our pastures and feed, they suggested giving a bigger ration of grain.

That works for them, but why would we use up more grain at 600 a ton just for a few dollars worth of selenium that could be provided in a good mineral supplement?

Beware of the copper levels too. Cattle need it, sheep get killed by it (Copper toxecity) so grain and mineral supplements cannot be used for any and all livestock interchangeably.

As for the number of bales...some times I forget just how big a Holstein really is in relation to other cows.

[walls0stone]

Do you clip your pasture? do you intense graze? have you looked into what grows in your pasture? Have you planted winter forage crops? Looked into wrapped bails?
How do you keep your hay?

On the farm were my father grew up, they planted turnips and other crops in a large field and then after frost, the cattle were turned out on it.. they would root up those crops and it added forage to supplement the ration.

[Drawbar]

Potatoes too. Cows LOVE potatoes.

[Drawbar]

Cows don't like chocolate though.

When me and my little brother were small (he was 8 and I was 4) my Great-Grandfather convinced us that if we gave one of the Jersey Cows a chocolate bar it would give chocolate milk.

Well me and my brother decided to get some chocolate. So we got us a big Hershey's chocolate bar and tried to give it to the cow. In hind site its easy to see that she did not readily take it. Well not to be dismayed we poured molasses over it, still she would not eat it. So we were finally forced to try plan C and that was to cram the thing down that cows throat.

Well once that was done, we decided we had to mix it up a bit, so we tossed a rope over her nose and gave her a run around the pasture. Actually at 8 and 4 years old, she gave us a run for our money and it was all we could do to keep her in between the electric fences.

As you may know, the last thing to be done on a dairy farm is milk the cows, so we had all our other chores done and were eagerly waiting to see that chocolate milk come out of the cow. My Grandfather was curious as to why us boys were so excited and eager to watch him milk, but man were we some disappointed when only white milk came out. :)

[DaleK]

Cows LOVE chocolate if you mix it in the TMR. Used to be several herds around the Hershey plant in Smiths Falls that fed waste chocolate, 2-3 lbs per head per day I think. They'd milk like crazy.

Then the plant closed and they went into chocolate withdrawal, had to cull most of them.

No chocolate milk though.

[Drawbar]

Cows LOVE chocolate if you mix it in the TMR. Used to be several herds around the Hershey plant in Smiths Falls that fed waste chocolate, 2-3 lbs per head per day I think. They'd milk like crazy.

Then the plant closed and they went into chocolate withdrawal, had to cull most of them.

I am not surprised, they are girls after all and my wife would do the same thing if the Ghirardelli Brownie factory closed I am afraid. :)