How We Bale Graze Cattle

How we bake graze cattle. This is our experience as a winter feeding program for cattle. We are located in Alberta Canada where the ground freezes solid for 5 months during winter. This is our advantage as we don’t wreck soil as it melts/thaws. The 2 main advantage for bale grazing is first: low equipment costs, equipment is only needed to set out the hay and therefor you don’t need to own a tractor. Second advantage is the left over hay, manure and urine is the ultimate fertilizer spread out evenly. Most nitrogen comes from the urine soaking is and water holding capacity from the organic matter left over. We hope to see a double in forage production next year. The feed rate is controlled using electric fence, be sure to train livestock on electric fence first. Issues known in winter with electric fence is poor grounding due to frozen ground/ lack of water. The solution to this could be a bi-polar electric fence where you run two wires from the charger, one hot and one ground. This way the circuit is completed when an animal touches both wires. To allocate feeding we setup 1 bale accessible for every 10 cows. For example we have 35 cows and feed three at a time allowing each cow access to a bale at once. This helps ensure all are fed well. We found the cattle clean up the feed better when it is cold then warm. We simply wait longer when needed to ensure more is cleaned up. We feel it is ok to have some waste as it is a fertilizer. I don’t need to be the most efficient, I prefer to be effective. Our goal is to improve the pasture and winter cattle economically, eliminating equipment costs was a huge advantage for us. Stay tuned for how this pasture looks next year. Thanks for watching.