In the coming months feed cost and availability will be a challenge. One opportunity livestock producers can use to get ahead is to store wet or modified distiller’s grains now to be fed at a later date.
The Livestock Marketing Information Center (LMIC) lowered hay yields across the board this week and edged prices up as this spring continues to have devastating impact on fields and fieldwork.
The Feed Emergency Enhancement During Disasters Act (FEEDD Act) would allow producers who are utilizing prevent plant to at least graze, hay or chop a cover crop to feed livestock.
With the excessively wet planting conditions much of the Midwest is now experiencing, many producers are looking for “Plan B” to meet forage needs for their livestock.
When animals have health or performance problems it is almost always because the person in charge of taking care of them is not showing the proper interest in what they need.
In hindsight, selling every head of cattle a person owned in 2014 and then buying back animals in late 2015 would have resulted in windfall gains for most commercial cattle producers.
As farmers throughout the country experienced record-cold temperatures, blizzards that seemed to last weeks rather than days, and unrelenting wind, many fed more hay than they usually do.
Adding different forages to existing grass stands can help reduce the amount of hay needed during the winter by expanding the grazing season during the late fall, winter and early spring.
Grass tetany might be easily defined as a deficiency of magnesium, but for Dick Kurtz of Oregon, Mo., it just means trouble. He lost three cows in March to the disorder and is carefully watching a few more.
