Hello everyone!
I have often thought about grazing corn but have never tried it. One
drawback for me has been the fact that it is not ready for grazing until
late summer or early fall. So yesterday I got this brainwave to leave corn
in the field all winter and then, in the spring and summer, let the cattle
graze corn and pasture. (I don't have silo space for corn silage all year
round).
Has anyone else tried this? Do cattle graze old dried out corn? We can
sometimes get lots of snow here so will the crop loss be too great?
I look forward to your comments and feel free to laugh at my silly
brainwave!
- - - -
Hi Bill,
I tried this with sheep a couple years ago specifically for winter grazing
when snow was too deep to get to grass. Naturally it didn't snow that
winter till March! I turned the flock into 10 acres of grazing corn variety,
split into 4 paddocks. By the the time they finished the second paddock,
they were becoming more adept at grazing corn, it doesn't occur to a ewe to
look up for feed. A cow might be different. It also took a while for them
to figure out how to open up a husk and get the corn. Waste was very high
in the first two paddocks, and much better in the last two. Sheep consumed
the leaves well, but not the cob nor stalks. Cows might do a bit better
here also.
In hindsight, I should have had more paddocks and grazed a little tighter
which would have fed them longer and dropped the costs. The 10 acres fed 300
ewes for about 6 weeks, at a cost of $0.16/hd/day, which was slightly more
than the cost of feeding hay. I didn't keep tract of my labor, but was
considerably less than feeding hay and I never started the tractor, the
average gain was around 17 lbs, which was surprisingly more than what I
would have ideally wanted. There wasn't snow while I did this, so don't know
what lodging losses would be. There were also no root worm problems, this
was 1st year corn after about 6 years of hay. There was a slight decline
in feed quality of the leaves, and stalks, but still very exceptable for dry
animals.
If I had higher beef numbers I would certainly try this rather than feed
hay.
Gene Schriefer
Shepherd
Dodgeville, Wisconsin USA
Commercial Texel-x and Charollais-x Sheep
