Stretch Cattle Feed to Preserve Pasture

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For producers running out of their winter feed, it can certainly be tempting to get cattle out to pasture now.  But in many parts of the prairies, ranchers are advised to wait, giving stressed pastures that have endured drought or overgrazing last year a chance to recover and come back.  One alternative that might be worth looking into, however, is drylotting – if your local feedlot has enough silage left over to get you through.

Here are some of the advantages of drylotting:

• Besides giving your own pasture time to recover, it can also lower your production costs, since silage and by-product feeds are cheaper than hay.
• It provides an opportunity to improve body condition which can have a positive impact on breeding; it can also contribute to better synchronization for artificial insemination, but also increases the number of cows that are available to bulls for natural service.
• It makes weaning easier since the cows are accustomed to using feed bunks.
• Overall, it can provide more control over the herd in terms of health and general management.

The disadvantages tend to be specific to this time of year.

• In order to oversee the herd’s health and ensure good ration balancing, more management is required than would be if the cattle were put out to pasture.
• Since cattle remain indoors, issues of crowding, stress, and disease spread can arise.  It’s also a slightly more difficult environment, just in terms of dust and mud, flies, and other messy things of that nature.
• For lactation and creep rations, more feed needs to be harvested than usual.

Adequate nutrition is essential to ensure that cows are producing the optimum amount of milk and adhering to a healthy estrus and breeding cycle.  When it comes to balancing cattle rations there are a variety of feeds that can be added to the mix: by-products like straw, mill run and dried distillers grains with solubles can help out feed supplies and are relatively low-cost.  A lot of these by-products can be acquired for a good cost at this time of year since they tend to be in low demand.

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