Groundhog Day on Feb. 2 pegged the midpoint of winter, so now may be a good time to inventory your remaining hay and forage. Remember, you can’t effectively manage what you do not measure.
Do you have enough hay and forage to last the remainder of winter? Your final answer may depend on weather factors beyond your control such as heavy snow cover impacting pasture grazing. Will your pastures still need extra early season rest due to previous drought?
When making your feed management decisions, consider using best case and worst case scenarios.
Focus on completing a thorough inventory, account for all feed resources—even counting all bales available. Calculate remaining bunker silage. Also, estimate remaining forage grazing and assign economic values.
Compare what feed resources you have versus what your herd may need. For example, a 200 head lactating cow herd with an average cow size of 1,200 pounds will need about 3.2 tons of hay per day (not accounting for waste).
Focus on making the best use of your feed resources. Would it be financially beneficial to sell extra highest quality forage and feed the rest? If mild winter conditions continue, selling your higher value forage could generate more cash flow toward paying taxes and land payments. On the flip side, if your feed reserves are too low, will you need to cull your cow herd more and/or buy more forage?
If your cows are thin, consider the opposite: sell your lower quality forage and feed your higher quality.
Thin condition score cows need more protein and energy to keep from dropping body condition and maintaining their milk production.
If you need assistance managing your remaining feed resources and evaluating your hay and forage needs, Nebraska Extension educational resources are available online at: cropwatch.unl.edu and beef.unl.edu. — Todd Whitney, Nebraska Extension educator
