Unrolling, well I bust the bale in different piles, gives me a chance to spend time with my cows. Most people that don't deal with momma cows don't realize how crazy one will get with a new baby on the ground. If you spend time with them it stops that. Before I took over the farm we used to have big problems with that. Spend 20-30 minutes extra time feeding saves me a TON when it comes time to work them. Like he said it's really just how it works best for you and your farm. When I'm in a hurry to get finished feeding I have rings sitting out for just that purpose.

@FarmerHunt

5 ай бұрын

It definitely makes a difference when you can spend some extra time with them

Rolling is definitely a good way to combat any bare spots in your fields. It gets extremely muddy where we live in the winter. We've had like 3 days straight rain and it's been just above freezing so the mud's been bad. I've done both, but in open pastures I prefer to spread hay out. Like you said though, "Pick your poison." Less waste on the hay ring. Thanks for the video. God bless - Everett

@FarmerHunt

Жыл бұрын

I agree. We may start rolling out a few bales from time to time in the areas where grass doesn't grow as well. We have had a lot of rain in January and it has made a muddy mess. We have been rotating our hay rings around some just to help spread out the mess and keep the feeding area cleaner. Thanks for watching and for the feedback!

I think ppl sometimes forget the quality of life for the farmer and his time.We run around 15 head on a small farm in WV. If I put out a haylage 4x5 in a feeder it will last them 2day with me feeding on the 3 day. It is hard to unroll just part of a bale so when I try to unroll they eat a day worth then mess up the rest leading to more feeding on the 2 day upping my hay needs by almost 50%. Unrolling would work great if your feeding the exact amount they eat in a day. For most of us we feeding whole bales at a time to cover multiples days. Sometimes it not about the best way to do it but how it works with your family life.

@FarmerHunt

Жыл бұрын

I agree! I put value on my time and if i had to go to all of my pastures everyday unrolling hay I would never get anything else done. We can usually put out 2 bales in a pasture and they will be good for 2-4 days. They may waste some hay but it saves us a lot of time.

If you have time to put it I. The ring you have time to unroll it a lil hay waste is better then the damage done with hay ring feeding

I was kind of expecting the results you noted, and I'd agree with Eric on the mature Johnson grass being tough, the simplicity of rings seems to be the best option, especially when you have the other obligations y'all have....and not a fan of Johnson or crab grass

@FarmerHunt

Жыл бұрын

Yes, it pretty much turned out like we expected. We were pleased to see how well they did cleaning up the rolled out hay though. We'll have a video coming out hopefully next week just showing our typical hay feed process. Have a good weekend!

My thought on unrolling hay is it’s nice when not raining and you need to get the cow to hay ratio down to a science so they eat it up quicker and dont have time to lay around on it. I unrolled for a while this year, but if it’s gonna rain you gotta use the rings. I’m thinking about trying a heavy use pad for feeding hay. I also need to store my hay under cover, but don’t have a barn right now. That would make the hay quality better which makes the consumption more efficient. Always enjoy the videos guys. Keep it up

@FarmerHunt

Жыл бұрын

Thank you for you input. Glad you enjoy our videos. We pretty much always use hay rings. May start unrolling a bale or two here and there based on the specific pasture and also the weather conditions. We tend to just feed in one spot for about 3-4 weeks and rotate. May even start rotating that spot more often and help spread out the manure and wasted hay.

@tracyjohnson5023

6 ай бұрын

When you don't have a way to keep hay in the dry, rolling it out puts the bad side on the bottom. When you don't unroll it they eat from inside out and waste or leave the rest anyway.

To echo y’all’s thoughts I can see why the regenerative guys like unrolling hay, but I’m not sure that it fits every scenario. On really small farms, it completely makes sense. I can even see it on really large operations, if you have the time and ability to move your cows off of it for some time.

@FarmerHunt

Жыл бұрын

I agree. Every farm is going to be different. It's hard to make one method fit in all scenarios. I think we will probably stick mostly to hay rings but after seeing how they did with the rolled out hay we won't be against it in the future.

So I have something to say about this. U can’t unroll and put it in hay rings in the same field. It don’t work. What you should do for trial is…. Figure how many pounds/cow you have in a pasture. So 100 cows in a pasture and the average 1200 pounds that’s 42 pounds of DM per Cow. So u would need 4200 pounds of hay. Your experiment with unrolling and putting hay in rings in the same pasture isn’t a true experiment. Buy unrolling all your cows have access to the hay at the same time. By putting in hay rings if u have 30 cows in a pasture and 2 hay rings there are gonna be cows waiting to eat just because of pecking order.

@FarmerHunt

Жыл бұрын

We were mainly wanting to see if the cows had a preference (Hay ring vs unrolled hay) and what was cleaned up as well as any impact the cows had on the soil (if it got bad muddy around the hay ring etc.). There are lots of variables and different ways to do it but we wanted to see if you put out 4 bales of hay for X amount of cows how did they respond.

@ochsnerbeef1257

Жыл бұрын

@@FarmerHunt experiments are my life. Speaking of experiments y’all need to look up ferappease!

@FarmerHunt

Жыл бұрын

Will do!

Need better Hay feeders !!!!

@FarmerHunt

3 ай бұрын

What do you recommend?

If your putting out more than they can eat/need in one day your waisting hay period, I don't care what feeding method you are using, not having time to feed daily is a like writing a check for taxes, it's not putting your money to the best use you can!

@mga7649

Жыл бұрын

we just roll out what they will eat in a day 24 hours. Pick up some 24% lick tubs and they will eat 90% rolled out hay.

@FarmerHunt

Жыл бұрын

I don't disagree, but if I can make more money elsewhere I am not opposed to putting out extra hay, wasting some and spending less time taking hay to pastures. We have a video coming out next week of part of our hay feeding process. We have several pastures that are spread out so it doesn't make sense to feed each pasture everyday.