Ways to Extend Fall and Winter Grazing
By Heather Smith Thomas
Some years, native pastures and hay aftermath don’t produce as much forage as a producer would hope, especially if there’s not much rain in regions without irrigation, or drought reduces the irrigation water supply. Yet, many ranchers are trying to find ways to extend the grazing season and reduce winter feed costs; feeding hay is a lot more expensive than letting the cows harvest the feed themselves.
Dr. Tim Delcurto (Range Beef Cattle Nutrition & Management, Department of Animal & Range Sciences, Montana State University) says there is growing interest in trying to have cattle graze longer into the fall and winter. “Harvested hay is expensive, and many ranchers are looking at alternatives. Traditionally many western ranchers put up hay all summer and fed hay all winter, but that’s less appealing for ranchers today—especially as they get older and their machinery gets older, and the cost of replacing the machinery keeps getting higher.”
There are some western range operations that can extend their grazing well into winter, but there is always some risk. “There might be a huge storm and deep snow that covers the grass. But the benefits of being able to graze longer are substantial. At our research center at Havre and with our MSU herd, a large part of our research efforts are focused on extending grazing. One winter a few years ago we only fed hay for one month at our MSU Red Bluff Research Center,” he says.
Ranchers are looking at reducing costs, reducing reliance on harvested feed, and less use of fossil fuels, and trying to find ways to have the cattle harvest their own feed. One strategy to increase forage production for grazing if you do some farming on your land is to grow annual crops—which may include cereals and brassicas. Growing cover crops does require some farming equipment and fuel, but if they are doing some farming anyway, it can be cost-effective to grow some triticale, forage barley, etc. for fall grazing.
Extending the grazing season with annuals can help reduce production costs. In dry climates, ranchers may run short on late summer and fall pasture since productivity of cool season perennial grasses is often limited during heat of summer.
Kevin Sedivec, North Dakota State University, says the crops traditionally used as cover crops in a farming system (turnips, radishes and other brassicas in combination with cereal crops and warm-season forages) can often supply late summer and fall grazing, sometimes well into winter. These can be planted in early to mid-summer. Other options, for late fall and winter grazing, include winter cereals.
On a dry year, some producers might plant winter cereals with hope of some fall moisture, to get ready for next year, to increase their forage base. They may need some options for next year, for early spring grazing, or to produce more hay early next year. If a person is running out of feed, winter cereals can be helpful, such as winter rye that could be seeded in the fall for next year.
To extend grazing for this fall, one option might be crop resides. Even if you don’t have crops, you might have a neighbor who does. “A few years ago at our research station we grazed crop residues until February. You have to remember, however, that usually the quality is low, and you need to add a protein supplement. With a supplement, cows can use the low-quality feed much more efficiently, since protein enables the rumen to function better,” says Sedivec.
Cattle need some kind of forage, and a protein source can be added, for optimal rumen function. “We’ve grazed wheat stubble, cornstalks, oat stubble, and a few areas of grass out in the middle of the crop ground. The cattle were able to utilize that forage for 4 months (November through February) and saved us roughly $40,000 in hay for our 450 cows. As long as a person can provide protein, the cows will eat those crop residues.” If you don’t supply a supplement, cattle can’t eat enough low-quality forage to maintain themselves, since the rumen can’t process enough—and the cattle lose weight.
“Our cattle actually gained weight on crop residues, thanks to protein supplement. In the West in drought years, the main options are often crop residue, or a failed crop—maybe wheat or corn that didn’t grow well enough to harvest. Just about any type of failed crop can be eaten by cattle; ruminant animals can utilize about anything if you can keep the rumen happy with enough protein to feed the ‘gut bugs’ so they can multiply and break down the feed,” he explains.
“One year we planted a cover crop in June but it didn’t rain so it didn’t grow. It finally got some rain in September and started to grow. We got lucky, and were able to graze that cover crop in the fall, for more than a month,” says Sedivec. “A person always needs to be prepared for drought; those who don’t may end up selling cattle.”
There are some interesting plant mixes that a person can utilize today (for annual or permanent pasture), that weren’t available in earlier years—and some of these might do well in your region or climate. “We try to make sure we have a nice mix of cool season and warm season grasses, plus a broadleaf like a brassica. We don’t necessarily need a legume in a late-season cover crop because it usually won’t pay for itself, but might use one in a full-season cover crop. A legume needs more days to grow and is also the most expensive seed in the mix, so there are times I don’t include a legume at all, just to save money,” he explains.
If you are using a cover crop to extend grazing, a brassica (such as a turnip, radish or kale) is very high in protein, so you wouldn’t need a legume or a protein supplement. “You get enough fiber from the warm season grass, and protein from the brassica, and have a nice, well-balanced diet, which in our country will do very well even into December. It has to be seeded in June or July, however,” he says.
Whatever a cow can graze will work (and you can add protein if necessary), but he recommends looking at winter cereals for next spring. “What we’ve found most cost effective, in terms of production and early grazing is the winter rye. You can graze it earlier than anything else. If you are looking for something to put up for hay, the forage variety winter wheats are better, because they are higher quality and higher in palatability. They are usually about 3 weeks behind the rye,” says Sedivec.
“Winter triticale can fit in there, as well. It’s usually about 3 to 5 days later than the rye, but at least 2 weeks ahead of the winter wheat, and has higher quality than rye—but the seed is more expensive than the rye.” A person needs to weigh all the factors, including climate and what’s available for seed. Some years, seed may be hard to find in the fall. With a drought, seed crops might be short.
When grazing any drought-stressed crop, a person also should test for nitrates. “Almost all our crops on dry years are high in nitrates, throughout the state. Some are high but not deadly; many of them may be in the middle level where you wouldn’t want to graze pregnant cows, but some can be so high that if producers don’t test them, and just graze them, they suddenly have some dead cows,” Sedivic says. You can’t just assume a certain crop or pasture is ok.
One of the challenges in making recommendations for extending the grazing season is that there are no two farms or ranches alike. “What might work for one may not work for another,” says DelCurto. It depends on their climate and resources, labor, etc. For most ranches in the West that depend on native bunch grasses for summer grazing, the period of time these ranges are most vulnerable to damage from grazing is during the growing season.
“If we can graze some of these pastures in the fall and reduce the time we graze them while they are actively growing, this may be better from an overall management perspective,” says DelCurto.
Many native pastures thrive and improve if they are rested during the growing season and grazed in the fall and winter when the plants are mature. The cattle can graze it fairly heavily then, and tramp the seeds into the ground. “We need more research on dormant season grazing, but what little that has been done suggests that grazing has minimal impact on the plant community. The cattle also take the decadent plant material and process it to where it is more readily incorporated into the soil as organic matter.” Grazing it off in the fall also reduces fuel loads and reduces the chance for serious wildfires. When feasible, more and more ranchers are doing fall/winter grazing on various rangelands, utilizing protein supplements when needed, and saving money on hay during those grazing days.
“Strategic supplementation makes this work, but there is no magic protein or best kind. I am a fan of beef-quality alfalfa hay. Even if it might be expensive, you usually get more for your money with alfalfa than most of the other protein sources.”
Each rancher must figure out what would be the cheapest protein per unit. “The best way to think about this is to look at the nutrient requirements of the cattle. Let’s say your cows require 2 pounds of protein per day. Maybe the low-quality forage is only 6% protein and those cows will eat about 20 pounds of it per day. If it’s 6% protein, that means they are only getting about 1.2 pounds from the forage, so they need an additional 0.8 pounds of protein in supplemental form,” he explains. With optimal supplementation, a 1200 pound cow would consume 2% of her body weight, which would equate to 24 pounds of dry matter, from the forage itself.
“If you have alfalfa hay that’s 20% protein, or a cake/pellet that’s 30% protein, price it out and see what might be most cost-effective in terms of how much needs to be fed daily to meet the requirement of the cattle. We’ve found that the protein doesn’t have to be fed daily; it can be fed every 2 or 3 days.” Feeding more at once (to average the necessary 2 pounds per day) is actually better when you are group feeding, because it can be spread out more—enabling all the cattle to have a chance at it, and not just the bossier cows. There is more uniform consumption.
“Here at Montana State, we’ve done quite a bit of work in the past few years looking at salt-limiting supplements (blocks, tubs, etc.) and cake. We found that many of our earlier concerns about these supplements were unfounded. At our Northern Agricultural Research Center in Havre, the last 5 years we’ve been feeding up to 300 head during the winter, and the group consisted of all ages—from yearlings all the way up to 13-year-old cows—and for the most part we see uniform consumption. The young animals (yearlings and up to 4-year-old cows) actually ate the most; the middle-aged and older cows consumed less supplement. This is totally contrary to what we always believed, but we have a growing data set with salt-limited supplements that show that they work,” he says.
“The only exception we found (in multiple studies) is that young cows, particularly yearlings, don’t eat molasses blocks very well. It’s foreign to them and they have to learn to eat it. Once they get a little older (such as 2-year-old first calvers) they generally eat it, but the yearlings are not used to this form of supplement and often eat less than the label amount,” says DelCurto.
“We just did a study with supplement that was primarily canola meal with 25% salt and the yearlings ate as much as the older cows. We did that for 2 years and the yearlings and young cows ate more than the older ones, particularly when the weather was cold,” he says.
“We followed that up with a study using a baked molasses block, and yearling intake was poor. They were not familiar with molasses, and also it was harder to eat. They couldn’t just lick it up; they had to scrape and chew on those blocks.”
The winter environment affects nutrient needs of cattle. “Extending the grazing period is an opportunity to make a ranch more efficient, but people also need to realize that in the West at higher elevations there may sometimes be challenges when grazing stockpiled forage or using native rangelands. When artic blasts come through and the grass gets covered with snow, or the temperatures drop dramatically, those cows require more feed,” says Delcurto.
“The last time the National Research Council even addressed environmental effects on nutrient requirements of beef cattle was 1981—which was a long time ago. But what we know, based on winter hair coat and other things, if cattle have a normal winter coat the rule of thumb is that for every degree that the temperature drops (below 32 degrees), the need for energy increases 1%,” he says.
“Just in the past 5 years that I’ve been here in Montana, we’ve had two ‘100-year winter events’ that were really hard on cattle. I remember getting a call from a producer in the Glasgow area, up on the Montana High Line. We’d had a week of minus 30 degree temperatures with fairly high wind (the wind chill equivalent of minus 50 below zero or colder) and he was asking how he should feed his cows. This is a tough question. A person needs to bring the cattle into the winter in the best condition possible, so they have some reserve, in case we get one of those winters. During a weather event like that, with wind, those cows hunker down (hopefully behind a windbreak) and don’t eat or drink much because it’s just too cold.”
These are things to think about and be prepared for, and try to manage around, but as a general rule cattle can do well on an extended grazing program—only fed hay when conditions make grazing impossible. Most ranchers want cattle that can harvest their own feed. “As the old saying goes–I want cows that work for me, rather than me working for them. But for this to work, you have to provide the right nutrition, and tailor your program to your own environment and your cattle.” Hopefully you’ve selected efficient cattle that work in your environment!
REGIONAL DIFFERENCES –
Dr. Stephen B. Blezinger, a cattle nutritionist in Texas, says there are a variety of plant species that can be utilized for forage late in the season. In Gulf Coast states that have warm climate and lots of rain, forages will be different from the plant species used in northern or drier climates.
The warm rainy area includes much of Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia and Florida. “In Texas, if we draw a line north and south through the middle of the panhandle (about through Wichita Falls and on south), differences will be applicable to everything east of that line. When we get into west Texas the climate is so much drier that our plant species change and we are mainly looking at range pastures, except where wheat or other annual pastures have been planted,” he says.
“Most of the perennial grasses used in the Gulf region for hay and pasture will be some strain of Bermuda grass. The dominant one is still Coastal Bermuda grass, but there are several others including common Bermuda. We also see a lot of Bahai grass and some other types of perennials like rescue grass and Johnson grass. Areas that were at one point in row crop production often go to Johnson grass. It’s a very hardy grass and tillers like quack grass,” says Blezinger. It is considered a weed but it does make forage for cattle.
“Some people plant various types of sudan grass or a sudan-sorghum hybrid. This is a summer annual. Generally, folks will get one really good cutting of this and maybe a second cutting if they get it in early enough, if all the conditions are right. It produces a lot of volume, especially some of the new varieties like the brown midrib. Digestibility is higher. Protein values are not very high, however, usually testing about 7 or 8%. But a lot of people put in some of this for hay production. If conditions are right, with enough moisture, the regrowth after haying will provide some pasture,” he says.
“The problem with this particular species is that you need to be careful with initial plant growth because it does have a tendency to accumulate nitrates. I tell people to always test it for nitrates, particularly after it has been stressed by drought or at least late in the season. You can get some extension of pasture into the fall with this, but you have to be careful with it,” explains Blezinger.
WINDROWS AND RAKE-BUNCHED HAY –
While DelCurto was at the Eastern Oregon Agriculture Center, Oregon State University, OSU’s two range livestock research stations did studies on rake-bunched forage for fall and winter grazing. The hay is cut, then raked into small piles (about 80 to 120 pounds).
“The difference between rake-bunching and windrow grazing is that the rake-bunched piles work better where there’s more snow. It can be difficult for cows to find windrows when the snow is very deep. We used an old bunch-rake and put the hay in piles—a little smaller than those made by the old buck-rakes that were used to gather loose hay for stacking,” he says.
“The old bunch rakes, or just a little hay buck mounted on the front of the tractor will work. All you need is something that will scoop up the hay to leave it in a pile.. We just went down the windrows and pushed the hay into little piles, which is very quick and simple. The piles are like little haystacks and comparable with baled hay; there is very little loss of nutrients. It keeps very well,” says DelCurto.
Even in areas that get winter snow, cows can find these piles easier than they can find buried windrows. “These bunches also keep better than windrows, especially in environments that get significant amounts of winter precipitation.” There’s less spoilage because of less surface area exposed to the weather and less ground surface contact.
Whether a person can utilize rake-bunched hay or windrows will depend on the amount of precipitation, and wind. Windrows and hay piles are both vulnerable to being scattered by high wind.
With windrow grazing or rake-bunched hay, it helps to utilize electric fence to strip graze across the field. “This cuts down on waste and isn’t very labor intensive compared with feeding hay to the cows. Moving electric fence about once a week may be adequate. You just open up a new area—perhaps 2 or 3 rows of bunches, or 2 or 3 windrows—depending on the size of the field and number of cattle. Once they clean that up you let them into a new section, but allow them continued use of the grazed portion. The cows/calves can go back and clean up anything they missed.”
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