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Livestock often need to be fed hay during the winter and during droughts. Hay, pasture and supplemental feeds contain nutrients needed by both plants and animals.
Cattle producers are familiar with livestock nutrition. They need to know the animals’ nutrient requirements and forage test the hay fed to the animals.
Being able to measure forage mass available for grazing is needed for pasture budgeting. Forage height is one way to estimate forage mass when calibrated for the stand being grazed.
Pasture is the most cost-effective feed for ruminant livestock. But at times, nutrients in pasture exceed the livestock’s needs. To measure pasture quality, we can sample and test pasture forage as we do hay.
How do you decide when to move animals onto a new pasture? How long do you expect the pasture to feed them before they should be moved again? Most likely your answer is “it depends.” It depends on forage available in the pasture, forage available in alternative pastures, animal feed demand and animal production goals.
Plastic-wrapped round bale silage (also know as baleage) is harvested forage preserved by anaerobic fermentation of sugar and starch in the forage-making acids that lowers pH levels and preserves the forage.
