Poor Hay, Good Cows: How to Make Rough Feed Work in an Angus Herd

Sooner or later you end up with hay you are not proud of. It got rained on, it was cut too late, or the field was tired. Dumping it costs money and feeding it blind costs cows. A cow can do fine on rough feed as long as you know what it lacks and cover that. Here is the way I would handle it.

Get it tested

You cannot judge hay by sniffing it. NDSU Extension says to send all your forage to a lab before picking a supplement. A test costs a little. A wrong supplement costs a lot more. A mineral analysis is extra, but it can steer you to the right mineral.

Two lines to remember

NDSU gives two rules. When crude protein in the forage drops below about 7 percent, the bugs in the rumen slow down, and the cow digests less and eats less. When TDN falls below about 50 percent, there is not enough energy in it for most cattle. They are not cliffs, but they tell you where to start looking.

Why it works that way: the rumen microbes break down fiber and make the energy. Starve them of protein and they work slow. Old plants also have more lignin, which shields the fiber from the microbes. Utah State Extension notes that intake climbs with forage quality, from about 1.55 percent of body weight at 42 percent TDN up to 2.35 percent at 67 percent TDN. See their winter supplementation article. Poor hay is a cow eating less, as much as it is a cow eating poor feed.

If protein is short, fix protein

USU says supplying protein can raise intake by about 20 percent and, if the forage is about 50 percent TDN or better and the cow is in decent shape, protein often fixes most of an energy gap too. NDSU says a real protein supplement runs 25 to 30 percent crude protein: oilseed meals, distillers grains, corn gluten feed or good hay. Urea is cheap but less efficient on poor forage, and there are limits on how much to feed. USU says to keep urea-based NPN to about a third of total protein. Read the tag.

If energy is short, add energy

Under about 50 percent TDN, protein will not carry it. NDSU lists corn and other high-starch grains, fiber feeds like soybean hulls, wheat midds and beet pulp, or good alfalfa. Watch the starch. Feed more than about 0.4 percent of body weight and the cows eat less hay. Fiber feeds avoid most of that problem.

Put the best hay where it counts

• Late-gestation and lactating cows get the good hay.
• First-calf heifers and thin cows come next.
• Mature cows in good flesh can eat the roughest bales.

NDSU says protein and energy needs rise 15 to 20 percent from mid-gestation to late gestation. Hay that carried her in October might be short in January. Test again when she changes stage.

Keep it out of the mud

Rough hay wastes more than good hay. Cows pick and drop. Use a feeder or ring. Missouri Extension's cow nutrition guide says daily feeding cuts waste compared with putting out several days at once, and plans around 33 pounds per cow per day with 15 percent waste. Store bales off the ground and under cover. Our piece on hay math shows how to figure what you need.

Check the vitamins

Weathered hay is short on vitamin A. NDSU says vitamin potency can drop up to 25 percent after three months in storage, so look at the date on the bag. Pick a mineral that fits the forage.

When to quit

Some hay is not worth feeding: moldy, full of weeds, or so poor that supplement costs more than good hay. Add up the hay and the supplement per cow per day and compare it to better hay. Farm.fm's page on feeding programs for Angus herds has more on rations, and agriculture.directory can point you to a lab or an extension office.

A quick example

Say a test comes back with crude protein around 6 percent and energy a little above the 50 percent line. That tells you protein is the first thing to fix, and you probably do not need to buy grain. A pound or so of a high-protein feed per cow, fed a few times a week, might do it, and the price per pound of protein tells you which feed to buy. If the same hay came back with protein fine and energy at 45 percent, the answer flips, and you would be shopping for an energy feed instead. Same hay, two different fixes. That is why the test is worth the money, and why guessing from a neighbor's program costs more than it saves.

Mixing and feeding rough hay

If you grind or process hay, count what that costs per ton against what you save in waste. On some places it pays and on a lot of them it does not. Feeding rough hay alongside a better cutting, or in a different pen than the late-gestation cows, often gets you most of the way without buying a machine.

Bottom line

Poor hay is a problem you can manage. Test it, find the short nutrient, feed that, put the best hay with the cows that need it, and keep it off the ground. Numbers shift with cow size, weather and stage, so check them with an extension agent or nutritionist before you build a plan.