Questions about swath grazing?

[ASRG]

I wonder just how much money a person can make swath grazing?
I'll put some numbers out there and please tell me where I'm wrong or whatever?
Rent on crop land- I my area it usually is in that $80/ac range for barley. Either cash/crop share/ 22bu cash barley. Canola is more.
Fertilizer and application-$62(low for a crop)
-spaying-$20 (only a cheap broadleaf and appliction)
-seed $16 (2bu/ac barley)
-One pass heavey harrows-$6
-seeding $16 (airseeder)
-swathing $12/ac

So by the time I have it in the swath I have $195/ac invested?
If I feed a cow for 200 days at 35 lb, I need 7000 lb. of feed?
How much feed can I expect per acre?
Would one acre of swath grazing be enough for one cow for 200 days? How much waste?

[kato]

The easiest way to figure this out is by converting it to bales. Greenfeed for us usually gives about 4 or 5 bales/acre, and those are soft core bales which aren't as big as some. At 195 per acre, without including baling costs, that makes bales worth almost 50 dollars each. I don't know what hay sells for where you are, but it sure doesn't sell for $50 here.Is there any way to cut the input costs?

Last year we grew 50 acres of millet for greenfeed. We put no spray, only 50 pounds of 11-51-00, and the seed cost about 15 per acre, if I remember correctly. We got 200 bales. Without baling costs, that's less than 11 dollars each. Even with baling costs and rent, I think it's a long way off of $50.

We don't swath graze, due to our massive deer herd, but we do graze corn. Have you thought about corn?

If someone came along and offered us $80 for rent, it would be tempting. Unless you've got potato land, rent is more like $50 at the very very most in our area, and usually less than that.

[greybeard]

I think your about a third high on your cash inputs but I'm still not excited about swath grazing. Timing of seeding, cutting, laying before use can make for a bunch of feed waste. Similar to alfalfa, it can be great or it can be crap.
What do you like about corn and how does it pencil out for you Kato? Do you feed with a wire or do you just turn them in like they do with the stalks.

[kato]

We use permanent electric and some barb wire perimeter fence, and portable electric to divide it up. Our costs work out to about 50 to 65 cents per day per cow, but it all depends on the yield we get. Every year is different, but it's always been cheaper than hay.

If you let them have the run of the field, they'll eat all the cobs off, and then you have to convince them to go back for the stalks. A neighbour of ours had fence problems one year and just let them go at the whole field, and he had a huge breakout of c-sections. They were eating too well. That scared us off of letting them have free run of the field.

We give them a compartment big enough that they will clean it up in three days. Day one they eat pretty much all cobs. Day two they eat cobs and stalks, and day three they clean up. The best thing is that instead of starting the tractor every day, you start the quad every three.

You have to make sure they get their minerals though. We use 3:1 mineral. Even then, we've had a couple of cows who likely didn't want mineral, and ended up going down on us and having to be treated with calphos. It was just like milk fever, and it responded just as fast to the treatment, luckily.

We just finished planting this years corn this morning. Finally.

[greybeard]

Do you use the same variety every year and how do you choose it? Seed into tilled or no-till?

[kato]

Dekalb roundup ready. We don't have tillage equipment to do it any other way, though it would be nice to be able to avoid the roundup. Grown on tilled. Corn doesn't compete well with weeds, and zero till land around here takes too long to warm up in the spring anyway.

[kato]

Hopefully this works



Three days after this picture was taken the ground was bare.

[kato]

Ok, we'll try this one.

<a href="http://s17.photobucket.com/albums/b67/Kato1/?action=view&current=cowsinthecorn.jpg&quo t; target="_blank"></a>

[smcgrath76]

Those costs are way higher than ours.
Our costs this year are (including
labour and equipment depreciation).
$15 cultivator pass
$15 seed drill pass
$5.10 Oat seed
$5.25 Barley seed
$3.55 Rye seed
$15 haybine pass (projected)

This works out to $58.90 per acre. We
average 160 AUGD per acre or $0.368 per
day. If I rent land for $45 per acre
(we do rent some) it raises the cost to
$103.90 per acre or $0.649 per day. On
a below average year we get fewer days,
but would also get a moisture insurance
check. On a better year it works out
slightly cheaper. We have not
fertilized swath grazing in 20 years and
have not had to spray in the last 6. We
would have a mineral cost on those cows
over the winter too, and it will change
a bit depending on what the swaths test
out at.
Our advantage is that our equipment is
old and paid for, we have built a lot of
soil nutrients through swath grazing,
and because of the way we graze our weed
pressure is kept to a very bare minimum.
We don't have a grain truck or a drill
fill.

[BTOfarmallll]

How would you like to eat outta a snow bank in the dead of Winter??? Thats what I thought. Put the feed up in Bales, seein yous ain't wanna work anyway, putting the hay up is alot easier than moving fence every couple days. Yous waste so much wit Swath Grazing, its sickening to see really. Kato what town the pic taken??? Put the Corn ina pile, why waste all that feed cause yous scared of turning a little key on the tractor to start it each & every day. Ain't that hard to do. Runnin the Tractor/s every day is the most cost effective way to runa Ranch, actually THEE only way. The Old Nags need fed, get outta bed.......

[ALLFARMER]

I tried swath grazing last year mainly because I had so many roots left in the field I had to to save my fancy baler. We had oat swaths and the cows were in very good condition when they finished that field. We only swath grazed the first third or the winter.

I was not happy last week with the long straw the cows left behind, I ran the deep tillage through it and ended up using my smaller light crappy disk to chop it it, I need to sell that unit. I guy I know around here has one tillage tool a heavier disk, whatever he wants to seed he just disks until seed bed condition, a cost effective option to my way of thinking... one tool. Nearly have all the roots picked...The quad with a wagon works the best...my kids need a small taste of my upbringing.

I will just bale my green feed this year. I plan to bunk feed all my animals that way I have nearly zero waste. The land I will haul the manure onto would be very difficult to get a crop out of worth swath grazing. Also from now on my cows will always have access to water, not just snow. Also this way they have better shelter, lighting for me to check them and pull a poor condition animal all 5 minutes from the house. Easily put in a handling system. It only takes 3 minutes to shred a bale and I don't pull twine. Not the system for everyone but this works for me and If it ever rains soon I will have 200 to 225 animals on feed this way this winter. Cheers

[ASRG]

Maybe I'm looking at this wrong or something by putting an $80/ac rent on the land....but that is the going rate here....I could get an $80 cash rent...so whether my own land or someone elses that is an actual cost? Probably too expensive land for feeding cows.
Without fertilizer and some broadleaf control how much volume(weight) could one acre produce? Would 1 acre produce enough volume to bring one cow through or would it take more acres?
If it takes 7000 lb to feed a cow for 200 days....but instead of 1 acre it takes 2 acres to produce that volume the economics change quite a bit?
Now it would be:
rent 2 acres@$80/ac $160
no fertilizer
no spray
seed @$16/ac X 2 $ 32
Heavy harrow $6 X2 $ 12
direct seed $16 X 2 $ 32
Swath $12 X2 $ 24

TOTAL $260

Maybe I'm all wrong on my volume numbers or something? I don't know?
And probably something other than barley should be used for my calculations?

[per]

If $80 is the going rate then that is the number you need to use. Not using fertilizer only works for me on continuous swath grazing ground where there is an abundance of natural fertilizer. Using your high value land I suggest a higher value crop needs to be grown.

[BTOfarmallll]

Where yous at ASRG that land is renting fer $80 an acre?????????

[ASRG]

Just east of Red Deer Alberta.Actually the $80/ac is on a cash up front rent but the other two ways are 1/3 crop share less 1/3 fert and spray...or 22 bu. feed barley cash based on Jan 1 price next year.
Typically barley(Bold) yields in that 90-110 bu area and canola 50-65.