1995 - Volume #19, Issue #3, Page #29
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He Lets Cattle Graze Standing Corn
You can eliminate combining and drying costs as well as save a lot of money on your feeding program by rotationally grazing cows on standing corn stalks, according to Chuck Cornillie."The concept will work anyplace corn is cheap and hay is high-priced," says the Byron, Mich., beef producer who began rotationally grazing his 75 cows in strips of standing corn last fall.
Cornillie grows corn in six- and eight-row strips alternating with strips of soy-beans. Strip cropping is perfect for rotationally grazing corn, he says, partly because it allows the field closest to the barn to be used for corn-grazing every year. He plants corn into soybean strips the following year.
With the rotational grazing program, cows eat about 18 lbs. of corn and 8 to 9 lbs. of corn stalks, supplemented with 7 lbs. of hay, per day per head. That compares with 36 tbs. of hay, supplemented with about 5 lbs. of corn, per day per head be-fore.
That cut early winter feeding costs from about $1.17 per cow per day to about 72 cents. Savings for the whole herd is about $34 a day.
Cornillie, who calves in the third week in January, says grazing corn in December helps get the cows in condition for calving. (Wallace's Farmer)
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