Feed Needs

[Elk Wallow]

Well, I have what I call the Dept. of Food and Transportation. This consists of horses (transportation), chickens and a milk cow (dept. of food). I'd show departmental pictures but I don't know how. I do know this. These creatures cannot run all year on grass alone. In the winter, the grass is dead. There is hay. But even hay alone won't work. Horses need some protein and energy to stay in condition. In the winter, chickens cannot live without grain since there are no bugs. Cattle need some protein to feed their rumen bacteria to digest the roughage of either dead grass or hay. Heck, with a Jersey cow you can hardly keep any flesh on them at any time of the year when they are in milk. In a SHTF situation it would be slim pickings out here.

[Elk Wallow]

Here is how to tell if your cattle have enough protein to digest their roughage. Its how flat the cow pies are. Well digested feed makes a nice, flat chocolate pie. A taller 'mound'
is not good. A pyramidal pie- she is slowly starving. That is why beef ranchers feed their cattle cubes.

Feeding a dairy cow is a whole different science. Since no dairy feeds are available here in beef country, I am trying to figure out my own home made ration made out of whats available and cheap- cottonseed and corn and oats. But heres another problem. The more grain you feed a Jersey, the more milk she makes. She does not gain weight. I don't know how the professionals manage.

Please do not say I need a mini Jersey or a Dexter. Jerseys are already 800 lbs and to breed this even smaller with even smaller bone to me is nuts. Dexters- I know they have their fans but personally- I have never seen one that didn't have a bad bag and/or balloon teats. I like Jerseys because they are ice cream factories.

[Kessler]

There ain't nothing prettier than a Jersey heifer and nothing meaner than a Jersey bull.
Just saying...

[Elk Wallow]

Its funny how the Jersey females are SO SWEET with those great big eyes and the bulls are just scanning the horizon for somebody to kill. Never, ever, EVER make a pet out of a bull calf. They must be raised with other larger cattle so they learn they are a cattle, not to dominate humans.

[Tex]

Well, I have what I call the Dept. of Food and Transportation. This consists of horses (transportation), chickens and a milk cow (dept. of food). I'd show departmental pictures but I don't know how. I do know this. These creatures cannot run all year on grass alone. In the winter, the grass is dead. There is hay. But even hay alone won't work. Horses need some protein and energy to stay in condition. In the winter, chickens cannot live without grain since there are no bugs. Cattle need some protein to feed their rumen bacteria to digest the roughage of either dead grass or hay. Heck, with a Jersey cow you can hardly keep any flesh on them at any time of the year when they are in milk. In a SHTF situation it would be slim pickings out here.

I'm curious how as to what you think cattle and horses ate before man came along and started feeding grain. And I hope nobody ever tells our cattle and horses what you have said here, because it is rare when they get something besides standing dead grass (hay in a very natural setting) to eat in the winter.

Feeding extra protein and hay to cattle started when people began trying to run more cattle and livestock than the land could naturally support. We normally run anywhere between 20 and 30 horses here on the ranch, but have recently sold down to around 15 now and we have not fed those horses more than 2 bales per winter for the last several winters. And they are only fed grain when they are being used extremely hard and that only consists of a small can of oats when we unsaddle them. The cattle will get a few lick tubs of a molasses mix during the winter, but they were fed very few bales of hay during the winter and that is only when the weather gets extremely bad.



Tex

[redman2006]

Tex, that is the benefit of western grasses. The stuff here like fescue is just crap when you try to leave it as standing hay. Big blue stem was pretty bad back home too. This short bunch grasses are a whole lot better for standing hay.

[Tex]

Redman, some areas are not suited for livestock, just as some areas are not suited for cotton farming. My point was that livestock do not need grain and hay. When i was young and starting colts and then when I was shoeing horses, I saw more cripple horses than a person would believe simply because people thought their horses needed all that grain. The same is true with cattle, if cattle can make it in these cold climes up here with just a good standing grass or a quality hay and only a minimal amount of supplamental protein, they should make it just about anywhere else in this country as long as they have sufficient quality pasture or hay. The exceptions being feedlot cattle, dairy cattle and those grazing on unnatural pasture or feed. I feed my milk cows a good grain ration, but I am pushing them in order to achieve unnatural goals. The beef cows though are a whole different deal and they are expected to achieve natural and very realistic goals. If they need the extra oomph that comes from grain or unnatural supplements, they don't stay.



Tex

[Elk Wallow]

High production modern livestock do need grain (energy) and protein in my experience. Yea people used to have horses that got bone thin in the winter, this was considered normal. And they'd fatten up with green up in the spring. Horses and I guess cattle too got higher protein from peak grass in the breeding season when they needed it. I am not talking about overfed fat horses that cripple up. My horses are fed not more than 2 lbs of 12% sweet feed a day plus unfertilized grass pasture and hay in the winter. From ancient times, war horses were fed grain or they couldn't keep up with fighting and also the travel. Sure, you could milk some kind of Highland cattle on just crappy grass but what kind of production did they get? Poultry- the original Asian junglefowl lived off the land but it was the tropics with greens and bugs year round. Wild turkeys live on acorns. Domestic Mammoth toms would die if they just has acorns.

[Tex]

Here are some 2yr olds coming into early spring. You can see that they still haven't completely lost their winter coat.
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Here is a pic of the oldest horse on the ranch taken the same day.
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Here is a pic of a yearling taken in march after a pretty rough winter.
20140502_111111-2.jpg

This is my old using horse on the same day.
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Yep, poor thing is skin and bones. That old stud must be starving his mares.
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Them mares look plumb pathetic.
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You will notice the snow on the ground in the last two pics. If I recall correctly, it was right at -10 when I took those pictures. Along with the other pics, they were all taken when the horses should have looked their worst, according to what your post said. Anyhow, We have fed a grand total of three bales of hay to all of our horses over the last couple winters and as I said earlier, they do not get any grain unless they are being ridden hard. And by being ridden hard, I mean making circles. That is where we go round the outside making a gather. Depending on who we are working for that day, or which pastures we are gathering, we are very likely to put on 15-20 miles or even a little further before noon.

Feed your horse however the hell you want, but don't believe everything they tell you over on homesteading today.

As to Highlander, yeah, we had a couple of those worthless pieces of shit. Mainly for something different to look at amongst all the angus.

Here is the last one here. Notice the high head on that bitch.
20140213_130508-10.jpg

Notice how well her attitude changed.
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And welcome to freezer camp.
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Tex

[redman2006]

I agree with you Tex. I do wonder what the grass was like in native pasture here in the southeast. As 6ou well know, migratory patterns of Buffalo allowed them to follow the green line. Now days, with confinement, we are in a different situation.

I have one old horse that gets feed, other than that, grass, hay when the grass goes, and nothing else. All grain does for mine is hype them up like two year old kids on rock candy and coca cola. Personally, when it comes to hirses, I think a lot of the problems with behaviors are directly related to diet, stalls, and no exercise. Get rid of the hot feed, get them out of those stalls, and let them be a horse and I won't hear from clients about half the problems I do.

After working in feed yards, I have no desire to fight acidosis, founder, bloat, liver abcesses, etc that all come from pushing hot feed. I know why we do it, but what a headache.

The goals we desire from the animal are not natural and force us to use unnatural means to achieve them.

[Elk Wallow]

Thats the thing about northern and high altitude grasses. It is a strong soil and grows strong grasses. Unlike the southern states, where grass is weak and washy, only good for cow calf operations and they have to feed hay and cubes to get through the winter. But the calves are weaned and stocker calves are sent- guess where? North.

My black stallion, he is an Arabian and they are easy keepers. On his 50 acre burmuda grass pasture he gets hollow flanked if I don't feed him good hay and a little grain in the winter. There are two times of the year when this weak southern grass gets stronger. It starts to meet and exceed the needs of the grazing animals in April, peaks in June. By about the 1st of July the nutrition curve goes below their needs, to a low eb in August. With the fall rains it goes above their needs again in September to a peak at the beginning of October. The nutrition in the grass goes below their needs again in late October and stays below nutritional needs of horses and especially cattle until the next April. People in the south have GOT TO feed their stock if they hope to get a calf every year. My rancher manfriend in central Texas taught me this.

Also, horses did evolve ( and god creates his creatures by evolution ) in Northern Eurasia grasslands. The grass there is super strong. Thats why horses do not do well in the tropics. Tropical grass is washy.

[Elk Wallow]

This reminds me of something from the Bible

Hast thou given the horse his strength?
Hast thou clothed his neck with thunder?
Canst thou make him afraid as a grasshopper?
The glory of his nostrils is terrible.
He paweth in the valley, and rejoiceth in his strength:
He goeth on to meet the armed men.
He mocketh at fear, and is not affrighted;
Neither turneth he back from the sword.
The quiver rattleth against him,
The glittering spear and the shield.
He swalloweth the ground with fierceness and rage:
neither believeth he that it is the sound of the trumpet.
He saith among the trumpets, Ha, ha;
And he smelleth the battle afar off,
The thunder of the captains, and the shouting.

[tk]

Our pony's at home got a flake of hay and a half pound coffee can of oats in the winter our northern grass dies off all together in winter here and is mostly under snow. I don't know shit about horses though that's just what we gave them. Beef cows got hay every day and we grained the hell out of the dairy cows as well as hay but that was for milk production. Also when we was feeding a beef out to butcher or sale we grained them all they could eat. Our cows here will not do well with out feeding hay in the winter there is just nothing in the pasture grass come December and January. When I was out west for the first time last year I couldn't believe what the cattle ate , Hell I couldn't even see what they would call grass but those cows all looked damn good. And where Tex is at with no cover in the winter they have to be some damn tough animals. Hell a wood pecker would ware himself out try to find a tree to peck. Just saying things are done in one area the way they are because it has been tried and tested and that's what works. One mre thing our chickens got table scraps and what got swept up off the barn floor other than that they pecked in the shit for their living . Worked for us. TK

[Elk Wallow]

Some yuppie farmers are going the way of the rotational grazing with the hot wires moved over a strip every other day or so. Then they have the mobile chicken houses and they are parked out there following the cattle. They scratch and peck all the corn out of the cow pies and fling the rest of the manure all around in little bits. This distributes the manure and no grain is wasted. What they sell is high priced grass fed beef and organic chicken eggs.

[Cwi555]

I understand Job 39 and it's context, but not really the connection here?

This reminds me of something from the Bible

Hast thou given the horse his strength?
Hast thou clothed his neck with thunder?
Canst thou make him afraid as a grasshopper?
The glory of his nostrils is terrible.
He paweth in the valley, and rejoiceth in his strength:
He goeth on to meet the armed men.
He mocketh at fear, and is not affrighted;
Neither turneth he back from the sword.
The quiver rattleth against him,
The glittering spear and the shield.
He swalloweth the ground with fierceness and rage:
neither believeth he that it is the sound of the trumpet.
He saith among the trumpets, Ha, ha;
And he smelleth the battle afar off,
The thunder of the captains, and the shouting.