value for money feeding

mooverlive

hello, was wondering what u guys are feeding cows and cattle , and the costs of such feed. myself i was thinking of buying wheat at 20%moisture and dry crimping it rough cost of 160 per ton, can get a 4 way mix (wheat barley citrus and maze meal ) at 180 per ton . what do u guys think?

Casinoking

The wheat sounds a bit on the pricey side at that I'd say, you'll buy dried and rolled barley at 145 or 150 in a couple of weeks when things settle. You'll have to treat the wheat with propcorn or some kind of additive at 20% moiture too, dry rolling won't preserve it

mooverlive

theres an additive included in that price to perserve it (alkagrain)

Casinoking

Ah right, I thought when you said dry crimping it you meant just dry rolling. Wouldn't be far off the mark so. How much are you being charged to crimp it, or are you buying it already crimped?

mooverlive

15euro thats included in price as well, is 4 way mix better value

Casinoking

All depends on how much of each is in the mix, we used to mix rolled barley with beet pulp and soya meal when we were finishing cattle, always seemed to get good results

vanderbadger

casinoking and mooverlive, forgive the ignorance but down my way we have never fed anything other than silage or hay, how do ye go about feed these mixes, i mean do ye mix with silage thru diet feeder or just shovel it along barrier by itself, would cows eat it quicker than silage, how about storage also, does it need to be kept indoors meaning you would need a concrete type shed you could drive a loader into..
cheers
Badg

Casinoking

I take it there was no Suckler welfare scheme in Clare so, wasn't meal feeding one of the requirements?! Feed it whatever way you like, shovel it along the barrier, mix it in your diet feeder, wheel it around in your barrow, throw it in a trough in the field. It has to be kept indoors yes, either in a shed or silo. It's important it's kept dry, otherwise it will go mouldy quite quickly.

vanderbadger

ya we heard of it alright just didnt put buying a bag of ration in the same category as the stuff ye were on about, what amount of wheat etc would be rough equivelant of 50 bales of silage say

reilig

vanderbadger wrote: »

ya we heard of it alright just didnt put buying a bag of ration in the same category as the stuff ye were on about, what amount of wheat etc would be rough equivelant of 50 bales of silage say

An article in the Journal a few weeks ago was saying that a ton of wheat/barley would have the same feed value as roughly 15 round bales of silage.

Do the sums yourself, Wheat at €150 per ton and silage at €20 (minimum) per bale. Cheaper to buy the wheat if you're short of silage and feed it alongside silage to make your silage last longer.

vanderbadger

makes sense so I guess, where would you buy it and would it be already rolled or whatever, ready to feed basically. Have a compartment in a shed where I usually store bulk nuts but they are pumped in there by the lorry, how is wheat delivered. Sorry i know it probably sounds like a stupid question but never seen it done.

Casinoking

Depends who you buy if from. If you buy from a merchant no doubt they can supply it already rolled and blow it into the shed the same as your ration. You could also buy whole grain and get it rolled yourself in your yard as you want it, or buy grain from a farmer straight off the combine in which case it would more than likely be delivered by tractor and trailer.

mooverlive

well hope that is sorted . now the topic was what are people paying for rations (straights &mixes) .whats thebest value for money out there

Sam Kade

Dairygold are charging €5.50 for 25kg bag of rolled barley.

snowman707

Sam Kade wrote: »

Dairygold are charging €5.50 for 25kg bag of rolled barley.

€220 a ton.

heard of rolled barley delivered for €135 a ton in mini bulk . (500kgs bags)

time to cut out the middle men bad enough taking bottom dollar for milk besides giving them rip off price for feed as well.

Sam Kade

snowman707 wrote: »

€220 a ton.

heard of rolled barley delivered for €135 a ton in mini bulk . (500kgs bags)

time to cut out the middle men bad enough taking bottom dollar for milk besides giving them rip off price for feed as well.

I don't buy it off them I just enquired about the price. They used to drop the price of ration during the harvest every year trying to discourage famers buying barley off the combine to mix their own and when the harvest was over they would put the price back up.

Casinoking

I've heard of green barley making €95-€105 per tonne at the minute off the combine direct from the farmer, depending on moisture. As I said somewhere earlier any growers I've been talking to are planning on drying and holding out for €130/tonne straight and €150 rolled delivered within 20 miles. When you consider drying could cost you up to €30/tonne at high moisture and rolling €14 I don't think they'll be far off. However dried barley is landing at the ports at the minute at around €120/tonne so when you put €10 transport and the cost of rolling onto it the merchants might well be around the €145-€150 mark too. After that it all depends on whether you want to give your few quid to your neighbour or the greedy multi-nationals I suppose!

mooverlive

bought soyahulls and citrus (50/50 mix) for dairy cows and dry cattle 135 blown into bin, wont do much for dry cattle but wiil do for time being, will probably buy a 4 way mix later hopefully around 165 to 170 mark seems to b best value .

nilhg

To be fair when comparing prices you need to consider the quantity involved and the conditions of sale, you can't compare 3 or 4 25kg bags of rolled barley from your local merchant or co-op with an artic load direct from a farmers yard where you have to pay COD.

We have 5 artics of dried barley loaded and gone (3 to Stuarts, 2 to P&V) and one more to go at €115, as we have to clear space for wheat yet to be harvested. It's a dreadful price but at the moment there is no sign of any improvement and I'd rather take a chance on storing the wheat for a while.

@mooverlive was the additive for the rolled wheat home n'dry? I know some folks who've used it and been very happy with the stocks performance on it, it's an alkaline preservative and seems to balance very acid silage well. Another reported plus IIRC is that rodents don't seem to like it.

mooverlive

yes home and dry

vanderbadger

have seen an add for rolled wheat/barley/oats for 190 euro in 1 ton bags, 170 for bulk orders, is this expensive do ye think?

mooverlive

that sounds way off the mark u buy a good 4 way mix for that money

waster81

Definitely buy it from a farmer and cut out the merchant, give a ring to farmer advertising straw a good chance you will get grain off them. Our merchant charges €10 a tonne to roll it