feeding straw..good or bad?

vanderbadger

someone was saying to me recently that one of the reasons for straw being expensive is more and more lads are feeding it or mixing it with other feeds in diet feeders, whats the feeling out there on feeding straw, would wheaten straw be better than barley straw? I can remember years ago when young the old man ran out of silage and he bought a lorry of round bales of straw, they were black as they must have been outside previous to purchase, he used to add a bit of molasses and the cows went mad for the stuff. dont think the cows did any better or worse on it at the time, was thinking of buyin in a bit of hay but maybe straw might be good enough for suckler cows??

blue5000

Wheat straw that has been sprayed off with roundup (here we go again) is supposed to be more digestible.

You need to be able to divide dry cows according to condition score so that thin cows are on silage and only fatter cows that are in good condition are on the straw.

reilig

blue5000 wrote: »

Wheat straw that has been sprayed off with roundup (here we go again) is supposed to be more digestible.

You need to be able to divide dry cows according to condition score so that thin cows are on silage and only fatter cows that are in good condition are on the straw.

Yea, i have heard that the wheaten straw was better than the barley straw - didn't know that it was because of it being sprayed off though.

Around here barley straw would be mainly bought for bedding and would be the cheaper of the 2. There is a guy locally that finishes cattle for the factory - the main diet is potatoes, but he also adds some wheaten straw to the diet feeder for roughage.

BeeDI

reilig wrote: »

Yea, i have heard that the wheaten straw was better than the barley straw - didn't know that it was because of it being sprayed off though.

Around here barley straw would be mainly bought for bedding and would be the cheaper of the 2. There is a guy locally that finishes cattle for the factory - the main diet is potatoes, but he also adds some wheaten straw to the diet feeder for roughage.

I know nought about straw, so a few questions from me.

1. Why would sprayed off wheaten straw by good? I mean how does the spraying off contribute to it's goodness, if you know what I mean,.

2. If feeding such straw to say suckler cows before calving, would it be ok on it's own? Would some hay, or silage be needed for minerals etc,.

Hardly know why I ask, because it goes right against my gut instinct to feed sprayed off anything to any animal. But there you go.

reilig

BeeDI wrote: »

I know nought about straw, so a few questions from me.

1. Why would sprayed off wheaten straw by good? I mean how does the spraying off contribute to it's goodness, if you know what I mean,.

2. If feeding such straw to say suckler cows before calving, would it be ok on it's own? Would some hay, or silage be needed for minerals etc,.

Hardly know why I ask, because it goes right against my gut instinct to feed sprayed off anything to any animal. But there you go.

can't answer the first one.

It is recommended that you feed minerals to any animal that is on a straw diet.

If you feed ration or nuts to cattle or sheep or pigs or horses then chances are that some or most of the ingredients in the ration or nut has been sprayed off before harvesting (unless its organic).

Tora Bora

reilig wrote: »

can't answer the first one.

It is recommended that you feed minerals to any animal that is on a straw diet.

If you feed ration or nuts to cattle or sheep or pigs or horses then chances are that some or most of the ingredients in the ration or nut has been sprayed off before harvesting (unless its organic).

And we pay doctors, consultants and scientists to figure out why cancer is on the rise :eek:

blue5000

the sprayed off straw is more digestible

reilig

Tora Bora wrote: »

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And we pay doctors, consultants and scientists to figure out why cancer is on the rise :eek:

There are people doing a lot worse like injecting cattle to take down tb lumps, using growth hormones on animals or land spreading human sewage - all of which are illegal and unregulated. Unfortunately some of these practices are common place on some Irish farms. Across the world crops are sprayed with insectacides. I'd be more worried about food treated with these than food treated with a herbicide like roundup. At least you know what's in the roundup.

(And before anyone gets on their high horse I don't condone any of the practices of monsanto and will buy a non monsanto product if it is available to me)

pakalasa

Van...,
From what I've read, you'd want to be feeding some meal with minerals aswell. It's commonaplce with tillage guys with sucklers. Straw and meal aren't exactly cheap this year.

dar31

wheaten straw is better cause it is more brittle then barley straw and in turn it is easier to chop in to the mix, in turn sprayed off straw would be more brittler?? again.
if your dry cows are at the right bcs they will need to be maintained as such, silage alone would put on condition leading to fat cows at calving, and related problems. usually a mix of silage straw and a kg of barley for energy is enough to maintain condition.
also cattle on high/ ad lib meal are feed straw as a source of fiber to maintain the rumen function
dry cows will need minerals for a min of a month pre calving, know a good few on here dont see the benefit in minerals, but when it goes wrong it will hurt.

snowman707

+1

dar31 wrote: »

wheaten straw is better cause it is more brittle then barley straw and in turn it is easier to chop in to the mix, in turn sprayed off straw would be more brittler?? again.
if your dry cows are at the right bcs they will need to be maintained as such, silage alone would put on condition leading to fat cows at calving, and related problems. usually a mix of silage straw and a kg of barley for energy is enough to maintain condition.

the same could be done by restricting silage but this could lead to other issues, displaced stomach for 1

also cattle on high/ ad lib meal are feed straw as a source of fiber to maintain the rumen function


often here we had queries about "Turbo" to feed bulls before sale etc, my advise to include fibre seemed to fall on deaf ears ,IMO a lot of expensive feed going ..(well you know yourself)

dry cows will need minerals for a min of a month pre calving, know a good few on here dont see the benefit in minerals, but when it goes wrong it will hurt.

a little in time will save a lot, bearing in mind that too much of some minerals can actually do more harm than good ,best to get advise and test to see what is required.

vanderbadger

pakalasa wrote: »

Van...,
From what I've read, you'd want to be feeding some meal with minerals aswell. It's commonaplce with tillage guys with sucklers. Straw and meal aren't exactly cheap this year.

ya straw is dear alright, one fella came into yard selling small bales for bedding, wanted 3.20! got them for 2.50 off usual guy but still its alot to pay for bedding

John_F

i wouldn't go as far to say that wheaten straw is used because its sweeter, its higher in structural fibre than barley straw, i.e. its stiffer, and even if a crop is sprayed off before harvest the whole reason it can be is because the plant is dead i.e. no green material and so doesn't absorb any of the spray, people spray off tillage crops if there are a large number of weeds which would affect the moisture content of the grain, therefore affecting its preservation

yes straw is dear this year but i think its a combination of more lads feeding, the bad year last year leading to farmers believing that they should buy as much good straw this year for fear of next year and also the way the media can blow things out of proportion, in my opinion there is alot more straw there than was thought would be.

just on the other thread on spraying off grassland with roundup and grazing it, glyphosate is a hormone weed killer and is actually safer than most broadleaf weedkillers in my view where the chemicals are different. Also if a farmer does not spray then the sward will only last 3-4 years max and then you go and reseed again using more fuel and letting out more co2 which opens another can of worms --- I'm sure by now that the food safety authority and europe would have stopped it if it was unsafe [sorry for going off topic]

nilhg

The reason straw is dear is because the mushroom companies had to come out and compete for it, last year they had to import from the UK and it cost them a fortune.

In our area we also have two companies trying to get going using straw as a fuel, Edenderry Power (Bord na Mona's peat powered station) and organic power, this one is a bit controversial locally, but if even one gets going it'll keep the price up.


Every year we sell 8-10 artic loads of wheaten straw to a suckler farmer in the north, he uses it to feed his dry cows, along with meal, the thinner the cow the more meal she gets. I'm not sure where he gets it but the meal is specifically blended to balance straw in the cows diet.

Tipp Man

Its funny I was always under in the impression that Barley straw was much better for feeding than Wheaten and had much better nutritional value

Not that we ever feed straw to cows, bar a few bales around drying off time so I'm no expert. It was my auld man who used to say it

Barley straw more expensive than wheaten in south tipp, although both are expensive!!

kfk

Tipp Man wrote: »

Its funny I was always under in the impression that Barley straw was much better for feeding than Wheaten and had much better nutritional value

Not that we ever feed straw to cows, bar a few bales around drying off time so I'm no expert. It was my auld man who used to say it

Barley straw more expensive than wheaten in south tipp, although both are expensive!!

Thats what I thought also! Think I may have seen a tread some time back saying Barley straw was much better!

kfk

I did see a tread. Started by myself even. See here

5live

Straw is dear this year because of very short straw length prob due to drought at stem elongation so i was told. I feed straw every year because it is all precision chop silage and i roll out a bale in front of 60 cows and throw out 2 days silage on top. Very easy to push in on day 2(sunday!) and i think it improves rumen function and cows go mad for it as it is a change of feed. It helps if you are feedind meal too as too much low fibre meal can lead to bloat and displaced stomachs. Not so good though with scraper passages as it can throw scrapers off track at the slat ends

vanderbadger

5live wrote: »

Straw is dear this year because of very short straw length prob due to drought at stem elongation so i was told. I feed straw every year because it is all precision chop silage and i roll out a bale in front of 60 cows and throw out 2 days silage on top. Very easy to push in on day 2(sunday!) and i think it improves rumen function and cows go mad for it as it is a change of feed. It helps if you are feedind meal too as too much low fibre meal can lead to bloat and displaced stomachs. Not so good though with scraper passages as it can throw scrapers off track at the slat ends

is it barley or wheaten you give them?

Muckit

I fed wheaten straw last year with silage to cows. knew that I could run out of silage if it turned out to be a long winter (which it did) so bought an artic load last September €1000 for 60 bales delivered.

Fed it along with the silage, took them a while to get used to it but once they did, they loved it. No problems with any cow calving (all AI).

5live

Barley. Local and unsprayed. Dont know if roundup makes a difference but my preference is un sprayed

vanderbadger

ya sounds like it might be good to feed a bit to cows anyway, still if 4x4 straw is approx 20 euro a bale delivered would a chap be as well pay a few quid more and get hay?

reilig

vanderbadger wrote: »

ya sounds like it might be good to feed a bit to cows anyway, still if 4x4 straw is approx 20 euro a bale delivered would a chap be as well pay a few quid more and get hay?

Possibly. when you consider that you will have to feed meal and minerals along with the straw, hay could work out cheaper.

Muckit

vanderbadger wrote: »

ya sounds like it might be good to feed a bit to cows anyway, still if 4x4 straw is approx 20 euro a bale delivered would a chap be as well pay a few quid more and get hay?

It depends I suppose on how much bales of hay are at the time, delivered. If straw was €20 a bale in a given year, you could be sure bales of GOOD QUALITY hay would be making around €30delivered. That's more than a 'few extra quid'. Also straw would be better roughage wise once your feeding with silage (hay I'd say would be better nuitritionally). Straw is handy to have too for bedding around calving time, you won't bed much with hay:D