Fodder beet vs maize silage vs wholecrop to lactating dairy animals

case 5150

Hi all, toying with the idea of sowing a few acres of fodder beet to feed to late lactating dairy cows in the autumn and freshly calved cows next spring, would it bring up solids along with feeding grass or would maize or whole crop be a better feed, all opinions welcome. Thanks

td5man

case 5150 wrote: »

Hi all, toying with the idea of sowing a few acres of fodder beet to feed to late lactating dairy cows in the autumn and freshly calved cows next spring, would it bring up solids along with feeding grass or would maize or whole crop be a better feed, all opinions welcome. Thanks

Beet is good in a good year
maize is expensive and needs a good year
wholecrop simple enough to grow.
Feed wise my choice would be beet if you have a way of washing and chopping it

freedominacup

td5man wrote: »

Beet is good in a good year
maize is expensive and needs a good year
wholecrop simple enough to grow.
Feed wise my choice would be beet if you have a way of washing and chopping it

A local contractor was trying to drum up business for a washer chopper unit for cleaning and ensiling beet earlier this year. I'm not ready to go at it this year but I'm giving it serious consideration for next. The idea of it ready to feed in a pit is appealing. We did it old school back in the day. An old Keenan chopper and if the beet was any way dirty it had to be hand loaded. we were feeding around 3 tonne/day at the time all spronged in:eek:. Bastard of a job. Great feed though.

Timmaay

How is the beet stored? Does it need to be sealed in a pit etc? What about the wholecrop? Maize is appealing to me as I could fire it in the silage pit on top of silage, and feed both with the sheargrab all winter. The high outlay, and poor crop in bad weather is the biggest risk I see going down the maize route. Or maybe I'm better off sticking as is, and feeding just silage, and then nuts in the parlour to the winter cows. In years like this when the silage isnt great, it costs an arm and a leg in extra feed bills, and the milk protein dropped to 2.8%!

blue5000

I used to grow maize, won't be doing it this year, in a good year it is a good feed, but in a bad year it is expensive sh1te. For a dairy farmer it might be worth doing it with plastic, but weed control has to be right.

Fodder beet is labour intensive, another problem is lack of harvesters since the sugar beet stopped.

Whole crop is a basically like straw with a bit of grain thrown in. It depends what part of the country you are in, with beet you need a rotation, maize and wheat work well with 2 years of each, then switch over.

yellow50HX

we do fodder beet, great feeding in a good year. about 30-35 t/ac. we strip graze it, but you need the right varity to be able to do that. also you need to balance the diet. we notice it saves a lot of silage. it suits us as we have the cows during the day to clean off the field. you need to watch out for frost so if its too cold they wont get any feed.

we used to harvest a bit and used a chopper box to feed the cattle in the shed. we even used the pick by hand (we the leaves were still strong and fire it in a trailer once a week then throw in into the troughs for teh cattle. Not great in feed passaged as the can pull in onto the slats.

fodder beet is grand for feeding as it dosnt need to be chopped, where as sugar beet does. i know of lads the load the fodder beet whole into the mixer wagon.

we use the beet for a few years (2-3) then stop for a year. As the cattle as strip graze they will pick up a bit of dirt and in stays in teh belly, 1 winter with out it and their system gets cleared out.

Not sure about enstillign the beet in a clamp havent tried it but you might be losing a lot of teh goodness in teh run off. That is why the lads chopping only do it in batches. If you have a spare silage pit then it might be a runner.

if you can outwinter or even partially do so, then i would recommend stripping grazing it. I know it can be a pain changing the wire every day but you do see a big saving in silage use and slurry storage.

joe man utd

We are debating whether to grow our own beet too at home, we used to buy in beet and buy ABout 60 tonne/ year.. we didn't do it this year and it shows in the amount of silage used and in the condition of the animals..what are the costs per acre to grow it??Harvest? And when is a good time to set it??

yellow50HX

joe man utd wrote: »

We are debating whether to grow our own beet too at home, we used to buy in beet and buy ABout 60 tonne/ year.. we didn't do it this year and it shows in the amount of silage used and in the condition of the animals..what are the costs per acre to grow it??Harvest? And when is a good time to set it??

Ploughing
Lime if required
Fertiliser if required
Rotovating (we usually give it 2 runs)
Setting
Spraying usually twice a year
Harvesting and drawing to yard

Farmer Pudsey

case 5150 wrote: »

Hi all, toying with the idea of sowing a few acres of fodder beet to feed to late lactating dairy cows in the autumn and freshly calved cows next spring, would it bring up solids along with feeding grass or would maize or whole crop be a better feed, all opinions welcome. Thanks

Would you consider Kale in a field or paddock that has good access to the yard. technically not too difficult to grow it has the advantage of high protein and in a limited quanity in the diet in the autaum would provide a cheap feed source.

blue5000 wrote: »

Whole crop is a basically like straw with a bit of grain thrown in. It depends what part of the country you are in, with beet you need a rotation, maize and wheat work well with 2 years of each, then switch over.

Whole crop can be cut with a headder type cutter that will only take 6-8'' of straw this would be a top class feed. Another option would be Peas and Barley grown as a whole crop or as a crop for crimping. It would be a balanced high energy feed. As a whole crop you would have a bit of barley straw in the feed but the straw form the peas is highly digestible. Crimping barley or wheat would also be an option.

mf240

Would really good baled silage be an easy option if you dont want the hassle of beet or maize.

You can buy nuts to feed with it in a year like this and in a good year they can be left in the yard untill the autumn and the nuts can be left in the mill.

Timmaay

case 5150 wrote: »

Hi all, toying with the idea of sowing a few acres of fodder beet to feed to late lactating dairy cows in the autumn and freshly calved cows next spring, would it bring up solids along with feeding grass or would maize or whole crop be a better feed, all opinions welcome. Thanks

One of the neighbours fed the cows with maize for most the winter this year, and said he saw a definite increase in solids over previous years.

mf240 wrote: »

Would really good baled silage be an easy option if you dont want the hassle of beet or maize.

You can buy nuts to feed with it in a year like this and in a good year they can be left in the yard untill the autumn and the nuts can be left in the mill.

That's what my teagasc adviser said also, that too many people focus on all the alternative forages and the basic stable of the winter diet, grass silage gets forgotten about! My two main reasons for looking at alternative fodder are the price of nuts, and then grass silage can be a lottery, last year most of our 1st cut was drawn in in dry weather, except for the last 20acres or so, which got fairly wet, after testing it the silage came in at 73dmd, not bad at all, but only 20% dm, too much moisture. The winter milkers didn't do great off it at all in my view, with the protein quickly dropping under 3% once the spring ladies were dried off. I'm guessing they weren't able to physically eat enough of the silage as 80% of it was moisture. Our silage bales were all 2nd cut or excess cover in paddocks, by then the sh$te summer had left very small windows to cut anything decent.

Do many others of yas in winter milk, and milking holsteins feed them only grass silage and nuts in the parlour?

Blue Holland

case 5150 wrote: »

Hi all, toying with the idea of sowing a few acres of fodder beet to feed to late lactating dairy cows in the autumn and freshly calved cows next spring, would it bring up solids along with feeding grass or would maize or whole crop be a better feed, all opinions welcome. Thanks

Beet is very good to bring up butter fat levels but it's low in protein so needs to be balanced.
As already stated its very labour intensive, but huge amount of feed off an acre, i'd put the cost of growing at bout 650-700 an acre much d same as maize.

As for feeding to freshly spring calved cows we've actually given up this the last two years, soft spring grass, beet and soya leads to very soft dung. Have been feeding them maize at night and have found they lost little or no condition after calving. To be honest if it was'nt for fattening cattle i'm not sure i'd grow either. Winter milk is different story altogether, would'nt like to be at d mercy of d mills with nothing but grass silage in the yard.

Also been feeding crimped wheat since 99 and get on well with it.

C0N0R

Timmaay wrote: »

One of the neighbours fed the cows with maize for most the winter this year, and said he saw a definite increase in solids over previous years.



That's what my teagasc adviser said also, that too many people focus on all the alternative forages and the basic stable of the winter diet, grass silage gets forgotten about! My two main reasons for looking at alternative fodder are the price of nuts, and then grass silage can be a lottery, last year most of our 1st cut was drawn in in dry weather, except for the last 20acres or so, which got fairly wet, after testing it the silage came in at 73dmd, not bad at all, but only 20% dm, too much moisture. The winter milkers didn't do great off it at all in my view, with the protein quickly dropping under 3% once the spring ladies were dried off. I'm guessing they weren't able to physically eat enough of the silage as 80% of it was moisture. Our silage bales were all 2nd cut or excess cover in paddocks, by then the sh$te summer had left very small windows to cut anything decent.

Do many others of yas in winter milk, and milking holsteins feed them only grass silage and nuts in the parlour?

We only feed silage and nuts, don't have a diet feeder and never tried anything but grass silage. Would use a lot of ration and at times would be doing a midday feed to.

keep going

yellow50HX wrote: »

Ploughing
Lime if required
Fertiliser if required
Rotovating (we usually give it 2 runs)
Setting
Spraying usually twice a year
Harvesting and drawing to yard

if its on rented land it does start to get hard to see the benifit.that said personally if it go s well there is nothing as good as it for feed volume and quality. a buddy who is in winter milk told me that we he started putting in beet it straight away bought solids and volume up.he then tried maize for a couple of years but it didnt bring things any farther so he stuck with the beet as it was more reliable

yellow50HX

keep going wrote: »

if its on rented land it does start to get hard to see the benifit.that said personally if it go s well there is nothing as good as it for feed volume and quality. a buddy who is in winter milk told me that we he started putting in beet it straight bought solids and volume up.he then tried maize for a couple of years but it didnt bring things any farther so he stuck with the beet as it was more reliable

yeah wouldnt make much sense on rented land unless you were using it as part of a rotation for corn. makes an ecellant break crop. i know of a good few fellas that have mixed cattle and tillage and would use teh beet as a break crop and now use it for feeding, al lot would outwinter on stubble though. there is a lot of work to bring it into the yard.
we use it as part of our re seeding, once the field is finshed with the beet we turn it back into grass.

jersey101

Thinking about growing maize next year or buy some washed and chopped beat and mix it with soya hulls and ensile it?? Any thoughts??

mahoney_j

jersey101 wrote: »

Thinking about growing maize next year or buy some washed and chopped beat and mix it with soya hulls and ensile it?? Any thoughts??

Maize definitely if you have a suitable field and put it under plastic.super feed for dairy cows.if you could feed that with high dmd first cut silage and a good 16% nut cows would belt out the milk and give good solids.only draw back is your land is out most of the year,otherwise you could fertlise for a cut of silage to be cut the may bank holiday weekend then plaster out the slurry and then put maize in.im buying In 10 acres of whole crop wheat next year

jersey101

mahoney_j wrote: »

Maize definitely if you have a suitable field and put it under plastic.super feed for dairy cows.if you could feed that with high dmd first cut silage and a good 16% nut cows would belt out the milk and give good solids.only draw back is your land is out most of the year,otherwise you could fertlise for a cut of silage to be cut the may bank holiday weekend then plaster out the slurry and then put maize in.im buying In 10 acres of whole crop wheat next year

was over with a lad i milk for tgere today and he cut his maize 2weeks ago and started feeding it on satuday. Does it every year lets him stretch the grass til mid niv and puts the conditon on the cows very well. Id be thinking of doing something similar.
Ive never sown it before so dont know much about it. Its a dear crop if ye get a ****e year

bob charles

jersey101 wrote: »

Thinking about growing maize next year or buy some washed and chopped beat and mix it with soya hulls and ensile it?? Any thoughts??

If you don't require the forage element of maize silage, buy maize meal instead of buying green maize. Maize meal for winter 14 is cheaper than growing a very good crop of maize

jersey101

bob charles wrote: »

If you don't require the forage element of maize silage, buy maize meal instead of buying green maize. Maize meal for winter 14 is cheaper than growing a very good crop of maize

ye can ye buy that in bulk? Ive only seen it bags. Id have no storage for that sort of stuff in the winter. Have a slab that use for brewers tland a slab for the bales. I wanted to use it as a filler

stanflt

bob charles wrote: »

If you don't require the forage element of maize silage, buy maize meal instead of buying green maize. Maize meal for winter 14 is cheaper than growing a very good crop of maize

i still cant get maize meal below 260-

buyers group usually has a 3 month forward buy

6480

jersey101 wrote: »

ye can ye buy that in bulk? Ive only seen it bags. Id have no storage for that sort of stuff in the winter. Have a slab that use for brewers tland a slab for the bales. I wanted to use it as a filler

i taught you had the redstart as a filler , grass is the cheapiest ,easiest way to feed dairy cows , and ensile good quailty bale silage in times of surplus gowth works as good as any bought in product to strecth out autum grazing

jersey101

6480 wrote: »

i taught you had the redstart as a filler , grass is the cheapiest ,easiest way to feed dairy cows , and ensile good quailty bale silage in times of surplus gowth works as good as any bought in product to strecth out autum grazing

that was this year. Lookin for next year. Always seem to feed alit o meal in the autumn here. I want something that can really drive them on and put condition on them too. I think the redstart aint doing the job

bob charles

stanflt wrote: »

i still cant get maize meal below 260-

buyers group usually has a 3 month forward buy

its being a hard maize price season to fathom. having a 3 month forward buy is probably the reason your are out in price at the moment but your not out by a huge amount.

bob charles

jersey101 wrote: »

I wanted to use it as a filler

and that my friend is what you should use grass for, not expensive high energy products

jersey101

bob charles wrote: »

and that my friend is what you should use grass for, not expensive high energy products

trying to reseed when ye have a high stocking rate is a hard job grass thinks hard about growing in the autumn when you have low p and k

K.G.

Bumping this up for a bit of discussion. Could be losing some of the silage block so I m looking at a few options.thinking is if I'm going to buy any forage I may aswell buy something that they will milk off rather than chasing rented ground for grass silage.the idea is starting feeding whatever feed early Oct until Christmas and dry off then.hopefully there will be a good bank of grass for the spring.the other thing is you ll have milk in the tank to pay straight away for the feed rather renting and shelling out all season waiting for a crop to grow.any opinions/experience

jaymla627

K.G. wrote: »

Bumping this up for a bit of discussion. Could be losing some of the silage block so I m looking at a few options.thinking is if I'm going to buy any forage I may aswell buy something that they will milk off rather than chasing rented ground for grass silage.the idea is starting feeding whatever feed early Oct until Christmas and dry off then.hopefully there will be a good bank of grass for the spring.the other thing is you ll have milk in the tank to pay straight away for the feed rather renting and shelling out all season waiting for a crop to grow.any opinions/experience

If you have access to a diet feeder and pit space clamping chopped beet with soya hulls/oat hulls is a great job, only downside is having to feed a high protein nut to balance it, clamp beet here in February for buffering cows when they go to grass....

K.G.

No diet feeder and only about1.3 feet per cow feeding barrier so not anxious to go feeding beet indoors. Have been strip grazing beet in the autumn but we re running out of room to grow it on home block.can you just block out maize or wholecrop with sheargrab with no grass.silage and just a.balancing ration in the pit.

Mooooo

For your timeframe wholecrop prob most suitable, depending on the year mid Oct to start Nov before maize could be in the pit, bar lads that seem to cut right early... wholecrop and maize would prob want to be fed with grass silage unless used in a buffering role with grass. Feed every second grab grass silage and wholecrop, and mix as you push in not ideal but may do. Used to buy maize, made up near 40% of winter forage but was in winter milk at the time but would have fed some to dries as well.
Prob talking a 900 to a grand an acre into the pit to buy, possibly a bit with it if the the draw is long