Diet feeders

lefthooker wrote: »

Hi.
We feed grass silage and chop around a tonne of beet to around 100 head of cattle (cows and fatteners) daily during the winter. We're back almost 30% on last winters silage over two farms, but in the past 12 months I've sold a few hundred bales of barley straw. I'm planning to mix the straw thru the silage to bulk it up and throw the beet into the mix too. Vets and nutritionists have said the cows/cattle should do well with more roughage in the diet.

1) Of the feeders on the market which type is best suited to the diet I intend to feed? I'm leaning towards a tub at the minute but don't fancy taking several models on trial.

2) Am I feeding enough stock to justify a feeder? There's about another 100 head of cattle that I could theoretically feed silage/straw to aswell.

its an expensive way of incorporating a bit of straw into a diet. This could be done by just forking a bale at evening time after giving the silage in the morning. root chopper bucket for the beet dumped along on top of the straw would work nicely.

lefthooker wrote: »

I can see your point alright bob. I have thought about it, it would be a big saving but there are a few things against it.
I tried feeding straw to dryatock before, there was as much on the slats as there was in their bellies.
It would mean feeding them 3 times a day.
I think your method would work better if I was only feeding one side of a passage. I only have a 13ft passage and feed both sides.
And we banished the sprong from the passage last winter. I can shove silage into both sides, 12 spans in total with a wedge on the 165.

do you really need straw in the diet? they might as well be eating fresh air but maybe you need it to keep stomachs working right, maybe this could be achieved with feed ingredient mixed with a bit of ration. What % of animals can feed at any one time

lefthooker wrote: »

I don't NEED straw in the diet for digestive reasons. I'm looking at it from POV of having a lot less silage and having a few hundred spare bales of top quality barley straw. I've often noticed after bedding houses there's as many calves and yearlings eating straw as there are eating the fresh silage.

I suppose if the feeder is big enough I can feed all 100 cattle in one go. The cows and cattle get the same basic mix and I supplement with ration depending on the group of animals. It would also be possible to feed the rest of the cattle with another tub as they are smaller stock.

your going to allot of expensive to feed a product with no feed value that you dont need to feed. Can you just restrict the diet to the animal and spare it that way. Make up the shortage in barley as the cost of running a feeder for a year will buy you 15ton of grain min

Im forming my view as someone who uses a feeder every day of the year and am an advocator of the feeder when circumstances are correct.

do you already have a beet chopper box?

like bob says the diet feeder can be expensive to run but can also be of benfit. however if you want to feed beet straw and silage as a short term solution that might help uout for this year then i sugesst a more simple approch. we do this from time to time to add in straw and to strech out the silage

roll out a bale of straw along the feed barrier, then drop you silage on top of the straw you can then run your chopper box to drop the beet on top of the silage. the cattle will eat their way down through teh silage to the straw. if you passage is wide enough you can put in 2 days worth of feedign one go (the bale is 4 feet wide) and the catlle will only eat out about half way. the next day push the rest into the barrier and they clean it off. If you make up a silage pusher from and old tyre it'll push in the feed and mix it up a bit too.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=lo_Z1glMcD0

tim04750 wrote: »

Google "kuhn 1460" or "kverneland 612" thats the type of feeder you want , twin augers in the bottem ,very easy to drive, never blocks no matter what kind of bales you toss in , dont break shear bolts or chains, and you can drive five miles with it loaded and there's no problem restarting with settled silage. Just make sure there is plenty of metal left in the augers worn ones are expensive to replace, and make sure the weigh cells are working. Its nice to have them if you intend to sell it on after.

Neighbour has one of these Kuhns and he had stopped using it- when putting in dry bales they get wedged between the augers and takes hours to clear out- kinda opposite to what you said would happen

jersey101 wrote: »

I dont know if they still fo it but keenan used to rent out diet feeders to farmers for the winter. That could sort you out for this year and then you can see if you really need one

There was an Abbey 1250 delivered to the yard this morning, I have the heifers in the cubicles for training before scanning. I had baled silage yday evening, two bales had burst so I threw them in with a bale of straw. Did a good job of chopping and mixing and heifers and cows swept it.
I'm do a lot I business with the this garage so I'll try a rent to buy deal to see if it suits my needs

lefthooker wrote: »

Ok lads,

I've been playing with the feeder for the last 2 days and I can see a place for it here. Only thing I can't determine is how big a feeder do I need, ie what capacity do I need to feed 100 cows for 1 day? Can any of ye tell me an idea of how much I need?

Thanks.

bigger than you think you will need

Surely the OP could do 2 loads.

Also if he wants the MF 165 to drive it that will govern size too?

nashmach wrote: »

Surely the OP could do 2 loads.

Also if he wants the MF 165 to drive it that will govern size too?

you will mix one big load allot faster than two half loads.

delaval wrote: »

Minimum 14cum. If using dry bales bigger may be required

I was talking with my neighbour, he bought a 12cubic abbey after trying 4-5 makes. He feeds 40 cows for 2 days easily. That wouldn't be too far off my goal.

td5man wrote: »

Anyone know how much it would cost to reline a 10m keenan??

Would think 2200 wouldnt be too far out

I done a season with a 165 driving a 14 cube, used to pull the handle throttle about 90% of the way down and load up. No cobwebs in that engine and nowadays is nearly a pioneer on diesel