Feeding Cows.. Let Me Explain This

well we're getting ready to roll into our second day of chopping but before we do we're gonna go ahead and get the cows feds we got corn running got both the mixer wagon set up and we're gonna start loading feed with the new toss payloader 624 k2 the other one's a 624k i think they had like two or three of these models different k models they had the early ones and then the later ones and then these twos here so we better get feeding here so that we can get the chopper serviced up and get chopping gonna be another nice beautiful day here [Music] all right we've got both mixer wagons loaded with haylege halogen now we're loading stuff out of the commodity shed onto both of them we've got a grain protein mix cotton seed and high moisture corn which is in the upright silo that is in behind the commodity shed we got done feeding high moisture corn out of the bunk about three weeks ago and now we're gonna get that corn fed up out of the silo and hopefully we get that gone before we start convincing corn works out good to have that silo right behind the commodity shed it it enables us to uh run that silo while we're loading the mixer wagons here so i get a lot of different repetitive questions um every time i do a feeding video and um we'll just kind of answer some of those right now um some of you have been wondering why why we use two mixer wagons well we want to have a spare mixer wagon so that in the event that one goes down we have a backup and uh being that we have two of them we find it's just easier to use both of them since we have the other question i get is you know why don't you get a bigger mixer wagon and do away with both of those and um just mix with one big one well these these two mixer wagons are pretty good size they hold right around 32 000 pounds to 34 000 pounds of the tmr max for milk cows that's roughly around 1100 and some odd cubic feet [Music] yeah it's just over 1100 and some odd cubic feet do some math they're quick in my head um so they're pretty good-sized mixer wagons uh they are both 1200 t's uh they're basically the same size mixer wagon that you would put on a truck and that's another question i get is you don't want to just get a a truck mixer wagon a truck mixer wagon would be handy although uh they're real expensive they're over 300 000 for a truck and mixer wagon and if you have something happen to the truck um you're kind of sol if we have a problem with one of the tractors which is very rare i mean anything that you would have happen to the truck too i mean you can fix it pretty quick unless it's you know a axle problem or whatever like that but if we have a problem with one of these power units it's on the front of one of these mixer wagons we can just pull the tractor off and put another one on and continue on again that does not happen that often uh once in a while we'll run into a minor issue and it's you know you could basically have it fixed in a couple of hours and really you don't lose much time at all anyways if it's an alternator or something you can kind of limp through and get done with feeding fix it and then it's uh ready to go for the next time you feed so we'll have these mixer wagons loaded up here in a minute and then we'll feed both of them off and i'll explain a couple other things while we're feeding the the feed off here i know i'm kind of not really paying attention to things when i'm doing math in my head as we dump the ingredients on the mixer wagon now we have a feed sheet uh right here you can't quite see it but i can show it to you when we go to get out of the mixer wagon we have a nutritionist that we work with and he uh samples the feed every other week or so at least once a month and um based upon the uh feed values if you will of what we're feeding he balances the ration accordingly like for example we switched from high moisture corn that was in the bunk the high moisture corn that was in the silo the moisture was a little different and that changed up the dry matter and the intake intakes on all of the other ingredients that we're putting into of the mix here and we also are into uh corn silage that's in the back of the bunk that was from 2019 so we had to adjust for that as well vmr silage that is now bmr stands for brown mid rib it is a hybrid that is grown or fed specifically to dairy producing animals um it's a little higher in digestibility meaning that the cow is able to utilize more of the actual plant itself uh compared to [Music] uh regular corn silage so we've got everything loaded out of the commodity shed now i'm gonna start loading corn silage uh we're feeding two um different types of corn silage and one is bmr which stands again for brown mid rib and um and then we're feeding just a regular conventional silage now there's corn that's grown somewhat specifically for um cotton for corn silage and then there's corn that's kind of grown specifically for grain and really the only differences between the two of them are the grain corn has a tendency to grow a little shorter and it more or less focuses on emphasizes on just the grain itself in other words the the plant puts all of its energy into uh just the grain and then these the varieties that are grown more or less specifically for corn silage that hybrid if you will is mainly grown you know it it'll grow up the plant will have a tendency to be a little taller which your yield is not really based upon the height of the corn it's based upon the girthiness of the actual stalk itself they're actually they're actually making hybrids or breeding corn to grow shorter and more stoutier um they're fine and that they can get just as much yield out of the uh shorter grown corn than they can the real tall stuff and the reason why they're starting to lean towards that is basically for standability um there's issues with corn as it gets to full maturity uh we run into these hurricanes that uh come into uh the fall time here and the wind can blow this corn down and once it's two full maturity and at its maximum height it is somewhat vulnerable so that's what they're uh starting to emphasize on now so when you see this shorter corn you might say to yourself boy it doesn't that's not going to yield much and we're fine in that um it has nothing yield has nothing to do with the actual height of the corn stock so we've got these mixer wagons just about loaded and we're gonna go ahead and get them fed off here and i'll join back up with you once we get feeding these uh feeding these loads off here we um we're feeding 12 loads i'll end up loading up 12 loads this morning and then one of my nephews or one of my brothers will load up a uh load of feed here this afternoon to be fed to the cows we're feeding around uh 250 to 260 000 pounds of feed a day so we'll join up with you here in a second once i get feeding these off [Music] all right we've got both mixer wagons loaded and i need to let the silo loader down so we've got a power winch on this silo and the switch is right here in this back part of the bay and the commodity shed so that enables us to uh run the silo without having to walk all the way around out back there to crank the silo down so we're gonna go over and grab the red mixer and shut the pto off on this one here get the red one cut off first and then we'll come over and we'll grab this one and we'll feed this one off [Music] well we'll get this slow cut off here we've got three different rations that we feed to the milk cows two rat two different rations that we have for the dry cows and then we've got three different rations for uh the heifers so we feed all the milk cows first and um what we have to do is we have to put a a little bit in front of everybody so that they've got something to eat while we're loading feed and then we go back through and add to it as we move on through the morning feeding the cows here so we've got our cows in different groups and not all the groups are the same size and um the different lactating cycles uh you know the the heifers the fresh cows and the high cows they're all different size groups too so we don't have everything all in one line we'll feed a group here we'll meet a group over in the other barn and then we'll be over into the third part so this load here that i'm dumping off i have to feed in three different barns it's just how we have things set up it's a fresh cow load so we've got some of the fresh cows that are in behind the parlor uh they're easier to keep an eye on and we've got um fresh cows that are in uh this one particular group that we're feeding here it's on the far side of barn five here and uh they're more or less strategically placed and easier to do herd checks on just before they get milked in the morning they're gonna get milked in about 40 minutes half hour to 40 minutes one of my brothers will be able to walk through them here first thing if they haven't walked through them already and check them over before they end up going into the into the parliament and then the uh group that's over in the furthest barn over um that group they're coming into the tail end of their fresh cycle then they'll get moved into into the different groups into the high group after that so we're coming into uh barn six which is in behind the parlor this is a dead-end feed alley here in other words we cannot drive all the way through this barn we pull in feed what we have to feed and then we back back out of the barn the holding area is right directly in front of us i have to open up a gate unless one of the guys end up meeting me there usually usually one of the guys is right here our timing might be off a little bit and i'm usually getting this gate for me so everybody wants to see the parlor well there's the back side of the parlor see the group of cows uh in front of the commander in front of the crowd gate i'm feeding off a box doll right now that's used for sorting cows [Music] we'll have to go and close that gate now we'll go ahead and back out of this barn and we'll feed the rest of this load off over to barney that barn there right about where i stopped with the mixer wagon we originally built the parlor that building was only that long you can kind of see the uh red sheet metal up in the ceiling and we have added on to that barn uh three times now we just recently added on the last little part of the addition there about two years ago it wasn't last year i forget which now but we're pulling into barn eight here on in this barn on this one end where you still see the feed there we've got uh non-lactating peppers these heifers here um are bread but they haven't had a calf yet and then the rest of the barn from this point forward here to the west um is all milk cows this barn here we added on to this one ah twice i believe and the original part started well i could be wrong we might add it on to this one three times as well um we added on up here where the crossover is from the crossover to the west we added on that portion and then the portion in behind us here i think we built this barn in 2008 i believe if memory serves me correctly here [Music] so [Music] all right i've just cranked the style loader down or let the sound water down and uh why don't i just stick you guys to the side of the mixer wagon here [Music] [Music] all right we've got that fed off now we're gonna come back in here let this water down and we [Music] are i'll load these two uh mixer wagons up again so we'll come back at you once we get in the feeding or loading the uh dry cow rations i've got two cow rations to load now milk cow rations we'll feed them off and then i've got uh two dry cow rations to load up all right we've got feed in front of all the milk cows now it takes us three loads to get something in front of all the milk cows we've actually fed four off but being that we load these mixer wagons in pairs that ends up being four loads to get everybody fed so right now we're feeding or i'm loading up feed for uh dry cows that just dumped the bucket load of dry hay into the one mixer wagon and i've got to go get a bucket load another bucket load of dry hay for the other one um i've got two more loads to feed to the milk cows which will feed those after i get done feeding everybody else here we're like i said we're feeding we're loading up feed for dry cows right now and we'll go into uh loading up feet for uh the little heifers and then the bread heifers and then we'll finish up with the last couple loads that are going to the melt cows here and then we'll get ourselves over to the chopper i've got fuel in the chopper already however i only had 100 gallons with me i've got to take another hundred i'll top it off and while it's getting topped off with fuel uh we'll sharpen the knives i ended up blowing all the dry stuff off of it last night wiping the dust off the windows this time of year the dew sets in pretty heavy and if you leave all the dust on the windows it turns to mud and then when it dries um the stuff doesn't come off it takes a lot longer a lot more effort to uh wash the windows so we've got another bucket load going over to the red mixer wagon we're running out of room in this one bunk to dump our ingredients into so we're having to travel out to this back bunk here we end up getting things set up uh from the day before and i just spilled a couple of flakes of hay off of that one bucket load i'll have to go back and clean that up tomorrow we're gonna have to start loading the mixer wagons in that back bunk because we're filling uh this bunk one here what we'll end up doing [Music] is to our right side here bunk two where we have them numbered from right to left not left to right we have them numbered from right to left one through three and then four is out back um we have in that bunk kind of to our left we have court silage uh bmr silage rather that we put in there last year and we'll feed that once we're done chopping uh for the year and then that'll give us uh corn silage that has already been fermented it's already gone through the fermentation process and the cows just milked better on feet it is cooked out green silage green haylage and whatever it just it doesn't agree with their diet and they end up losing a little milk production and we always try to feed a fermented feed that's at least per minute for at least three weeks we'll get these loaded up and then we'll join back up with you when we feed them [Music] all right we're pulling into uh barn nine we have far off dry cows in this one small it's not really a quarter section of the barn but it's in this one left corner here and then we've got heifers in the rest of this barn we've got a connected building that runs between this barn and barney and then barn eight has a connecting building running between it and the parlor so we can run animals back and forth without having to load them on a trailer here so when we put these cows into this dry cow group we can just run them right down through those connecting buildings to get them over into this barn eventually someday we'll have milk cows in this barn [Music] there you can see the heifers are rushing up to the headlocks they want to get fed and they're they're going to get fed here next so we've got to park this mixer wagon grab the other one feed that one off and then we'll uh load up and get over here and get them fed well we've got some natural lighting now and i've got two loads loaded up for barn nine one on the red mixer there and one on the white one and we've got one of the guys putting sand bedding in we'll run on over and uh dump this load off i gotta turn my freaking scale almost forgot to do that we've got 28 000 on this load and this is just uh callage and corn silage load here is going into the middle uh aged heifers which is in the metal group of the barn here and the guys are also here now cleaning barn so we've got the back truck dumping a load of manure off into this front pit here and um we'll head on over and get this load fed off that there's the bedding truck there and what he's doing is he's waiting for that group of cows to go into the parlor and while they're into the parlor getting milked he'll end up dumping the sand off into the stalls we do the uh we do the stalls once a week so we're feeding this load off in the middle of the bar we'll feed from here down through about two thirds of the way and then we'll back back we'll back up feed the rest of the load off on the other side of the barn here so they the guys are here now what they're doing is they're cleaning the barn with the back truck they have moved everybody over from the feed alley section of the barn over into the stall section and then the back truck will come in clean the barn and then they'll let everybody back to uh the feed alley here being that they've got fresh feed it shouldn't take a much it doesn't usually take much rather to get them over from one side of the barn here uh to the other [Music] all of our other barns except for the barns across the road have alley scrapers in them so the other three barns that are on this side of the road have alley scrapers [Music] and this one has to be cleaned uh with the back truck because we don't have scrapers in here yet the other barns have manure storage under the barn and if we were going to put alley scrapers in here we'd have to have some place to dump the manure and um we would either have to dump it into a small reception pit and pump it to the lagoon or truck it from a reception pit to uh to the lagoon so we've gotta set ourselves up with something like that here eventually if we ever get to the point where we're milking cows out of this barn we'll have to do something with the um the way that we handle the manure out of here [Music] we're only cleaning this uh we clean the stall sections once a day and we clean the feed alley sections twice a day there's not a lot of manure right there but um the other barns that we clean with the alley scrapers they're being cleaned all the time and the cows stay a lot cleaner um and the barns they have the alley scrapers as you can see them dry cows right there they're they're pretty clean the heifers they're they're decent they're not they're not dirty dirty but um it's just better for foot health and cleanliness of the animal to uh to try to keep the bar as clean as you can can get it and by cleaning three four times a day with a back truck or a skid steer is just not enough [Music] good guys start cleaning barns at six o'clock in the morning and uh they get in here just before we get the feed fed out if we start feeding these any earlier you have a real hard time moving the animals from one side of the barn to the other if they have feet in front of them so we wait for them to get the animals moved or out of the way feed them and then when they go to move the animals back the animals will actually move themselves because they naturally want to come to the feed so we've got just a little bit left to dump off and then um this mixer wagon will uh end up having a milk cow load of feed load it onto it and that'll be the last load that i'll have to mix up here this morning so we've got the red mixer with a heifer load on it and left the low data one up with another heifer load and um then that'll be it well we just got done dumping the last load of feed over into barn nine there and we are driving by auction row here i've gotten some comments here in the last couple of videos you know why don't you put all your equipment inside well we don't have a building big enough on the farm here to put everything inside most of the stuff is seasonal in other words we're using it from time to time and um you know we kind of need it from one week to the next so it's currently sitting outside um the tedders stuff like that we're done with that stuff the older tractors we'll end up putting them away here eventually once we get the time we do have some barns that are on different farms that are a little farther away that will end up parking stuff in for the winter the manure equipment stays outside because we use it all the time and um it just takes a lot of time to put this stuff away if you're using it from one day to the next or one week to the next so we've got two loads of feed left to uh load up here and um then i've got to take a couple of doors out of the silo i've got to move the silo loader down here in that silo right there and then we'll get to the choppa well folks that's gonna about do it for this video i guess we're gonna get chopped in here and uh maybe the next video that i come at you wouldn't be an actual shopping video so we are in the day number two and we started on this day last year 14th of uh september so we're just going to run the sharpie stone over the knives and i got to finish up thanks for watching folks and we will catch you at the next one

Channel: Farming Fixing & Fabricating

Views: 53,792

Rating: 4.9645615 out of 5

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Id: eJkGgmcvzzw

Length: 38min 12sec (2292 seconds)

Published: Sat Sep 18 2021