Forage Types

Establishing a price for hay on the stump can be a little tricky. A fair price is somewhere between the seller’s cost of production and the buyer’s estimated value minus the cost to harvest.

Here’s a question I hear a lot: How much soil fertility does grazing remove from pastures compared to hay? To ask this another way: If I graze a flock of sheep on the field and then sell the lambs, do those lambs and ewes remove as many soil nutrients as when I make hay or balage from that field?

How much money do I have in each bale? What does it cost me to produce an acre of hybrid bermudagrass? How do I calculate my equipment and labor costs?

Hay producers are often focused exclusively on cash costs or variable costs of production such as fuel, repairs, fertilizer, hired labor and rent. Whereas, the fixed costs of depreciation and interest on equipment are often ignored.

Water not only impacts the feed intake of grazing livestock, but the animal’s ability to regulate body temperature. Cattle prefer water between 40 to 80˚F, and water temperature outside this range significantly reduces water intake.

How do you decide when to move animals onto a new pasture? How long do you expect the pasture to feed them before they should be moved again? Most likely your answer is “it depends.” It depends on forage available in the pasture, forage available in alternative pastures, animal feed demand and animal production goals.