This is the time of year when I begin to look at potential feed costs for wintering cows and backgrounding calves. A few years ago, a colleague and I developed a spreadsheet for estimating winter feed costs for spring and fall calving cows, utilizing good, fair, and poor-quality hay. Several rations were developed for each hay quality category. Hay plus supplement costs were then averaged to come up with a single feed cost estimate for the various hay quality types.
Basic assumptions for dry, spring calving cows include good quality hay (10% protein, 58% TDN) requiring 2 pounds of grain supplement, fair quality hay (8% protein, 53% TDN) requiring 3 pounds of grain supplement, and poor quality hay (6% protein, 48% TDN) requiring 5 pounds of grain supplement.
Supplement ingredient prices are current from a local feed mill. Hay prices are taken from the latest Missouri Department of Agriculture hay market report. Home raised hay was assigned a cost of $100 per ton based on MU forage production budgets.
Raised hay priced at $100 per ton is the easiest place to start. Good hay with 2 pounds of supplement will have an estimated daily feed cost of $1.79 for a dry cow in late gestation. Fair hay requiring 3 pounds of supplement will have an estimated daily feed cost of $1.86 per day. Poor quality hay requiring 5 pounds of supplement will have an estimated daily feed cost of $1.98 per day.
Winter feed costs using raised hay for fall calving cows will have estimated daily feed costs of $1.97, $2.09, and $2.16 for good, fair, and poor-quality hay respectively. Supplement levels for fall calving cows are 3 pounds per day for good hay, 5 pounds per day for fair hay, and 6 pounds per day for poor hay.
Using current hay market data is much more difficult to get accurate estimates of winter feed costs because many markets quote price ranges, many times hay is priced by the bale, and forage quality is rarely stated.
Recent markets report fair quality hay at $30 to $60 per big round bale. If the assumption is made that the bales weigh 1,000 pounds apiece, daily feed costs for dry beef cows being fed fair quality hay range from $1.27 per day to $2.16 per day depending upon the price of the bale. 1,200 pound bales at the same price range show estimated feed costs from $1.13 per day to $1.86 per day.
What happens if forage quality and bale weight are unknown but the hay price range stays the same as the above example? If good quality hay is purchased for $30 per bale and the bale weighs 1,200 pounds, daily feed costs are an estimated $1.02 per head per day. Alternatively, if poor quality hay is purchased at $60 per bale and the bale weighs 1,000 pounds, estimated daily feed cost soars to $2.25 per head per day.
Bottom line: strive to put up as high of quality hay as possible to reduce the need for supplemental energy or protein supplements. If purchasing hay, get bale weight and forage quality information so informed decisions can be made.
If you have questions on hay testing or developing feeding programs, contact me
at schmitze@missouri.edu or call the Pettis County Extension Center at 660-827-0591.
