Ethanol Blog

When, due to economic realities and livestock safety issues, grazing corn downed by high winds is not the solution, carefully managed grazing with distillers grains and silage may be the answer, according to an article in the Kearney Hub (http://bit.ly/…).

Cattle cannot be turned onto downed corn that may be hiding 50 to 100 bushels of corn per acre with the risk of founder and acidosis.

However, grazing strategies can prevent acidosis for fields with eight or more bushels of corn per acre on the ground, according to Bruce Treffer, a University of Nebraska-Lincoln extension educator in Dawson County.

Treffer's strategy includes using cull cows to graze the field and filling them up each morning with a mix of distillers grains and silage in the field. Cattle do up to 80% of their daily feeding in the morning, he said.

He also recommended putting twice as much feed grade baking soda -- 10 pounds per 1,000 gallons of water -- as usually into the cow's water supply to help reduce the chance of acidosis.

Cheryl Anderson can be reached at Cheryl.anderson@telventdtn.com

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