Over the next three weeks, we will be releasing, through the podcast, a series of episodes on the topic of winter feeding livestock. Up first we have Melinda Sims, of Sims Cattle Company, talking about windrow grazing on their ranch in windy McFadden, WY. After that, we will talk with Dave Ollila of South Dakota Extension about his winter feeding strategy on his ranch east of Newell, SD. Finally, we will talk about bale grazing with Paul Jungnitsch of Alberta Ag and Forestry. Specifically, we will discuss Paul’s Paper “The Effect of Cattle Winter Feeding Systems on Soil Nutrients, Forage Growth, Animal Performance, and Economics.”
Some highlights from Melinda’s episode include the cost of their fed hay including yardage, the amount of time they spend feeding their herd, and the out of the box thinking regarding rain on downed hay. This is a very practical episode with lots of good common sense points. I can’t wait for you to hear it.
When Dave Ollila’s episode is released (Nov. 20th) you are going to want to have your hands free and your notebook ready. Dave brings passion, expertise, and experience to this discussion. I thoroughly enjoyed this discussion with Dave. He made some great points about strategy when it comes to the location of your feeding both in terms of the type of field and where the feed ends up on the field.
My thanks to Paul Jungnitsch for his willingness to entertain my foibles as a rookie podcaster. Due to an operational error on my part, Paul and I were forced to record this episode a second time. It was definitely worth the trouble. We discuss Paul’s master’s thesis on The Effects of Cattle Winter Feeding Systems on Soil Nutrients, Animal Performance, Forage Growth, and Economics. This episode is an excellent introduction to the topic with concrete research data backing up the claims of those out of the box thinkers who say cows can actually improve the soil.
I can’t wait to get these episodes edited so that I can get them in your ears. I strive to produce episodes that can be mined multiple times allowing you to keep coming back and pulling out more helpful resources.
