Feeding hay for maintenance can cost up to seven times more than the alternatives. Here’s how to make your dry feed work harder.
When the dry season bites and standing feed runs thin, the hay truck often becomes a regular visitor. Cattle do perform well on hay, but for stock that only need to hold condition, it is often more than they need, and it comes at a steep price.
The cheapest feed in any season is the feed you’ve already grown. The trick is matching its value to the right class of livestock, and filling the nutritional gaps without paying for a full ration you don’t need.
The numbers don’t lie
AusFarm Nutrition Products (ANP) ran the numbers on a cattle operation at current fodder prices. The results are hard to ignore:
- Growing cattle: cereal hay can cost up to 10 times more than grazing dry pasture supplemented with StockGro-HiPro.
- Dry cows: maintenance feeding with hay is up to seven times more expensive than grazing stubbles with StockGro-HiPro, and almost double the cost of feeding bought-in barley straw with StockGro-HiPro.
ANP Chief Nutritionist Dr Paul Meggison has spent years helping producers with dry season feed budgets. The table below compares four feeding options for low-level growth and maintenance across different weight classes.
Weekly cost per head of dry season feeding options
| Liveweight (kg) | Expected production (g/hd/day) | Cereal hay only | Dry pasture + StockGro-HiPro | Stubbles + StockGro-HiPro | Straw + StockGro-HiPro |
| 250 | 200 | $12.95 | $1.30 | Maintenance only | Maintenance only |
| 300 | 300 | $15.55 | $1.70 | Maintenance only | Maintenance only |
| 350 | 400 | $18.15 | $2.10 | Maintenance only | Maintenance only |
| 400 | 500 | $20.70 | $2.60 | Maintenance only | Maintenance only |
| 450 | Maintenance | $16.75 | $2.80 | $2.80 | $10.00 |
| 500 | Maintenance | $18.15 | $3.00 | $3.00 | $10.20 |
| 550 | Maintenance | $19.75 | $3.50 | $3.50 | $10.50 |
Assumptions: dry ryegrass pasture and stubbles costed at $0; moderate-quality straw at $110/tonne delivered; moderate-quality cereal hay at $300/tonne delivered.
Keeping dry cows in condition for less
For dry cows that just need to hold condition, the most efficient option is grazing home-grown stubbles with StockGro-HiPro. That works out at around 50c/head/day, or $3.50/head/week. Keep an eye on feed availability and have a backup plan ready if stubbles start to run short.
If home-grown forage is limited, palatable barley or oaten straw supplemented with StockGro-HiPro is still an efficient way to maintain dry cows.
Get the most from dry pasture
Improved pastures like ryegrass are at their most useful in the early dry stage, while plenty of leaf is still on the plant. Save this feed for your producing animals, such as steers, heifers, and lactating and late-pregnant cows, and supplement them with StockGro-HiPro.
A word of caution: standing dry feed loses nutritional value quickly once leaves drop or after rain. Monitor your paddocks while grazing and re-assess their production capacity after every rain event.
The key is timing. Start supplementing with StockGro-HiPro early, and make the most of the pasture before it’s reduced to dry stalks and stems.
So when should you feed hay?
Of all the options assessed, hay was the least efficient. It is best used to top up standing pasture when its quality or quantity falls short, rather than as the whole ration.
For growing cattle, whether hay stacks up comes down to your production goals and where you expect the market to be at sale time.
How StockGro-HiPro works
StockGro-HiPro is a liquid supplement designed to correct protein, energy and mineral deficiencies in cattle on mature dry feed and stubbles. It supplies several sources of rumen degradable protein, as urea and ammonium salts (non-protein nitrogen), along with essential minerals, vitamins and trace elements, delivered little and often.
This feeds the rumen microflora, which lifts fibre digestion and releases more energy from dry feed. The result is better feed conversion efficiency from the stubbles and pastures you already have.
Plan ahead
Don’t let the dry season strangle your business. Talk to the team at ANP to plan your dry season feeding and get the most out of every dollar you spend on feed.
