Will Fulwider  0:01 

Alright, Michael, how are you doing today?

Michael Geissinger  0:04  

I’m doing well, Will. Believe it or not, we got some snow up here last week. So, winter kind of seems like it’s coming. Today we’re gonna be talking about grazing. So sorry to spoil that right away. But I did want to start us off with a classic joke. So I’ll ask you. Why do cows have hooves instead of feet?

Will Fulwider  0:25  

I don’t know.

Michael Geissinger  0:27  

Because they lack toes. Like lactose, get it?

Will Fulwider  0:36  

Actually, that one was better than the last one for sure. 

Michael Geissinger  0:38  

You’re welcome. 

Will Fulwider  0:50  

Welcome to Field Notes, my name is Will Fulwider, and I’m joined by my co host, Michael Geissinger. We are two Regional Crops Educators with UW Madison Extension in Wisconsin, combining our skills, knowledge and experience to help farmers and agronomists develop research based solutions to issues facing agriculture in Wisconsin.

Michael Geissinger  1:20  

Well, without further ado, or another cheesy joke, I will introduce our topic and guests for this episode of Field Notes. Today we will be discussing bale grazing during the late fall and winter season. And we are joined by Jason Cavadini, the Grazing Outreach Specialist with UW Madison Extension that works across Wisconsin and Lynn Johnson, the Grazing Consultant for the Northwest Wisconsin Grazers Network, that bale grazes in Polk County. We’re really excited to have these guests sharing their expertise with us today. So did you guys want to just share a little bit more about introductions or anything of that nature?

Lynn Johnson  1:59  

I’m Lynn Johnson, I work with the Northwest Grazing Network. And I get calls all the time about issues that come up during the fall and winter months. So, this topic is one that I’m really enthused about, because I think it does represent some solutions to problems that have come up repeatedly. And I graze on about 200 acres here in Polk County and have sold my herd. But I now custom graze for other beef producers, primarily grass fed, grass finished operations. So, not only dealing with number of customers when they call with questions, but have to keep the operation functional throughout the year. So, looking forward to visiting on this topic today. 

Jason Cavadini  3:03  

And I’m Jason Cavadini, I’m in the central part of the state and Marshfield area. I am kind of involved here, wearing a couple of different hats. So, I’m the State Grazing Specialist with Extension, a role that I started in June. Previously, I spent nine years at the Marshfield Agricultural Research Station. But I also do grazing on my own farm as well. And we do direct marketing of grass fed beef right off the farm. I kind of started from scratch back in 2014. And the reason we graze is because it gave us the best opportunity to actually operate our own farm and bale grazing fits right in with that. We didn’t have a lot of equipment and resources. So, bale grazing was really our best option for maintaining a herd through the winter. So that’s why we do it. And that’s what I’ll be talking about today.

Michael Geissinger  4:14  

Excellent. So, could you start by sharing an overview of what we’re referring to when we say bale grazing, and maybe we’ll have Lynn kick us off with that?

Lynn Johnson  4:24  

Now, as I mentioned a minute ago, bale grazing, I think, is a solution for some issues that come up when feeding hay to cattle primarily. And it has to do with responsible way of nutrient management on the farm, and avoiding some problems we get into, such as a muddy lot and awful concentration of nutrients during those feeding months in the winter, and the new one that seems to also be an issue now is the cost of fuel and operating equipment in the winter. So if we can address a couple of those issues with bale grazing, and all that kind of supports the reason it’s becoming more popular, but as far as what it is, we’re really thinking in terms of putting the hay in the field, which needs some nutrients and avoid concentrating it up near the buildings. We position them in a grid type layout. So that on an average acre and might have 20 – 25 bales at the most. But in normal structure that we can put electric fence between the rows, and limit access to just the bales, we want to have the cattle eating. Probably most likely within round bale feeders. So if you can imagine this layout of bales and feeders on just the ones who want the cattle to eat and electric fence, partitioning that field, and when they complete such as three bale rings, we move the wire and allow them access to the next three bales and this goes on throughout the winter. We’ll talk more specifically about the how this is done. But a lot of this can be done simply manually and not even have to, or very seldom have to start up the skid steer or the tractor to be moving bales around. Really nice benefits when you step back and look at the overall practice and benefits that go with it. Jason, you want to add something to your experience on that? How you would define it?

Jason Cavadini  7:10  

Yeah, I’d say you pretty well covered what bale grazing is, and I will say that for me. as well, the biggest reason why we started doing it is we just didn’t have the capacity to bring all of the animals into a lot over the winter. And you know, concentrate all that manure and then have to invest the time and the equipment for getting that, you know, keeping the area clean and stuff like that. And for bringing in feed it just infrastructure wise, we weren’t set up for that. So, bale grazing was really our only option. I’d say we go several months now without taking the tractor out to the pasture. So, it wasn’t necessarily just a plug and play type of thing, like we just started doing it and we’re successful from the start. We’ve improved it a little bit every year since we’ve started doing it. But I would say that while the biggest reason why we did it was just infrastructure and capacity to feed through the winter, I’d say now probably the biggest reason why I like bale grazing is seeing what those pastures look like the next grazing season, especially right now. You know, later in the year after the forage comes back and fully recovers. And we could probably have a whole other conversation about how to treat those out wintering areas later. But the fertility in those areas is better than anywhere else, hands down. So, it’s really a good tool for building up soil fertility.

Michael Geissinger  9:03  

Yeah, that’s a great way to kind of introduce bale grazing. Maybe the only other visual I would add to kind of build on both of those is if you were flying in an airplane over a pasture and looked down at a pasture that was practicing bale grazing, you would see those hay bales out there in a grid system basically. And so it’s we call it a bale grazing. But maybe in another sense, it’s a different way to feed hay when you think about it in the strict way.

Will Fulwider  9:36  

So with that kind of introduction of what bale grazing actually is; is there a system in particular that this really works well with. Do you have to have a specific setup for your farm, in order to kind of take advantage of this solution as Lynn called it?

Jason Cavadini  9:53  

Not necessarily. I would say that, while I know for the reasons I just laid out. If we do have equipment limitations and stuff like that, then it’s really a no brainer, but I would say even on an operation that has everything at their dispense, it’s still a really good idea just because it works. And, you know we’re building up fertility and I think, you know, so if you’re going to talk about what specific systems will beef cattle for sure. So I raise Red and Black Angus, they are just really well suited for this. They’re hardy animals. I know several other farmers who I’ve talked to who have kind of a hybrid system where they’re out wintering on pasture, but they give them access to a building. And rarely do they choose to go into the building, they prefer to be out there. There’s things that we can do if it gets, you know, bad conditions for them. But that’s pretty rare. And there are, it’s, I’ve seen it be a little more challenging with dairy animals. But I also have seen plenty of people do it successfully, like with dairy heifers, for example. So I don’t know if it’s specific to one system or another. I think it’s a practice that kind of works across the board, in my opinion. 

Lynn Johnson  11:29  

I’ll chime in and say that the systems that I’ve seen that are very effective are the ones where it might be a retired dairy farm. They do have some cement, in the area around the barn yard, or in the barn yard and have some fencing and lanes that are able to be set up in a way that gives them a backup when conditions in the early spring and in the late fall are maybe not ideal for having cattle on the hay field or the pasture because of the creation of mud or kind of plugging up the soil or creating problems for the sod. And those situations with a retired dairy farm, they have no options that if the conditions are getting really soft, pull them off the bale grazing area and feed them for a few days in the barn yard, where they’re not going to be compacting the soil or creating problems out in the bale grazing area. That system I think, has allowed a lot of flexibility and to count for not the normal but the unusual or unexpected conditions when they occur just to protect the soil and have the outcome of a very favorable one and when completed in the spring.

Michael Geissinger  13:27  

Yeah, and Lynn, you’re starting to transition actually into the next question that I have for you, which is what are, and this is kind of a high level question. But what are some of the biggest advantages of practicing bale grazing? And in considering those advantages, you know, if there’s a way to hit on labor, tractor usage, manure or nutrient management, and pasture productivity, and kind of consider some of those themes. What would you say some of the advantages are? And I know that we’ve alluded to a lot of them, but maybe just highlighting those and taking some time to focus in on them a little more.

Lynn Johnson  14:08  

Yes, I think that nutrient management issue is a tremendous side benefit, in addition to having a very nice environment for the livestock to be consuming their forage during the winter months. Being able to be spread out, having a clean area to lay down in and they can even get behind the bales that are positioned out in the field for a windbreak. There’s just these little subtle things that come in as advantages that I think the centerpiece though is nutrient management and protecting the soil and the water quality coming off that area. By not having it so concentrated in one feeding area or one dry lot which becomes overburdened with manure and urine during the winter months if it’s not big enough, and that’s very common. Around the bale ring, some people don’t even move the bale ring, they just leave it in one place and keep adding new bales. And that creates almost a mound like result. And then that becomes a real challenge in the spring to distribute that across the fields with a manure spreader. It is another operation that requires labor and fuel. So having it dispersed on the fields directly eliminates those concerns in the spring. So that’s definitely an advantage. The other would probably fall in the category of plowing management of your hay inventory, and kind of forces you to do some forage budgeting in the fall, when we all should be doing it anyway. But it gets that process underway, and allows you to control your feed inventory and match up with your cattle demand. I think those are the kinds of things that kind of sneak in, but obviously, machinery use and cost and expense and labor, I think is a wash, quite frankly. I think you’ve spent about as much time moving bale rings and setting up the next area as you would you if you were moving bales, with a tractor and so on. And in my operation, I pretty much use antique tractors, so I don’t have a cab, to hide in out of the weather. And so I’d rather not be putting bales out in a blizzard. And when you’re doing bale grazing, you have some flexibility in when you choose to put the hay or and make it accessible to the livestock and you do that on nice days. And try to plan ahead and use this more pleasant environment in which you’re setting up the next round of bales for feeding. 

Will Fulwider  17:31  

Follow up on that then I guess talking about the advantages, are there any disadvantages of bale grazing compared to other styles of winter feeding? 

Jason Cavadini  17:41  

I can take that. I was actually thinking of that, as Lynn was talking about all the advantages. I think it’s important to acknowledge that we don’t necessarily look at this as a silver bullet. But I would say bale grazing is the one practice on my operation where I could clearly pretty easily write a story about the one big lesson I learned every single year that I’ve done it. And so now like eight years into it or whatever we are. I’ve picked up like eight things that I’ve improved upon. And it’s really gotten to be a pretty smooth operating machine now.  I totally agree with what Lynn said, get the hay out when it’s nice out. I’ve made the mistake of waiting way too long and trying to get hay out in a blizzard. And that’s not good. So my two big disadvantages would be I mean, the big kind of elephant in the room type disadvantage is the mud it’s April. But I think, that being said, there’s little things we can do to prepare ourself for that. Especially for those of us who don’t really have a facility to move them on to for a couple of weeks when it’s muddy out. And so I think that problem is maybe worse on some operations than it is on others. And some years are worse than others. This past spring was particularly bad. It was kind of an extended mud season but we can probably talk later about ways that we deal with that. And then to me the other disadvantage just kind of a thing that bugs me every year as I’m doing this is I like to have all of our bales with net wrap, plastic net wrap on them. That expedites the process of pulling the wrap off of them as we set the bales. It’s a lot quicker than a bunch of singular strands of twine. But it’s a bunch of plastic waste, I don’t really love that and never feel particularly good about it. But and I guess the other disadvantage of the plastic net wrap is, if you aren’t doing it at the right time, it actually can freeze on to the bales and be problematic sometimes. But if you do follow Lynn’s advice and get the bales out in a timely manner, then it shouldn’t really matter.

Will Fulwider  20:32  

Diving into that idea of, you know, what do you do kind of from a management standpoint, when it does get muddy out, you know, in April, or, you know, if we get rains in November, or what have you? What are the management considerations to make? How do you deal with kind of that scenario, and then a follow up to that is in the management realm is, you know. For me, it makes sense that, for folks that don’t have, you know, big manure pits, or they have small operations, or they have less of an infrastructure on it, that bale grazing makes a lot of sense. But at the end of the day, you know, that manure is going on to frozen soil. And so during meltdown in the spring, you know, is run off and issue in these systems, whereas, you know, if you had a manure pit were they able to spread that when the ground wasn’t frozen, it might result in less runoff. I don’t know about it, from your experience, kind of in a more statewide roll, if you’ve seen results of that, Jason?

Jason Cavadini  21:29  

Yeah, well, I kind of have a list here of what I would consider the top management considerations with bale grazing and that includes, I mean, a big part of it is addressing the whole mud issue or anticipating it. And I really think that if you’re going to bale graze, you don’t just start thinking about it the end of September or the middle of October. You will plan for all year. I started planning for bale grazing back in the spring, anticipating where we are going to do it this year, anticipating where we don’t want to be in April, so I think we’re putting a lot of emphasis on mud, but it’s a very short season, but it can be so stressful that it seems bigger than it is. And so it just is worth thinking about it a lot in advance. So the the biggest thing to me is kind of looking at your topography, and where water can concentrate and stuff like that. So obviously, that’s where you want to avoid ending up in April. But it’s also there are some places where we just might want to avoid bale grazing altogether, we don’t want to be concentrating the nutrients in a place where water is going to concentrate and flow. And so considering our topography is a big thing. Considering wind direction, like where the prevailing winds come from in the winter, that’s important, especially if it gets really cold out, we do want to have the option of placing those cattle where they can utilize those preset bales as a windbreak. Also, there is such a thing as when we set these bales out, the wind can wreak havoc on them before we even get to them and start pulling them apart a little bit. We have to anticipate for that, when we’re budgeting our hay, or when we’re coming up with how much we need. I usually plan for 10 to 15% waste. People don’t love that term, because it’s not necessarily waste, it goes back to the soil. But we have to make sure that April doesn’t come up. And we need to get more hay out on the pasture.

Jason Cavadini  23:55  

Other management considerations considering proximity to water. How are they going to get back to water all winter? Often, we have to set up a temporary lane to allow them back to a winter water source. How to access animals if problems occur? So if there’s a couple feet of snow on the ground, and all of a sudden there’s a sick animal or a limping animal that needs attention, how are we going to attend to her? So we just have to anticipate that. Distribution is a really big word when it comes to bale grazing. You know, ideally, we want that hay and manure spread out as evenly as possible. At the same time, we want to take advantage of any remaining hay so I don’t make my cattle completely finish up every last straw of hay and there’s two reasons for that. One of them is when they get that low, they start getting bored, and they get mischievous. And they start to test that fence wire, and potentially try to access hay that they’re not supposed to have access to. But I also like the extra hay as bedding. So when you move that bale ring, it really helps with the cleanliness of the animals and animal comfort.

Jason Cavadini  25:32  

And the last management consideration I’ve got here is bale spacing. I started out with really, really wide spacing. And that was probably the first big lesson that I learned. And I’ve tightened it up considerably. So I used to burn up 10, 15,  20 acres bale grazing in a winter with a smaller herd than I have now. And now I burn up two to maybe three acres with much tighter spacing, but I’m getting uniform coverage on that land, which is really important. And that also means that if we do get into a really challenging mud season, we’re not sacrificing as much ground.

Lynn Johnson  26:21  

What I found as a technique to make it quicker to set up the next round of bale rings for feeding is to have the system sort of divided in half. So that all I have to do is set that next three rings up in advance, all I do is open a gate, electric gate, and they go in and start feeding on those three new bales. Then, I can go back, and, without cattle being involved, I can set up those next three that will be available, move the fence, without cattle being right next door. And this goes a lot smoother. By having a system where you can flip flop every few days when they run out of hay. Another challenge we have, of course, when we have the wet ground is to have a backup location, maybe a small lot near the buildings or somewhere near the water where you can put them for a couple of days, just to take pressure off of your pasture or hay field. 

Lynn Johnson  27:54  

One of the ideas that’s been intertwined here is that a bale provides more than just feed for your cattle. It also provides nutrients for your future hay crops or pasture production through the nutrients it’s leaving behind. And that point Jason made about the bedding, I think is a real value to the livestock and their cow comfort is having a dry place to lay down part of the year. Another issue is when we get pretty heavy snows up here in Northern Wisconsin, we have to have a Plan B for how we move our bale rings under those conditions. And I found that these lighter weight bale rings that have a big ring on the bottom and not feet that get stuck. But rather they’re easy to push around. Or they’re easy to flip over and move to the next location. Those considerations kind of sneak in as you build experience and you realize might be a simpler or a better way to do things. And in my observations, individuals that are doing bale grazing, they all have a little different system that fits their farm and their personality and their list of preferences. So it’s not a one size fits all. It’s the concept. And I think the value and the benefits way outweigh the negative things that sometimes we have to deal with just due to weather and other conditions we don’t control. 

Jason Cavadini  29:49  

Yeah, and I’ve got just before we move on to the next question. I’ve got just a couple of follow up comments real quick here and a couple of things Lynn said. So one thing that I’ve noticed is, I mean, we’re almost always no matter what the first cutting of hay that we make in the season is going to be mature. We just know I mean, part of the reason why we’re harvesting it is because the pasture is getting mature. One of the advantages of that, though, is if we do have legumes in our pasture, which I know not everybody does. But if if our goal is to maintain clover in our pastures, for example, and that is mature, we’re actually seeding more clover by feeding that mature hay. And I’ve seen that wherever the bale ring is, there’s more clover, so that is one advantage. Another thing as I know other advocates around the United States for bale grazing who are pretty adamantly opposed to the use of bale rings. I don’t necessarily think that’s a bad thing. But it really depends on what the farmer’s goals are. I think, if you’re gonna feed bales on pasture in the winter, without a bale ring, you’re going to need at least 50% more hay, if not more than that. I would, probably 100% more hay because your hay is about 50% as efficiently used when you don’t have bale rings, in my experience. It doesn’t last quite as long. So, it depends on the farmer’s goals, but the other downside of that is, and from my experience, is when you feed without bale rings, you end up with an even thicker thatch layer in the spring that you have to deal with if you want to get that pasture reestablished. And then the last comment I was going to make is that regarding the light bale rings, some of my bale rings that I use here are plastic, it’s really heavy duty, like underground gas pipe material. I really like them because they’re easy on my back for moving. The only disadvantage to those is when the bale is fed all the way down, they can push them around pretty easily. And they’ll push them right into the wire and ground it out. And that’s the advantage of a steel ring. If they push an empty steel ring into a wire, they’ll stop pushing when it touches the wire.

Lynn Johnson  32:30  

The other point you made, I would just kind of condense it into this idea. Optimizing waste of hay for both the benefit of the cow and the soil. I think what most people are trying to accomplish, we’re feeding both the soil and the cows. It’s a matter of the economic equation that’s behind that as to which one you want to optimize or how you want to adjust it. But you’re right, there are ways of shifting that relationship around and we have to figure out what’s appropriate for the individual farm.

Michael Geissinger  33:11  

Well, we just really appreciate having both of you guys join us for this episode of Field Notes. I do have one last question here to ask for anyone that’s listening out there. What is one piece of advice you might have for someone that is considering bale grazing for the first time?

Lynn Johnson  33:29  

First time user should try to focus on bale grazing when the ground is well frozen and avoid the two challenging areas early in the fall and late or early in the spring where you get soft ground. Concentrate on figuring it out when the ground is fully frozen. And stop doing it once it softens up, just switch back to your traditional way of feeding hay. And that’ll give you enough experience, begin to realize what else you might want to do to make your system effective.

Jason Cavadini  34:10  

The one that I’ll leave us with is how to treat that area afterwards. And I know that that is a very common topic of conversation at pasture walks. And there’s always a spectrum of opinions on how it should be treated. But, in my experience, and-I’ve done it both ways-I’ve done it or I’ve left it and just ended up with what I ended up with later the next year. And I’ve totally started over and smoothed it out and planted new pasture. What I would say is it needs to be determined on a year by year basis. Two years ago I left it, that pasture looks beautiful right now you can’t even tell that it was out wintered on, other than the fact that it’s nice and dark green and there’s plenty of nitrogen there. I think if I would have left it this spring, I would have ended up with nothing but Pennsylvania Smart Weed, and probably Canadian Thistles. And so I just think it needs to be evaluated each year. But there are some years where we can get by with minimal maintenance of that area afterwards. 

Will Fulwider  35:26  

Well, Jason and Lynn, thanks so much for talking with us today. Sure, we could talk hours about bale grazing, but you know, trying to fit in a shorter time as possible. I think we covered some great material here. And thank you very much for taking time and talking with us. 

Lynn Johnson  35:43  

You’re welcome.

Jason Cavadini  35:44  

Thanks for having us.

Will Fulwider  36:00  

Thanks for listening. This has been Field Notes from UW Madison Extension. My name is Will Fulwider,  Regional Crops Educator for Dane and Dodge Counties, and I was joined by my co host, Michael Geissinger, Crops Educator for St. Croix, Barron, Polk and Pierce Counties. A big thank you to Joe Ryan for creating our theme music and the Abby Wilkymacky for our logo. If you have questions about anything you’ve heard today, or about your farming practices in general, reach out to the Extension Agriculture Educators serving your region. Listen to Field Notes here, or wherever you get your podcasts.