[Tim Harrigan]

you could build a wooden crib, for that much corn about 10’x6′ by 10′ high should do it. A wood frame with wire sides would be less expensive. It seems like I still see them around, the wire cylinder cribs, put an ad in the ag paper and you might pick one up pretty cheap.

[Tim Harrigan]

@Baystatetom 36142 wrote:

Another great video Tim! Is it okay to email the link to some of my clients? ~Tom

Sure, no problem. It is for educational use, the more folks that benefit the better.

[Tim Harrigan]

Ethan, you raise an interesting question regarding how to think about timber extraction in the current reality of invasive species and climate change. Ecosystems do not exist at a happy equilibrium indefinitely, they react to shocks and insults and are self-organizing but dynamic in the long-term. In woodlands, the time-scale makes that a challenge to understand and interpret because things like species diversity are measured over decades and centuries. So as a forester, how do you reconcile the historical diversity with the potential for destruction from Birch Bark Disease for instance, or as I have mentioned earlier, Emerald Ash Borer, Asian Long-Horn Beetle or the other pests that may have major impacts?

These are natural systems that self-organize in response to complex systems that we can’t begin to fully understand and the chance of being wrong in the long-term are pretty good. On the other hand you can’t just stare glassy-eyed and technically mute. It seems to me that foresters would want to frame decisions in the context of there best guess of what the reality will be a few decades ahead, as well as today’s situation. My sense is that there is resilience in botanical diversity. So I think there is a certain wisdom in understanding the historical forest pattern, but when I think of what our situation would be if our woodlands in MI were 70% Ash trees….whoa!

I do not know enough about the situation in Colorado to make any sort of intelligent comment, but it seems like greater species diversity would have been desirable. Could better choices have been made two or three generations ago? Are there lessons there that apply to eastern hardwood forests?

[Tim Harrigan]

The up side is it splits nice and burns hot.

[Tim Harrigan]

Could it be cyanide? Orange sunshine?

[Tim Harrigan]

George, you can sell the logs but as you can imagine the market is flooded. Last I checked the average stumpage for ash was about $125/mbf. At this point it is probably best if you can saw it up and use it on site, and it is one of the best fire woods there are. What is a good snag worth?

[Tim Harrigan]

Not sure exactly, there are only 3 sales reported for MI for Jan-June 2012 with average stumpage of $175/mbf. Right now in MI we are getting hammered by the Emerald Ash Borer, Beech Bark Disease is marching across the state and we are wadding up our shorts worrying about the Asian Longhorn Beetle and what that might mean for our Maple trees. Historic diversity levels don’t account for the invasives, and I really think the best strategy is botanical diversity. The EAB is now widespread, and even though the intensity is low in many areas I think the best long-term strategy in most cases should be to begin harvesting big timber and reduce the basal area to less than 20% of the stand. Hope for the best and prepare for the worst.

[Tim Harrigan]

http://jas.fass.org/content/90/3/1047.full.pdf+html

Andy, not sure if you followed the link indicating more recent papers that cited our work, but here is a fairly recent JAS article evaluating round bale feeders with horses and hay feeding economics.

[Tim Harrigan]

With relatively level ground, sandy soil and a grass cover I would expect very little overland flow of water with the exception of hurricanes and spring snow melt. So that makes me wonder about the practical benefit of this water harvesting system in your environment. Can you describe the runoff situation in a little more detail? You mention water leaving the land in a raging stream. That makes me think of water being channeled or something other than sheet flow. If that is the case there might be other alternatives for managing the water.

[Tim Harrigan]

Yes, it is interesting, and it makes sense when you think about what happens around the feeder. One advantage with round feeders is they are easy to move around. If you move them around your pasture in a checker board pattern you can do a pretty good job of minimizing damage from treading, smothering of forage from wasted hay, and do a good job of distributing nutrients throughout the pasture.

It was interesting watching the video of the feeder interactions. Sometimes, with a linear feeder, the boss cow would start at one end and clear the entire feed bunk out from one end to the other. Just reminding the others who the boss was, I guess.

[Tim Harrigan]

Andy, try this link to some work I did a few years ago with some colleagues in Animal Science.

http://www.animal-science.org/content/81/1/109.full.pdf

If the link does not work then search for:

Large round bale feeder design affects hay utilization and beef cow behavior
D. D. Buskirk, A. J. Zanella, T. M. Harrigan, J. L. Van Lente, L. M. Gnagey and M. J. Kaercher.

Most of the questions you have were at least partially evaluated in this work with beef cows. We did not get at the issue of portability because we were evaluating round bale feeders. The bullying issue was addressed pretty well and with circular bale feeders with a small number of cattle it will not be a problem in most cases. Horns are not a problem, but feeders with angled head gates are more effective than vertical head gates at preventing feeding losses from entering and exiting the feeder. In the case of calves with older cattle, they will quickly understand the social order and bullying is unlikely to occur at a circular feeder. Not so at a linear feed bunk. It has a lot to do with their vision and an ability to keep an eye on the boss.

I have some plans for a portable, covered, bunk-type wooden feeder if you want to see it, but I would not generally recommend a bunk-type feeder.

A few minutes later…
Andy, I just remembered there is an error in the caption of the photo showing the feeders we evaluated. A and B are reversed, the correct description should be (A) Cone feeder (B) Ring feeder rather than this one below from the paper.

Figure 1. Round bale feeder types: (a) ring, (b) cone, (c) trailer, and (d) cradle.

[Tim Harrigan]

What conditions are you starting with as far as grade, vegetation, etc? Where are you? Do you have many rainfall events that result in runoff? What is going on up-slope?

[Tim Harrigan]

You can compost it. Google mortality composting and see what comes up. Quite a bit of work on it at MSU.

[Tim Harrigan]

George, I think that is a good approach and I prefer to leave more stubble, but usually my decision is more based on how well the hay is standing and whether or not I have to cut a little lower to pick up down or lodged forage. I am not sure how fully the grazing height left transfers to mowing height because the grazing target is usually to leave 4 inches or so, and that extra two inches could make quite a bit of difference in leaf exposure compared to mowing at two inches or one inch. Of course, your species mix could have an impact on this. I am a proponent of side-by-side comparisons; can you take a few minutes and adjust your bar height differently in some strips across the field and see if it begins to make a difference over the next few years? It takes a little time, but information has value when it changes the way you do things. I don’t really see how to answer the question correctly without a side-by-side comparison.

I agree with the stubble height improving air circulation and drying. Also, higher stubble will shade the soil, keep it cooler and conserve soil moisture. I agree with Carl that grazing higher and clipping higher are not exactly the same because clipping tends to leave sharp stubble that bothers in the following grazing pass. I also do not try to stockpile pasture too long like I think Carl was saying. If it can not be cut timely for hay I prefer to brush hog it and get the regrowth started, keeping the crop vegetative rather than going to seed and drying down. If it is only hay ground then the decisions are a little different compared to having the option of using it either for hay or pasture.

When it comes to grazing height, particularly when grazing too low, I am more concerned about how long the cattle are on it than the fact that they grazed lower than I would like. Unless your pastures are perfectly uniform the cattle graze preferentially, grazing hard on the areas that they really like. If the soil fertility is good and you have adequate moisture I do not consider it to be a practical problem. In fact, it tends to release clover and improve botanical diversity. The problem is when they graze hard and long and push the species mix to bluegrass/white clover like you see in a lot of overgrazed, exhausted pastures. I prefer to give them access to an area for no more than 5 days, it often is a little longer than that, but grazing it down and keeping it down are two different things.

Tristan, the longer stubble will not hinder raking, it will most likely help provide a cleaner hay. That wheel rake that was mentioned a week or so ago is designed to turn by contact with the stubble and if you rake too low with any type of rake you will pull dirt and stones into the windrow. That is a good rake for uneven ground and will work best with long stubble.

[Tim Harrigan]

The hay situation is going to be quite serious in Michigan this year.

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