Winter feeding cattle on pasture, either through whole bale or processed bale grazing, can significantly reduce feeding costs and also dramatically improve the fertility of the land where the animals feed, says a researcher with the Western Beef Development Centre (WBDC) in Humboldt, Sask.

The costs will obviously vary with each operation, but the savings are in the order of 40 to 50 cents per head per day, says Dr. Bart Lardner, senior research scientist with WBDC. And, at the same time, the practice of feeding on pasture puts roughly twice the nutrients back into the soil, compared to applying a similar amount of manure with a mechanical spreader.

“It’s good for the animals, good for the land, good for the pocketbook and good for the environment,” says Lardner of pasture feeding after evaluating winter feeding systems in a two-year research project.

The project compared the cost and related impacts of feeding cattle hay in a conventional dry lot system versus whole bale and processed bale grazing out on pasture. This winter, further demonstration and expansion of the project is being supported in part by the Greenhouse Gas Mitigation Program for Canadian Agriculture (GHGMP).  The national program is designed to demonstrate and increase awareness of livestock production practices that reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The beef sector of the program is administered by the Canadian Cattlemen’s Association.

Of the three systems, the conventional drylot feeding system is the most straight forward. Hay was hauled to cattle in a yard and put into feed bunks on a daily basis. In the round-bale pasture system, whole round bales were spotted over a field in the fall, and with the use of portable electric fencing, cattle were given access to only those round bales the herd would likely consume over a two to three-day period. The project tracked the impact of about 60 head over a 120-day feeding period.

“All we did was cut the strings and let the cattle have 24-hour access to the bales,” says Lardner. “After two or three days, the electric fence was moved to give cattle access to more round bales.” The amount of bale residue or waste was also measured in the project.

Under the bale processing system, large round bales were shredded in a bale processor and spread in a windrow on pasture. Enough hay was shredded to support the herd for a day.

Obvious benefits

While none of these systems may be as economical as swath grazing or saving standing forage for winter grazing, there were some obvious benefits and differences, says Lardner.

Cost was certainly one factor, he says. If a dry lot feeding system costs about $1.50 per head per day, he calculated the bale and processed-bale systems costs at about $1.05 per head per day. “It’s not quite the savings that some people might expect, but producers can still save in the 40 to 50 cents per head per day range by feeding on pasture,” says Lardner.

A major benefit, he estimates, involves manure and nutrient management. “With cattle in a dry lot for winter feeding, you have all the manure in a dry pack or straw pack and it needs to be spread sometime the following year,” says Lardner. “Whereas with the round bale or bale processing systems the manure is automatically deposited on the land.”

The project measured the soil nutrient profile for nitrogen, phosphorous and potassium before and after winter feeding on pasture. “Looking at soil nitrogen, in particular, there was 2.5 to three times as much nitrogen in the soil on fields where cattle bale grazed or processed-bale grazed than on land where there were no winter feeding cattle,” says Lardner.

Taking it a step further, he compared nutrient levels of bale and processed-bale grazing sites with land that received the equivalent amount of dry lot manure that was mechanically spread. They took manure from the dry lot and applied it at similar rates to what the grazing cattle would have deposited on pasture.

“In comparing soil nutrient levels, we found there was 1.8 to two times more nitrogen in the soil on the pasture grazing sites than on those fields where manure was applied mechanically,” says Lardner. The difference was, in the dry lot system, where manure sat in dry packs for the spring and summer, nitrogen was lost through volatilization, runoff and leaching.

“We suspect a lot of the difference was the nitrogen in the urine,” says Lardner. “On pasture those nutrients go directly into the soil, whereas in the dry lot they can be lost.”

More forage

They also observed on the pasture feeding sites, in this trial a Russian wild rye pasture, forage production the following year was 1.5 to two times greater than on sites where manure was mechanically applied. “And we also credit this to the amount of available nitrogen,” says Lardner.  From a greenhouse gas mitigation perspective, making more efficient use of nitrogen is just one benefit.  As well, the increased forage growth means an increase in the amount of carbon dioxide taken from the air by plants, which can then lead to an increase in the amount of carbon stored in the soil.

When applying manure, more isn’t necessarily better, says Lardner. “We’re not suggesting people apply 40 to 60 tonnes of manure per acre to achieve high nutrient levels,” he says. “In our project we applied about 30 tonnes per acre, and I would estimate that applying 15 to 20 tonnes per acre is a more sustainable rate.”

The bottom line is that feeding cattle on pasture can reduce winter feeding costs and at the same time improve the productivity of the soil where cattle are fed. “From an environmental standpoint, pasture feeding can reduce the amount of hours on a tractor which reduces the amount of fossil fuel being burned,” says Lardner. “But perhaps more importantly, pasture feeding makes greater use of nutrients compared to the dry lot situation where there’s a great risk of nitrogen being lost to the atmosphere or leached away into ground water.”

Evaluation of winter feeding systems continues over the 2005 and 2006 feeding period to determine the proper stocking density of pasture feeding on barley stubble and other annually cropped land.  Producer Miles McNeil of Alameda, Saskatchewan, is also demonstrating the practice on his cattle operation with the help of Lorne Klein, Saskatchewan Agriculture and Food’s Rangeland and Forage Specialist.

Dr. Bart Lardner can be reached at 306-682-3139 for more information.