Air November 13, 2002

Thank you Gary, and good morning everyone. It just never ceases to amaze me how temperatures in Kansas can bound from one extreme to the other. One week we were 25 degrees below normal, then 10 to 15 degrees above normal, kind of scares you as to what next week might be!

Most cattle producers put up hay in large round bales. And why not? It’s quick and efficient, and having grown up handling small squares myself, I can’t blame anyone. But the problem is, if we aren’t really careful, we can quikly waste ¼ to ½ of the volume of that bale through storage and feeding losses. That was the message I wanted to address today. Then I was attending a commercial pesticide applicator recertification training in Great Bend last week and listend to Alberto Broce, K-State Livestock Entomologist talking about how round bale feeding areas in pastures have turned into very productive breeding grounds for stable flies which explains why stable fly populations have exploded in pastures over the last 20 years. So hear’s the bottom line. Store your bales under a roof or end to end in single rows running north and south. You want north and south rows so that the sun shines on both sides melting the snow and drying out the bale as quickly as possible. Make sure that this area is a high spot where water drains away, not where water stands. In fact, laying down 3 to 4 inches of coarse crushed rock first will probably pay for itself in reduction of moisture storage losses. Use one of those round bale feeders. Feeding losses of as high as 45% can occur when bales are just rolled out on the ground. When you use those round bale feeders, those losses can be cut down to 5% or less. With the price of hay today, it only takes the savings of about a dozen bales to pay for one of those feeders. Then, move those feeding spots around every few weeks. The longer you feed in the same spot, the more manure and hay gets tromped into the ground. If you take soil, add hay, manure and moisture and then cattle, you can quickly have a breeding spot that can produce over a million stable flies per acre in a single summer season. The storage and feeding losses you were probably already familiar with, the fly information is probably new so expect updates on that in the future!

This is Chuck Otte, Geary County Extension Agent, with Ag Outlook 2002.

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