In Canada and the Northern U.S., hay is commonly fed to cattle on snow-covered ground over the winter. The objective of this Alberta Agriculture project was to measure the losses that may occur when feeding dry hay, either processed or unrolled, on the ground versus hay processed into portable feed bunks. The trial was conducted at the Lacombe Research Centre in February, 2005. A total of 55 heifers were allotted to one of three different feeding treatments using meadow brome hay: 1) Hay processed into portable feed bunks; 2) Hay processed on to tarps covered with snow; or 3) Hay unrolled on to tarps covered with snow. Hay was supplied at 90% of expected intake to ensure the heifers cleaned up as much as they could. Snow, ice, wasted feed, and manure were gathered off the tarps after the feeding process, which was repeated four times. This material was dried, manure removed, and weighed for total hay loss. The wasted hay was sieved and weighed to determine the amount of fine and coarse material. There was no wasteage of hay processed into feed banks. However, there was a 20% loss of hay processed on top of snow and 12% loss of hay that was unrolled on top of snow. In both hays fed on snow, the percentage of lost material that consisted of fines was over 40%. The authors noted that the lower forage quality due to fine material loss can reduce animal performance as well as create the potential for winter tetany to occur due to losses of magnesium and calcium in the fine material. They concluded that in order to minimize the loss of feed and feed quality, the use of portable feed bunks or some other method to prevent feed trampling is recommended (Ziegler et al. 2005. Western Forage/Beef Group Newsletter, Vol. 9, Issue 2).