As the 2023 calendar year winds down, this is a good time for spring calving herds to look at what it cost them to produce a calf in the past year. What did it cost to run a cow on your operation this year? How do you calculate the costs? How do you value raised feed, labor, equipment, as well as replacement females grown on the ranch? These questions are frequently asked when the conversation of annual cow costs comes up.

Be safe, get the daily amount and leave a smooth face. These are the key factors when it comes to feeding out corn silage.

Silage is a conservation technique that relies on anaerobic fermentation to primarily convert plant carbs into acetic and lactic acid, and those acids will then preserve the rest of the material for future use. Because the ideal point of corn silage harvest is at black layer, by now (November) all silages would have almost sixty days since they were chopped and stored.

1.  Collect a representative sample of your hay with a probe.

Sampling is the largest source of error and doing it right is important to ensuring you get an accurate estimate of the feed value of your hay. Make sure to keep different “lots” of hay separate. Guidelines for sampling can be found here.