Wintering Out

[Colin]

I've gained access to some sizeable grazing land for this winter and intend to out-winter many of the cattle. What supplements should I use, if any ? Should I still provide some hay even if the grass is holding up ?

There's no field shelter on this land, but there are trees and hedges. Would this be sufficient shelter ?

Colin

[Rob R]

I don't give hay unless it's necessary, as they tend to leave it anyway and picvk a few bits out before using it for lying on. A good opportunity to use up and rubbishy hay, with coarser species in, just don't spread it about or you might end up reseeding the whole field! I'd make sure they had plenty of free-access salt & minerals though. I'm also not concerned about shelter, as long as they have some dry lying ground and shelter from the wind.

[ann]

I am normally to wet to winter any stock out, however I ran a young bull out last winter with 3 heifers and fed approx 20kgs of hay everyday between them, they never wasted any but it was good quality and twice a day when we had snow or very hard frost, as they were still growing they did get a small amount of grain as I felt the young bull needed a bit extra. If you are intending to run cows suckling calves out them in my opinion they do require extra feed of some kind as there is very little goodness in most grasses in the winter, I know quite a few people feed sugar beet rolls, but it something we do not have access to here in north yorkshire. (least I have never heard of them being available) Rob may tell me different.

[Rob R]

I've never seen a sugar beet roll, bigger than a nut, but BATA do stock nuts. They don't seem to be as available as the shreds, though.

[Colin]

Rob and Ann, many thanks for the advice. It helps a lot.

Colin

[Mark Bowles]

No way would I winter out without feeding hay as well, I know they are dexters but they cant survive on nothing.

[Duncan MacIntyre]

Mine survived on nothing till 25th January last winter, and having very much less hay and silage this winter they will be out on the hill for at least as long if not longer. Even when I did start feeding the cows, calves and yearling heifers, about 30 altogether, they never got more than 2 small silage bales daily. They have not had minerals for 4 years now.

Dexters will not, as Mark says, survive on nothing, but they do not need very much. Mine maybe grow a bit slower than some on better feed in southern climates

I suspect they graze more like sheep in a way, and can nip off very short growth as it appears. being very mild on the Isle of Bute we can get a little growth at almost any time of year.

Duncan

[Rob R]

I've never outwintered completely because we're just too low and wet, but I have grazed until the end of January before. Being Dexters I find they will let you and the rest of the neighbourhood know if they've got nothing to eat but that January they were still grazing in a foot of snow. I carried numerous barrows of decent clover silage down to them and they preferred to dig in the snow for their dinner. After it thawed I realised how much fodder I'd wasted as it was mostly still there in the field.

[Saffy]

I think we need to be a little wary what we say in a thread like this as it can mislead people that haven't kept stock before. Dexters are smaller and eat less than other cattle but they always need forage of some kind in front of them. We have all seen the poor little things in market or we've gone to look at an animal privately just to see if it is a nice one and bought it out of sheer pity...driving home at 10 miles an hour because it would fall over on the corners otherwise!

I put most of mine in and they don't need huge quantities whether in or out....it can be an opportunity to diet them a little especially my bull. I leave bulls out as I think the exercise is good for them and they have a cow for company, I use a rack of some variety because as has already been said - they will lie on it otherwise, they are always pleased to have a bed! I have a variety of little racks that fit to gates and start with just a slice of small bale hay if they eat it they need it, if they leave it I take it back out. They are greedier once they are in and will eat more for the sake of it...boredom? I can limit their intake of small bale hay but it is more difficult when they are on big bale haylage.

Stephanie

[Jac]

I think we need to be a little wary what we say in a thread like this as it can mislead people that haven't kept stock before. Dexters are smaller and eat less than other cattle but they always need forage of some kind in front of them. We have all seen the poor little things in market or we've gone to look at an animal privately just to see if it is a nice one and bought it out of sheer pity...driving home at 10 miles an hour because it would fall over on the corners otherwise!

Stephanie

I have to endorse what Stephanie says here. Despite their size they do not live on 'fresh air'. It is a very long winter where we live almost 1000 feet above sea level and one of the highest areas of rainfall in the country so we do not winter out as we would have no grass left. So in addition to indoor space the cattle also have access to a yard and a paddock during the day (weather permitting). Hay/haylage is fed on an ad lib basis and GP mineral licks are available although the cattle do not feel the need to use them all the time. There is some useful information on the internet about wintering out and welfare here is just one example:

http://www.nadis.org.uk/bulletins/out-w ... attle.aspx

[JohnnyP]

In my first flush of enthusiasm for Dexters I read "Grass-fed Cattle" by Julius Ruechel, which details how a grass-only grazing system can be managed. My takeaway point for winter grazing was that one should aim for the grass to have grown but gone dormant before senescence, thereby retaining sugars and nutrients. Although I bear this in mind with my own grazing rotations, it's almost impossible to achieve, mainly due to our variable climate (whereas the book is written for a US, prairie situation).

My reality is that my animals are out year-round, have woods for shelter, I try to manage the grazing to retain some food value in the winter, but feed hay/haylage/silage (depending on what I've been able to make) to the level which prevents a riot every morning on arrival at the fields, and keeps the animals looking in reasonable condition. I also give mineral licks over the winter.

Given a large enough range on which to graze, cattle will naturally achieve a balance in grass growth that will sustain them through the winter. But the question is how much land is required?

[Rob R]

I think we need to be a little wary what we say in a thread like this as it can mislead people that haven't kept stock before. Dexters are smaller and eat less than other cattle but they always need forage of some kind in front of them. We have all seen the poor little things in market or we've gone to look at an animal privately just to see if it is a nice one and bought it out of sheer pity...driving home at 10 miles an hour because it would fall over on the corners otherwise!

Stephanie

I have to endorse what Stephanie says here. Despite their size they do not live on 'fresh air'. It is a very long winter where we live almost 1000 feet above sea level and one of the highest areas of rainfall in the country so we do not winter out as we would have no grass left. So in addition to indoor space the cattle also have access to a yard and a paddock during the day (weather permitting). Hay/haylage is fed on an ad lib basis and GP mineral licks are available although the cattle do not feel the need to use them all the time. There is some useful information on the internet about wintering out and welfare here is just one example:

http://www.nadis.org.uk/bulletins/out-w ... attle.aspx

The idea is that you're not overstocked and don't make as much hay/silage so there's more in the field for them to graze. And they need to graze, if there isn't enough grass available for them to graze then they will need feeding but as the OP asked the question on the basis that grass is available I answered in that context. If grass isn't available you've just got a sacrifice paddock and can only be harming next years growth with the root structure being damaged, so I'd rather have them inside at that point.

It may be the competition for the pick of the forage but I always find they do better on grazing at any time of the year than indoors on preserved forage. We tried chopping it for the first time last year though and that helped as they ate quicker and spent more time lying down cudding, and obviously expended less of the available energy on chewing. By comparison the animals in the shed that you couldn't get the chopper in faired worse.

A lot of it depends on what you have available to you and what is practical though. Cattle that are used to good grass in summer and fed from the bucket in winter are not the best choice for outwintering on grazed grass as it's as much about breeding as feeding. If you select for the stock that do well on good summer grass, the winter may be higher input and vice versa. Louisa's thesis makes for interesting reading on this matter.

[Jac]

I think we need to be a little wary what we say in a thread like this as it can mislead people that haven't kept stock before. Dexters are smaller and eat less than other cattle but they always need forage of some kind in front of them. We have all seen the poor little things in market or we've gone to look at an animal privately just to see if it is a nice one and bought it out of sheer pity...driving home at 10 miles an hour because it would fall over on the corners otherwise!

Stephanie

I have to endorse what Stephanie says here. Despite their size they do not live on 'fresh air'. It is a very long winter where we live almost 1000 feet above sea level and one of the highest areas of rainfall in the country so we do not winter out as we would have no grass left. So in addition to indoor space the cattle also have access to a yard and a paddock during the day (weather permitting). Hay/haylage is fed on an ad lib basis and GP mineral licks are available although the cattle do not feel the need to use them all the time. There is some useful information on the internet about wintering out and welfare here is just one example:

http://www.nadis.org.uk/bulletins/out-w ... attle.aspx

The idea is that you're not overstocked and don't make as much hay/silage so there's more in the field for them to graze. And they need to graze, if there isn't enough grass available for them to graze then they will need feeding but as the OP asked the question on the basis that grass is available I answered in that context. If grass isn't available you've just got a sacrifice paddock and can only be harming next years growth with the root structure being damaged, so I'd rather have them inside at that point.

It may be the competition for the pick of the forage but I always find they do better on grazing at any time of the year than indoors on preserved forage. We tried chopping it for the first time last year though and that helped as they ate quicker and spent more time lying down cudding, and obviously expended less of the available energy on chewing. By comparison the animals in the shed that you couldn't get the chopper in faired worse.

A lot of it depends on what you have available to you and what is practical though. Cattle that are used to good grass in summer and fed from the bucket in winter are not the best choice for outwintering on grazed grass as it's as much about breeding as feeding. If you select for the stock that do well on good summer grass, the winter may be higher input and vice versa. Louisa's thesis makes for interesting reading on this matter.

Well I hate to say this Rob but many with a sizable acreage probably wouldn't keep Dexters or if they did they would not form the bulk of the livestock they kept. Yes, the OP did say a sizable area but as JohnnyP said how much land is required? This could be misleading to beginners who may believe that Dexters can be grass fed completely on a bit of scrub land having a different conception of what a 'sizable acreage' is. Was there not a newspaper article giving the impression that the Dexter could be kept in a large garden?

[Rob R]

It was the grass holding up, rather than the sizeable acreage bit that I was referring to.

Maybe other people's Dexters are different to mine which will give you good warning if their paddock isn't big enough and will make their own way to better grazing if you ignore them.

[Saffy]

It was the grass holding up, rather than the sizeable acreage bit that I was referring to.

Maybe other people's Dexters are different to mine which will give you good warning if their paddock isn't big enough and will make their own way to better grazing if you ignore them.

This has only happened with mine once and very annoying it was too! I was trying to keep them short recently because they were over fat, especially the old stock bull Hedgehog 4th, so I kept thinking, I will move them tomorrow. Well eventually I was really going to move them but I awoke at 6 to - too much Dexter noise, so I got straight up. They were next to the house so I peered sleepily out of the landing window to see the old bull carefully uprooting the fence. He could just get his head under...too late....neck...shoulders and in he went! By the time I was out there all bar two heifers that were at the other end of the field and had missed the fuss were in as well! The fence was a mess. We put it back but it needs replacing now.

Stephanie