GREG ROGERS of Blayney, NSW

Bought 2 rectangular feeders to feed big square bales to cows and calves. He was quite happy with them, they earned their keep by saving time and hay.

However, he rang us during May and told this story :

Sowed oats in late January / early February

• "We fatten a mob of heifers on the oats, with some oaten hay put onto the ground every so often ... but oaten hay is quite wasteful without a feeder"
• Found his lush oat crop was still going through the heifers too quickly and the heifers (which normally fatten quicker than steers) took a 9 weeks to fatten.

THEN he put a mob of 20 steers into the oat crop but this time he put 2 round rolls per week in one rectangular "Waste-Not" Hayfeeder and found that was enough to keep hay in front of them all the time.

• "We expected that it would take at least 9 weeks to fatten steers, based on how long it took the heifers."

INSTEAD they took ONLY 6 WEEKS to fatten!

• "The crop and Hayfeeder system has fattened another mob of approximately 20 steers before mid May. Again they only took 6 weeks to fatten."

Greg said the Feeder made the difference - "Even if I put fresh hay out each day, it wouldn't have worked as well as the Feeder did"

Since then Greg has called us and ordered 2 more feeders !!!!!

They reached their prime faster.

Why did the Feeders work so well here and generate such large increases in Liveweight gain.

• Clearly Feeders were not adding just quantity to the diet - they were adding something to the quality of the feed. There's plenty of nutrient in the sappy green oats, but adding some long fibre to the diet, slows the rate of the oats through the animal giving more time in the rumen to extract full value out of the feed. (Long fibre helps get better value out of grain and also pasture diets for the same reason).
• Bossing and bullying is also reduced with the Feeders. Farmers usually find that, provided the Feeder is not overstocked and they keep hay in front of stock all the time the Feeder takes the "tail" out of the herd by letting the shy feeders have a better go at the feed.

Wish you could say the same?

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