ROCKY MOUNTAIN HOUSE, Alta. – Kim Nielsen has been swath grazing for five years and learns something new every winter.
Deep snow cover can be a challenge in west-central Alberta, but he has noticed the cows are tenacious when it comes to digging down for a meal.
“This is the fifth year we have been swath grazing and we have never had problems with snow,” Nielsen told a group of cattle producers visiting his farm Oct. 27.
Forage specialists say cows can graze through soft snow as deep as two-thirds of a metre. Crusted snow is difficult and if it is too hard, the animal’s nose becomes tender and their lower leg hair may be rubbed off.
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While some producers run a portable electric fence parallel to the swath and require the cattle to eat all the swath before moving on to the next, Nielsen found that by placing the fences at 90 degrees to the swath across several at a time, the cows always have an opening to their next day’s feed supply. Straw is on hand for extra feed.
He has learned the fence is mainly a psychological barrier because the cows need to be shocked only once to learn to avoid it as they graze.
This year he seeded Cascade oats on 12 acres at a rate of 90 pounds to the acre. Seed went in at the end of June and fields were swathed at the end of September in the early milk stage.
He has mixed oats with rye in the past but was unable to get the seed this year so went with straight oats.
Early feed tests showed dangerously high nitrate levels of 1.89 percent, but within a few days it had dropped to 0.89 so it was safe to feed the cows.
“I was afraid I was going to have some dead cows,” he said.
Excess nitrates might accumulate in plants under stress from drought or exposed to long periods of cool, cloudy weather or early frost. This year, early frost and snow may have been responsible for his higher than average nitrate levels.
For many farmers, swath grazing is more about saving labour than lowering feed costs, said Grant Lastiwka, pasture specialist with Alberta Agriculture.
But he pointed out that it is cheaper to employ the cow to walk to feed and water than it is to haul it by machine.
“We started realizing when we put wheels under feed, costs go up and we have less control over those costs,” he said.
An ongoing trial at Lacombe, Alta., with a farmer showed he saved 47 percent on his winter feeding costs when he used swath grazing. It also reduced the time and cost of corral cleaning and manure spreading.
Lastiwka said western Canadian farmers have developed a situation where the cow-calf business is structured around winter feeding systems. There are 155 grazing days in Alberta and 180-255 winter feeding days. The cows are moved to pasture in May and the farmer starts putting up feed in July.
“We are running a system that costs money,” he said.
Because every farm is different, each system needs to be custom fitted whether the producer opts for swath grazing, stockpiled forages, leaving chaff in piles in fields after harvest or turning cows into harvested fields to salvage whatever is left.
Experts recommend that only mature beef cows in good body condition be turned onto swaths. Calves, young cows, thin cows and cows with calves need higher levels of energy and management and so require better quality feed.
It is also important to get cows fat in the summer and fall so they can live off their energy reserves over winter.
