Drive through a major cattle producing area in Kentucky from December to March and you will see tractors hauling round bales. Sometimes they will be going from a barnlot directly to a feeding area. Sometimes they will be traveling on a public road to get to a more remote spot where cattle are located. Sometimes this hay will be fed in a drylot, sometimes it will be fed on the edge of a pasture next to the road, and sometimes you will even see this hay unrolled out in the pasture. 

There are usually at least a few weeks during a typical Kentucky winter when it is exceedingly muddy and difficult to feed these round bales without causing significant damage to pasture areas. Imagine not having to use a tractor during those periods to feed your hay. Now imagine not having to use a tractor to feed during the entire winter. 

Drive through a major cattle producing area in late March after the first few nice days of early spring and you will see buggy tracks every 30-40 feet traversing the pastures on many of these same farms, where fertilizer was just spread onto depleted soils. Now imagine this pasture growing the heaviest forage growth you have ever seen on that farm and imagine doing this without any commercial fertilizer whatsoever.

To many, feeding hay without a tractor and having lush pastures without fertilizing would be inconceivable. However, the last few years we have seen a growing number of farms in Kentucky change their hay feeding system and experience exactly this by using a feeding technique called Bale Grazing, where bales are set out on pasture before winter and fed in a planned, controlled manner, somewhat like rotational grazing. 

I have been promoting bale grazing in Kentucky the last few years but have been making a big push during the last year, including approximately a dozen county-level presentations. Interest is also coming from other states and I had a regional-level presentation in Indiana last winter. I’ve written an article about this winter feeding technique in our Departmental newsletter as well as a more detailed article in the Cow Country News. Another article will be published in Progressive Forages in November 2018 which will have a national audience.

I saw this technique in practice in the northeast about eight years ago and was impressed with its potential. I have been experimenting with this on my own cattle farm for the last six winters and have been refining it for Kentucky conditions. I’ve also been working with a farm in Green County for the last three winters, helping them implement bale grazing. One of the two partners on this farm presented on bale grazing at the national-level American Forage and Grassland Council annual meeting in January 2018. Two county agents in Kentucky are also experimenting with bale grazing on their farms (one had a nice write-up with pictures in his monthly newsletter), and two more county agents are helping farmers implement bale grazing (Adair and Grayson Counties). Out of four main topics I presented in Master Cattlemen in 2017, this is the one that had the highest increase in knowledge/understanding (from 3.1 to 7.9 out of 10). In my opinion, bale grazing one of the easiest management changes that can be made that will have a major impact on profitability for a cow-calf farm and I will continue to advocate its use.