Limit Feeding with a Bale Feeder, Bunk and a Bucket

Jun 03, 2025

By Aaron Berger

Drought conditions are challenging producers to be creative as they think about options for maintaining the cowherd through the summer with limited pasture available. Several research studies conducted at the University of Nebraska have shown that cows can be managed effectively utilizing a limit fed ration.

In a limit fed ration, the nutrient requirements of cattle are met with a diet that is less than the actual total amount that the cattle would eat if they had full access to all they could. Typically, these are total mixed rations, fed with a feed truck or wagon, consisting of limited amounts of forage and combined with protein and energy dense feed resources such as distillers grains, corn, corn silage, beet pulp, soy hull pellets, etc.

For producers without access to a feed wagon, limit feeding can still be an option. Research at the University of Illinois¹ and the University of Minnesota² has shown that cows can be given timed access to hay bales in feeders and limit intake as well as waste. In the University of Illinois study, cows were restricted to as little as 3 hours of access to a bale feeder consisting of a high-quality hay. Cows restricted to 3 hours of access consumed 17 lbs. of dry matter of hay per day while cows with 24-hour access consumed 34 lbs. of hay per day on a dry matter basis. Total hay waste was reduced significantly in both research studies when cows were limited to 14 hours or less to the bale feeders. In these studies, hay quality was more than adequate to meet cow nutrition requirements. Testing hay quality and knowing cattle nutrient requirements is important when utilizing this method of limited hay feeding.

Source : unl.edu

Video: Wheat Yields in USA and China Threatened by Heat Waves Breaking Enzymes

A new peer reviewed study looks at the generally unrecognized risk of heat waves surpassing the threshold for enzyme damage in wheat.

Most studies that look at crop failure in the main food growing regions (breadbaskets of the planet) look at temperatures and droughts in the historical records to assess present day risk. Since the climate system has changed, these historical based risk analysis studies underestimate the present-day risks.

What this new research study does is generate an ensemble of plausible scenarios for the present climate in terms of temperatures and precipitation, and looks at how many of these plausible scenarios exceed the enzyme-breaking temperature of 32.8 C for wheat, and exceed the high stress yield reducing temperature of 27.8 C for wheat. Also, the study considers the possibility of a compounded failure with heat waves in both regions simultaneously, this greatly reducing global wheat supply and causing severe shortages.

Results show that the likelihood (risk) of wheat crop failure with a one-in-hundred likelihood in 1981 has in today’s climate become increased by 16x in the USA winter wheat crop (to one-in-six) and by 6x in northeast China (to one-in-sixteen).

The risks determined in this new paper are much greater than that obtained in previous work that determines risk by analyzing historical climate patterns.

Clearly, since the climate system is rapidly changing, we cannot assume stationarity and calculate risk probabilities like we did traditionally before.

We are essentially on a new planet, with a new climate regime, and have to understand that everything is different now.