Cattle feed

[BHW]

Are there any cattle feed suppliers in Surin / Si Sa Ket area, like hominy meal etc.

 

Thanks in advance.

[kickstart]

Should not be to difficult to find ,ask a  maize farmer were he sends his crop to ,if it is a large buyer ,he might have his own  trashing and cleaning  equipment ,if he has  .he will  have some for certain ,in my area we have  3 such set ups .

But why do you want  to feed hominy meal ( Lar- Ong-Khow-Port, in Thai ),the grains of maize are to hard for cattle to digest ,and will pass straight though  there digestive system ,the bits of the cobs have no feed value ,the protein is about 7 % ,one time it was popular around here ,fed to dairy cows ,and it did nothing to the milk yield ,price  at the time was 5 baht kg .expensive for what it is.

If you are going to feed it to beef cattle ,do not expect any weight gains ,and I would say  cows will not come no heat ,you will end up with an infertility  problem .If fed with a concentrate  it will do ,but if feed only  with rice straw expect problems .  

If you only have a few cattle ,it would be better to grow some grass ,and if possible  water a bit  during the dry season ,cost wise  grass may be a bit more expensive but the cattle will a lot more content ,and you will have less problems . 

[cooked]

How about molasses? We found a supplier with a huge tank of the stuff, selling at a cheap(er) price to farmers, our cows wolf down anything set before them if we sprinkle some of this onto it. I believe that there are other sugar cane by-products that can be bought from sugar cane refineries (maybe only to sugar cane farmers!).

[BHW]

Thanks for your replies, we only have a short term problem, we have napier & risi grass both irrigrated, however in the wet season some of the napier got flooded, once it picks up in 4 / 5 weeks we'll be OK again.  Our cows are spoilt rotten we give them rice hay & sprinkle molasses through it but miss the good stuff we also have 3Rai of irrigrated pastures but they soom ate that.

 

I was just thinking of a short term solution.

[kickstart]

BHW.

       If it is only short term  how about  urea treated rice straw ,this come up last week ,over in the "skinny calf" thread ,pushes up the protein  of the straw to about 7 %,you could add some molasses ,makes  it more palatable .

Or the tree legume Leucaena  Lleulolephala" Gratin " in Thai ,a good feed ,cut from beside  roads or around fields ,we have fed it  for some years now ,cattle do well on it , and so far no problems ,but if you are in Issan ,so I have been told ,for some reason, it does not grow so well.

Cooked.

              Molasses is a good feed ,only 4% protein ,we have a sugar mill near us ,and now it is about 8 baht /Kg, use to be 2-3 baht ,since gasohol and EM  have come on to the market the  price has gone up .

As  far as I know they are no other sugar cane products ,have herd/read of the  crushed canes being used as a cattle feed ,but what I know, the crushed canes  are used as fuel to boil up the vats  sugar cane juice ,in the sugar mill, also the crushed  cane stems would be no more than 2-3%, protein and a bit on the fibrous  side ,not easy for cattle to  digest , one dairy farmer  near here tried baleing  the sugar cane  leaves ,and fed  it to his cows ,cows  bearely  ate it  and it did not do the milk yield a lot of good .