Winter cattle feeding area

I am trying to come up with a new way to feed my cattle through the winter. I have until Aug to come up with something. (Thats when school starts and I wont have time to mess with it)

First off, I dont have a tractor to lift and carry round bales. It's not in the budget. Second, I dont want to do a round bale feeder in the middle of my pasture. I would lose half my summer pasture after a winter of them stomping it in.

I dont plan on wintering more than 3 heifers at a time. 5 last winter was too time consuming and labor intensive. I used 2 converted horse v-type feeders. Then every other day I would go clean up around the feeder area and manually spread (yes by hand) the pitch out in the pasture. In late spring I mowed/mulched it all in and it came out nice.

 

I am considering a fenceline type feeder. Not that I am lazy, just stripping hay out of round bales to fill 3 feeders a day gets to be a PIA. (one for the sheep too) My other issue I want to correct is where I have the feeders located, it happens to be a low spot in the pasture along the fenceline. So when everything is frozen solid, there arent any problems, but it didnt even freeze solid here till well after new years eve. I had sheeets of plywood out to prevent the ground from being punched to shit pudding, and I kept it clean, but the affluent and water still stood on top of the plywood.

 

So my corrective actions;

I intend to get a pallet of concrete blocks (or more) and create a type of platform to raise them out of the muck, I will cover the top with plywood again and secure it to the blocks somehow. That leaves the style of fenceline feeder up for debate. I think the easiest would be just buy one "s" or slant shaped panel. Then I could use an electric winch or come along to slide the bale up to the fenceline. I need to come up with a way to keep them off the ground a few inches, yet still be able to slide them when needed. Probly end up using pallets or something like them.

Another issue every cattle guy deals with is waste. Using horse type feeders, I didnt have that much waste. But it was time consuming and a daily PIA, especially on high wind days. I want to try to keeps as much of the hay in the feed area as I can before they stomp it in and it becomes waste. I can keep the bales tarped and dry till it is time to use them. I didnt see any commercially available fenceline feeders with a trough, either on the feed side or the cow side, that didnt impede the cows getting to the hay. Of course the one I liked is an Aussie product and I cant find anything like it made here in the states. They call it a "j" type feeder, and it looks pretty cool. If I could find something like that here in the states, I'd make an A-frame hoist just to swing the round bales into it. The one in the top left is the one I like but cant find any others like it I can convert or work with.

 

http://ift.tt/1TSQd7u

 

So, I am thinking once I drill some holes to anchor the wood to the concrete blocks, they will stay in place, especially once they get pressed into the mud a bit. Any thoughts on what you would do for the fenceline feeder part?

Winter cattle feeding area