When it comes to winter forage for cattle, here are some of the things that needs to be practiced:

1) Evaluating forage inventory

• The first thing to look at during winter is your inventory.

• Is your inventory enough to fulfill winter cattle requirements?

• Work with your nutritionist to figure out if you need to fill a gap in your stores of winter forage for cattle.

2) Forage quality

• Forage quality is crucial as it affects performance of your herd.

• Knowing the storage quality means you know the risk for molds, yeast, mycotoxins and so on.

• It is crucial to do a forage test to determine exactly what you have available.

• Make sure the quality of forage is up to standard in order to meet your herd's requirement.

• Avoid eyeballing forage quality as it is not accurate. You will not know if you are fulfilling the cattle needs.

3) Fill forage gap

• Create a cattle supplementation plan to match forage quantity and quality.

• When there is a gap, protein will often be the first limiting nutrient.

• Make sure you have a well balanced cattle supplementation that will help to fill nutrient gap as well as optimize digestibility.