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Southern Illinois farmer confident in cattle feed options despite drought

A southern Illinois farmer says he’s not concerned about hay reserves despite a severe late summer drought.

Granvil Travis, who raises cattle and row crops in Massac County, says he’s already started supplemental feeding of some hay to give his pastures some relief.

“The pastures are short now because of how dry it’s been.”  He says, “Our pastures are definitely gonna be ate up. We’re gonna be moving them to corn stalks as soon as we can get the crop out.”

He tells Brownfield that grazing corn stalks typically helps extend hay supplies, but…

“We’ve had some of the best hay yields this year just because it was so wet early that that grass was able to grow.”  He says, “We’ve got enough hay for two winters sitting in piles at the end of the field. So, I mean, we’ve got plenty of hay. That’s not an issue at all.”

Travis says grazing stalks has another benefit.

“You can definitely tell our fields where we’ve ran cattle, they call for a lot less fertilizer,” he says.

Travis says silage harvest is complete, and despite some low moisture levels, tonnage was only fractionally below last year’s levels.

AUDIO: Granvil Travis – Illinois farmer