DOWNLOAD YOUR FREE CATTLE FEEDING GUIDE
Get your copy of over 30,000 hours of research into comparing every system for feeding bales to cattle. Inside you’ll find the complete comparison of how each system performs on the 23 issues ranchers face.
- Chainless bale feeder
- Chain / slat bale feeder (Cradle feeder)
- Bale unroller
- Bale bed / Bale deck
- Hay ring / Hay trailer
- Bale Processor
- Bale splitter
- TMR Mixer
Here at Hustler, efficiency is at the heart of what we do. We believe that our livestock farmers and ranchers deserve a better way, to invest in a system that saves your time, bales, fuel, pasture and maintenance.
We compare systems, not brands.
To provide you with a balanced evaluation, instead of comparing brands, we’ve compared how each feeding system performs and compares in each of the 23 situations faced when trying to optimize performance when feeding bales to cattle:
- Investment cost
- Number of cattle that can be fed
- Feed Waste
- Feed Damage
- Hoof trampling
- Time to feed each bale
- Pasture damage
- Ease of access to feed for all animals
- Manure and nitrogen spreadingÂ
- Ability to use part bales
- Diesel consumption per bale
- Minimum tractor size requiredÂ
- Approx maintenance cost in the first 3 years
- Can feed hay bales
- Can feed baleage balesÂ
- Can feed round balesÂ
- Can feed square balesÂ
- Mix with other ingredientsÂ
- Open field feedingÂ
- Indoor feedingÂ
- Bunk, trough, feed-pad feedingÂ
- Straw bedding capableÂ
- Single tractor operation
What our farmers and ranchers say
“I couldn’t believe it, but it saves a lot of hay”
“It takes the guess-work out of setting up a bale correctly on the bed.”
“Maintenance-free is an efficiency that we’re always looking for and Hustler seems to be able to provide that. It looks like it will have a fairly long life.”
“Moving into my mid-sixties, I’m done with wrestling bales of hay, so we got a Hustler for this purpose, which has relieved the physical strain”
Why does your feeding system matter?
Livestock feed represents the largest single cost – often up to 60 percent of the total operation spending.Â
The average bred cow weighs about 1,200 pounds and typically consumes 2.5% of her body weight on short stem hay, or 30 pounds/day of hay. Over an 80-cow herd, that is 2,400 pounds of forage-fed daily or over 180 tons during a 5-month timeframe. At $55/ ton, you will spend about $9,900 over that period (prices can vary locally based on several different factors).
According to a study by Dr. David Lalman of Oklahoma State University, “… the cows eating long stem consumed 1.8% of their body weight in dry matter (DM) intake and retained the same body condition.” So imagine if you could feed out long-stem hay reliably with a bale processor, how much could you save?
If you want to increase your pasture production and herd health along with reducing your hay wastage, maybe now is the time to rethink your feeding methods.
