How do you use straw bales.

[LeRoy Jenkins]

I know you can sell them, but how do you use them with your livestock??? Got what I believe is a bale shredder but it doesnt seem to work. Is harder then heck to load bale in it and when I close the door it still says you need to fill the machine. Pulling My hair out on this one.

[Docowskey]

check out the discussion "silage, chaff, and a huge wff" that is a very very good answer to all of your cow related feeding questions....i know your question was about straw bales, but since giving the straw to your cows is the only thing you can do with them other then sell them, the questions are related.

you can add bales of straw to your silage mixer (the mixer wants 1 straw bale + 2 hay bales + silage) once mixed in the proper ratio, the mixer wagon can be taken to the feeding trough for your cows.

You can pick the straw up with a forrage wagon instead of baling it and give it to your cows (they have a second trough that looks like the feeding trough, but its attached to a building). by giving your cows straw from the forrage wagon, it gives them bedding.

[Docowskey]

i just realized, you can put bales of straw into the mixer wagon, and if you dont add anything else, you can drop the hay from the mixer into the straw trough. it is not necessary to use the forrage wagon to provide bedding for your cows...although you can do it that way if you wish, its just that my previous statement of that being the only way to give them bedding is actualy wrong.

[LeRoy Jenkins]

ty, I have been pulling My hair out trying to figure that out.