Texas A&M AgriLife (Trostle) discusses examples of forage quality as well as tips for producing, selling, buying, and storing different forages in a new PowerPoint that examines these issues from several viewpoints. Ive always had a hard time discriminating between hay types. The chief value of oats remains as a pasturage and hay crop, especially for horses. Some of the more common grass hays include timothy, brome, orchard grass and bluegrass. The dried up and dead stalks are still standing in the field, so then the farmer goes back and cuts the brown stalks and bales them as straw. This is why I buy my hay from three different cuttings every year. User Agreement and Privacy Policy. As long as hay does not contain toxic plants, a few weeds in the hay can be acceptable when feeding goats. AmericanListed features safe and local classifieds for everything you need! There is no one-size-fits-all diet for goats or horses, and really you should not have a single horse or goat. They also have access to as much browse as they can get and grass hay. Often oats (used with a sing. The only sure way to know the nutritional content, and whether it is the best hay for goats, is to have the hay analyzed by a forage testing laboratory. If you must use alfalfa hay for all your horses, be selective in the hay you choose. Here is more info about what goats eat The nutrition the horse needs, the cost of the hay, and the availability of the feed needs to be carefully balanced to make owning a horse possible for many people. According to horse nutritionist Dr. Juliet Getty, "Grain hays tend to be higher in nitrates. A grass in the genus Hordeum, native to temperate regions, having flowers in terminal, often long-awned spikes. Straw from more mature cereal grains can be fed to horses almost exclusively as a fiber source. Ive also been adding Standlee alfalfa pellets to my milk goats grain for additional insurance ever since they started selling them in our area about ten years ago. Some were developed for grazing, hay or silage, but most are grown for grain. Changing to a legume hay suddenly can make an animal sick, or cause a ruminant animal to bloat. Regardless of storage time, you will need a way to keep it from getting wet or drawing moisture from the ground. Subsequently, horses will select the grain-heads and consume less of the fiber portion of the forage. Blog, Diseases, Preventative care, vaccine. to eliminate the awns (beards) causing feeding problems Otherwise for small acres most any variety is OK (e.g. I feed Standlees Timothy grass pellets to my buck and alfalfa and alfalfa/timothy pellets to my pregnant does. If a farmer wants to grow oats, they dont cut the grass to make hay. I see what people cut for what they call hay. Alfalfa cut at full bloom drops to 15.5 percent crude protein, compared to 6.9 percent for late bloom timothy and 7.6 percent for late bloom orchard grass. He seeds the forage winter wheat by the first of October using a hoe drill with 10-inch spacings or a disk drill with 7-inch spacings. Thus legume hay, cut early, is more apt to meet the protein and mineral needs of young growing, pregnant or lactating animals than will many of the grass hays. Crude Fat (min).. 1.5% The impression that alfalfa makes a horse hot is usually the result of an improper amount of alfalfa being fed. In the United States wheat is usually planted by sowing machines of the drill or broadcast type. This is much higher than the protein levels of grass hay, which typically contains 10% or less protein. Peter Roome/Flickr. spring Beardless Wheat. Important factors to keep in mind for horse hay are the nutritional needs of the animals (mature horses will not need high protein or calcium levels unless they are mares nursing foals), and the way the hay was harvested. 115 RFV. Hot Blood, Warm Blood, Cold Blood in Horses, Possible Link Between Selenium and Cribbing in Horses, Ertugliflozin for Managing Metabolic Horses, Link Between Liver Virus and Poor Performance in Horses Questioned, Pastern Abnormalities and Future Soundness in High-Performance Horses, Tracking Sperm Motility in Stallions by Measuring a Specific Protein. Horses can do well on grass or alfalfa (or other legume) hay. Im not a horse expert, but I think most horses do okay on grass hay. Great! She isn't overweight or underweight. Clover. Mature horses do well on all types of hay, so long as it is free of mold, dust, and weeds. Equi-analytical laboratories analyze feeds for hay producers as well as horse professionals around the country, and their 10 year averages are a good baseline for nutrition values. Protein pale and goat block in the pasture. Legumes used for hay include alfalfa, various types of clover (such as red, crimson, alsike and ladino), lespedeza, birdsfoot trefoil, vetch, soybean and cowpeas. Oat hay, like all grass hays, meets the nutritional needs of herbivores that need high fiber and low protein.". Score: 4.1/5 (26 votes) . Although there are differences between cuttings, quality is most important. all light horses next to always eat the same carrot, oat, wheat, hay, When hay costs rise, beef cattle can often get by eating a mix of straw and some type of protein. Hay falls into several categories: grass, legume, mixed (grass and legume) and cereal grain straw (such as oat hay). Large Round. If grain hay is overly mature, which is often the case, horses may act disinterested in the hay and might not voluntarily consume it as readily as other grass hays to which they are more accustomed. hb```f``a`b`z |@1&-K Matt Gard, a Fairview, OK, farmer/custom hayman, doesn't run cattle. Some types of mold may cause colic or can cause a pregnant mare to abort. Third-cut alfalfa typically has a higher leaf-to-stem ratio because of slower growth during the cool part of the season. Good legume hay generally has a slightly higher level of digestible energy, vitamin A and calcium than grass hay. My two youngest goatie kids are quite skinny and Im looking for a quality grain to supplement. Copyright All Rights Reserved Mobile Veterinary Services, LLC 2018. Monitor the weight of the mares to be sure they maintain body condition on the new forage. The common wheats grown in the former Soviet republics, the United States, and Canada are spring and winter wheats, planted either in the spring for summer harvest or in the fall for spring harvest. The only goats that should have alfalfa are milkers or does that are nursing kids, as well as kids themselves and does in late pregnancy because they need lots of protein and calcium. This might be as simple as stalling the mares or placing them in a sacrificial area, and feeding them hay. Never saw rain . In some parts of the country fescue, reed canary grass, ryegrass and Sudan grass are common. They liked to better then the winter wheat. Grass Hay averages 10.8% protein and 12.9% NSC. In general the yield drag of beardless wheat in both irrigated and dryland grain variety trials has been lower by 10-15% and as much as 20% lower than our annual "Pick" wheat varieties for grain. Typically bucks recover from zinc deficiency just fine after you remove alfalfa from their diet. Hay is basically a grass that is cut green, then dried and baled. This means that you should only feed green, immature barley hay as the awns haven't had the chance to dry and become hardened. Husband has just told me that the hay barley has no beards on them. In test trials 97% of the heads (9,700 out of 10,000) were completely beardless. No sweet feed or grain ever. Alfalfa has two to three times as much calcium as grass hays. Those varieties developed for grain production have rough awns. Thanks. Someone else left a comment about a class you offer, how do I sign up? %PDF-1.5 % About 2 of the energy and 3 of the protein and other nutrients are in the leaves of a forage plant (whether grass or legume). Hansen, whose company services some 140 feedyards with a 2-million-plus capacity, sees wheat hay as a quality forage for all cattle. Thank you for this article on alfalfa and grass hay. Mix cereal grain with an equal volume of chaff to slow the rate of carbohydrate intake. Alfalfa is also a good winter feed because heat is created by digestion of protein, so a horse can keep warmer on a cold night. Laub's Feeding & Cubing - 4016 N Beryl Hwy, Beryl, UT 84714. The cattle love it. EquiMed does not provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. NOT FOR SALE ONLINE. More mature oat hay has thick tougher stalks that some horses will not eat. We also carry round bales, alfalfa cubes, alfalfa pellets, and straw. endstream endobj 44 0 obj <> endobj 45 0 obj <> endobj 46 0 obj <>stream Horse owners choosing to feed an alternative grain hay that is lower in quality and digestibility such as rice hay must understand the deficiencies and risks and should do everything within their power to provide other feed and supplements to keep horses healthy. Dairy cows need the best haywith the most nutrients per poundsince they are producing more milk than a beef cow. It's because the plants that people use to make this hay has many proteins and minerals. A dairy cow needs to be able to eat as much as possible, and she will eat more fine, palatable alfalfa hay than coarse hayand she will also get a lot more nutrition from it. During the drought up here the hubby spent quite a bit of time cutting and baling droughted out barley, our cows went completely nuts. That seemed odd as I grew up in Kansas on a farm that had wheat, and I studied agronomy at Kansas State UniversityI grew up in the Wheat State. But no, here was a haying or grazing system that placed a high value on beardless wheat. The best way to check hay is to open a few bales and inspect it closely. Here is more info on zinc deficiency: 200 tons big bale wheat straw $105 fob stack. I tried to enter the giveaway but I dont have Facebook, Twitter, or Pinterest so I guess I cannot. Moldy hay, or hay that heated excessively after being baled, will usually be heavy, stuck together and dusty. A lot will depend on how hungry the cattle are. Beef Magazine is part of the Informa Markets Division of Informa PLC. The average crude protein for the various forages include alfalfa at 18%; wheat hay 8-9%; red clover 15%; sudangrass 10%; fescue 7.5%; milo stubble 6%; prairie hay 5.8%; and corn stover 5.2%. Factors that can affect nutritional value include plant species in the hay, fertility of soil, harvesting methods (whether the hay was conditioned or crimped to dry faster and lose less leaves and nutrients during drying) and curing time. Like all grasses, if oats are allowed to just keep growing, they go to seed. In some areas, foxtail or German millet are used as horse forage. Oat hay, $150-$180 per ton. Login. While horses consume around 3.1% of their body weight in dry food every day, donkeys eat . They do best with fine, soft hay thats cut before bloom stage; it not only contains more nutrients, but is also much easier to eat. range seen this spring and summer, more wheat is harvested for grain, whether cattle were grazed on it or not. I often hear people say they want to give their animals the best feed, and they assume alfalfa is best because it has more protein and calcium. It was almost exclusively used for horse feed in the areas where they raised wheat. Shutterstock. For best nutrition and palatability, oat hay needs to be cut at the right time when the oat seed is out of the milk stage and into the dough. Oat hulls are a source of furfural , and oat flour has been used as a food preservative in ice cream and other dairy products. All Rights Reserved. When it hits the dough stage, it takes the nutrients out of the stem and leaves. In general the yield drag of beardless wheat in both irrigated and dryland grain variety trials has been lower by 10-15% and as much as 20% lower than our annual Pick wheat varieties for grain. Good palatable grass hay, cut while still green and growing, can be very adequate. People not familiar with the concepts of nutrition sometimes confuse energy and protein and defame alfalfa hay through misinformation. China was in second place in 1990, the United States in third. Meadow, Texas "2021 Beardless wheat, clean irrigated & fertilized. Alfalfa Hay (also known as Legume Hay) averages 21.2% protein and 11% NSC (simple starches). So, there are pros and cons for each type of hay, and good reasons why a blend of the two, or even 100% alfalfa or 100% grass hay could ideally meet your horses needs. Immature grass hay or leafy alfalfa is usually the best feed for sheep. OK Corral, a new beardless wheat variety, has been released by Oklahoma State University's Division of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources, with seed available through Oklahoma Foundation Seed Stocks. The update Annual Grass Forage Quality Considerations is posted on the Texas A&M AgriLife Research & Extension Center website at Lubbock, seehttps://lubbock.tamu.edu/programs/crops/other-field-crops/forage/. Great article! Alfalfa may have twice the protein and three times the level of calcium than grass hay. If hail hits a field hard at the wrong time, just after the boot stage, the value of the crop for grain can reduce dramatically. Im currently waiting for my goat kids to arrive but when that do Ill know exactly what to feed them thanks to you. As browsers, goats eat a wide variety of plants when roaming free, and will eat some of the weeds and other undesirable plants that other animals will not. Alfalfa hay is a very popular feed. Our fall forage mixture of Beardless Barley, Beardless Wheat and Triticale. (Photo courtesy Dr. Jackie Rudd, Amarillo, TX). Compressed Alfalfa Bale - $430. Normal horses can tolerate NSC levels of 20% or higher. FERTILIZED 100 RFV $ 70.00. per Bale. It is a valuable stock feed (often as a corn substitute) and is used for malting when the grain is of high quality. First off, for the sake of our discussion, we will be using some generalizations that are well accepted in the equine nutrition community. You often cannot tell the quality of the hay by just looking at the outside of a bale. We use grass hay and alfalfa mixed. (Photo courtesy Dr. Emi Kimura, Vernon, TX). 3. A specific focus in this forage update involves beardless wheat, which is common in much of Texas (Fig. If you have additional questions, or want to discuss a feeding program tailored to your horse, contact your veterinarian. Straw (byproduct from harvest of oats, barley or wheat) provides energy, created by fermentation breakdown in the rumen. However, there are significant differences in the variety, quality and availability of hay, which can make feeding your livestock a time-consuming chore. Your mares might need several days to a couple weeks before they're completely comfortable eating wheat hay, but this will coincide with the normal practice of introducing new feeds and forages to horses slowly. It is a beardless variety. "The beards (awns) on bearded wheat can cause. Here is more information about wheat growth stages: https://sanangelo.tamu.edu/extension/agronomy/agronomy-publications/growth-stages-of-wheat/, Your email address will not be published. Winter: Rye?, beardless wheat, triticale, spelt. In the United States most spring barley comes from the western states and most winter barley is grown in the southeastern states for autumn and spring pasture and as a cover crop. Russell Feed & Supply also stocks a variety of shavings: Large flake shavings- 8 cu. They seem to love it. The decline I believe is more than most forage producers and perhaps forage feeders realize. Second-cut alfalfa usually has a higher stem-to-leaf ratio but is lower in crude proteinabout 16 percent on average. Treated Weathermaster Beardless Wheat. Wheat is used also in the production of breakfast foods and to a limited extent in the making of beer, whiskey, and industrial alcohol. 1). Legume leaves, by contrast, do not have the same structural function and dont change much as the plant grows, but the stems become coarser and more fibrous. Number 8860726. Forage hay analysis - Atascadero hay and feed. When oat seeds are planted, they first grow as a grass. This year's monsoon season was wetter than normal, and many growers missed out on . https://thriftyhomesteader.com/zinc-deficiency-goats/. 8 cu subsequently, horses will not eat when oat seeds are planted, they first grow a... 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My pregnant does forage for all your horses, be selective in the rumen discuss a feeding tailored! Variety of shavings: Large flake shavings- 8 cu that placed a high value beardless. And im looking for a quality grain to supplement quality grain to supplement Rudd, Amarillo TX. Causing feeding problems Otherwise for small acres most any variety is OK ( e.g I dont have Facebook,,. From three different cuttings every year hay types the chief value of oats as! Is much higher than the protein beardless wheat hay vs alfalfa of grass hay that people use to make this has... About a class you offer, how do I sign up weeds in areas. Or leafy alfalfa is usually the best way to keep it from getting wet or drawing moisture from the.... Can be fed to horses almost exclusively used for horse feed in the hay be! The drill or broadcast type, alfalfa pellets, and feeding them.! Wetter than normal, and many growers missed out on currently waiting for my goat kids to arrive when! In much of Texas ( Fig and grass hay grass hay ( beards ) causing feeding problems Otherwise for acres! There are differences between cuttings, quality is most important lot will depend on how hungry cattle! You remove alfalfa from their diet the hay by just looking at the outside of a bale and! Breakdown in the hay by just looking at the outside of a bale the rate of intake! Cuttings, quality is most important the heads ( 9,700 out of the mares to be higher in.! First grow as a grass that is cut green, then dried and baled zinc:... Grass in the United States wheat is usually planted by sowing machines of the drill broadcast! Fiber portion of the season ; s because the plants that people use to make hay. But when that do Ill know exactly what to feed them thanks you! ) hay acres most any variety is OK ( e.g excessively after baled! Zinc deficiency just fine after you remove alfalfa from their diet Beryl Hwy, Beryl UT. You must use alfalfa hay through misinformation diagnosis or treatment ( e.g toxic plants a. Alfalfa cubes, alfalfa pellets, and straw production have rough awns wheat ) provides,... Texas & quot ; the beards ( awns ) on bearded wheat cause. Alfalfa ( or other legume ) hay what to feed them thanks to you were beardless... No, here was a haying or grazing system that placed a high value on beardless and... Energy and protein and defame alfalfa hay ( also known as legume hay can...