Anyone care to give me a quick explanation of the various types of hay/straw that are available...when I go to buy some they usually ask me whjat kind I want, and I usually punt and say 2nd cut, but not really sure what the significance of the various types are...the prices does vary so I am sure there is a reason.
Also, hay versus straw? Is straw just hay w/out seeds? Can you use either as a feed for animals?
Straw is what is left behind when a combine goes through a grain crop such as wheat or oats. It is the stem of the grain crop. We used it for bedding. As far as food value, I do not believe it has any to speak of.
As far as the various cuttings of hay, the first is the best.
Dumbdog gave a good explanation of straw. The hay is a little more complicated. It all depends on what you're feeding and what type of hay it is like grass or alfalfa. With grass hay your first cutting is going to be the best because it has more nutrients in it than later cuttings. It really doesn't matter which cutting you feed with grass.
Alfalfa on the other hand does matter. Nutrient wise it is the opposite. Most of the nutrients and protein is in the leaves. Your first cutting of hay is usually quite stemmy and has more weeds thus the nutrient value isn't as great. 2nd cutting is usually a good mix of stem and leaves and few weeds if it's cut right, which is another story but let's assume it was cut right. Your third and fourth cutting usually don't grow as tall and thus have alot more leaves than stem. Thus your nutrients and your protein are the greatest with these cuttings.
Because of the higher nutrient and protein value your later cuttings are usually worth more than the earlier cuttings.
Now with regard to feeding it depends on the animal. With cows it depends on if they are feeders, mamas, etc. etc. But with regular cows you can get away with feeding any cutting depending on what you are supplementing with with regards to grain which is another story as well, LOL. With dairy cows all they want is third of fourth cutting of hay. With horses you like to feed first or second cutting because it is more stemmy and horses can't handle the rich hay as well and will tend to colic easier or founder with the richer hay.
I guess I should have mentioned that I was talking about grass...so the quick answer for my situation anyway, would then be the first cut is best andd 2nd cut is better than third etc.
That makes sense about the straw, that it doesn't come from a normal hayfield (i.e grass).
I am not using alphalfa at all except the very small bags I occaisaonally give the rabbits.
Here is the northeast, I always go for first cutting. And this year was a good example why.... we had drought conditions. First cutting was good hay, second was much poorer due to the lack of rain.
How is alfalfa typically planted? I want to add some to the goat pasture to richen up the forage. Do I need to till first, or can I spread it and let the snow melt wash it down come spring? In other words, if I can get some started, (and keep the critters off'n it), will it spread? Right now, were about half native tall grasses and the rest weeds.
Alfalfa is tough to get a good stand if you don't do everything exactly right. The first thing you need to do is get a good soil sample and see where your ph is. I'll post some more later when I get some time. If your ph isn't right though you're at least a year away from planting alfalfa.
I figured it wouldn't be too easy, otherwise there would be alot more of it grown. I know there are fields of it around here though, so it must be possible. This was a corn/wheat field for a long time before we got it. So, I'd imagine it got limed and sprayed quite well. I can run a ph sample through the extension office, and see what I've got. There are spots here where the grass grows as tall as the hood on my 4x4. Other spots where only weeds will grow. So, I expect I'll need several samples to figure out what is going on. [img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img]
Yep get the soil right. That's half the battle. After that what works best is to kill everything there. We use roundup in the fall when the plants are taking everything to the root. You can spray in the spring but it doesn't work as well. You will hear alot but from my experience it doesn't work just to till the ground. You have to spray, esp. in the fall. The reason it won't work as well is because alfalfa is slow growing and takes ALOT of nutrients from the soil to get it going. If the alfalfa is competing with grass and weeds then you aren't going to get a good stand.
After the kill of the material in the fall then we will usually chisel plow the ground. In the spring we'll disc and harrow to get it ready for seeding.
Where alot of people make their second mistake is picking a cheap seed. The cheaper seeds just will not grow as well or last as long as the good ones. When you get ready let me know and I'll let you know what's working well at the time. It changes alot and depends on your soil too.
Next we'll plant the best quality seed we can with oats as a cover crop. The oats will come up super fast and die fast so they will give cover in the beginning for the alfalfa but won't crowd it out like other plants will.
Once your crop is in you still face a battle every year with insects and weed control. Both are vital if you want to keep your alfalfa field for many years to come.
Yoikes! No wonder it isn't a real common crop. [img]/forums/images/icons/shocked.gif[/img] Is it that fragile? [img]/forums/images/icons/frown.gif[/img] I'm just looking for something to fill in some of the holes in the pasture and maybe richen up the feed, so I won't have to provide so many extras. Would I be better off with clover or something else? I still might give this a shot, but on a fairly small scale, just to see. (Of course, I also want to plant some wheat, just enough to harvest and make 1 loaf of bread, so I can say I've done it. [img]/forums/images/icons/laugh.gif[/img]) Do you just plant the oats and let them go? Or is there harvesting, or turning the critters loose on them? Does the alfalfa need to be replanted every year/few years, or just maintained?
By the way, I've always wondered, where do they get the seed for this stuff? When you buy a bag of lawn seed, it always gives you a percentage that is weeds. How do they know how much of it is weed seed? Are there fields somewhere planted with weeds to be harvested for seed so they can mix it into the bag with the grass seed? Are there machines that can sort the seeds that fast and tell how many weed seeds to how many grass seeds? Or do they just guess based on an aerial survey and quick eyeballs?
SHF
Wow, that's a lot of questions. [img]/forums/images/icons/blush.gif[/img]
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