# Red clover



## MyDaughtersPony (Jun 12, 2016)

So I've been reading a lot about red clover hay... It seems like there are a lot of very different opinions on it. I have a lot in my field mixed with what I believe is Orchard grass (grows in clumps) some people say it's high in protein and other minerals. The salvation issues is due to a fungus that could potentially grow on the clover not the clover itself. Any ways.... My horses love clover so it'll work for us. Any other opinions on it? I mean it's a legume same as alfalfa... Higher protein and minerals that straight grass hay. How bad could it be?


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## Vol (Jul 5, 2009)

Pain in the ass to get dry and quite often causes horses to slobber profusely.....rabbits do well on it. Clover has caused many folks to get their hay wet because of the extra time it takes to dry. I like clover in grazing lands for beef....I hate it in my haylands....but usually 2-4d and others eliminate it for me.

Regards, Mike


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## MyDaughtersPony (Jun 12, 2016)

Thanks Mike. My field was seeded by my wife's uncle... And I was unfortunately unavailable to be part of the process... I essentially got what I got. Apparently red clover was a large portion of the seed. This is the first year of haying the field. The red clover is pretty dense throughout the field. The drying part does sound terrible. I don't have a ton of money to spend spend on spraying the field and renting equipment. My field is very small. I'm just wondering what kind of situation I find myself in. I'm trying to decide what is practical for me to do in my situation. I appreciate any input.


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## Tater Salad (Jan 31, 2016)

I grow quality horse hay and my customers DO Not want to see it #1) hard stems IF you get them dry...if you watch a horse in a pasture/paddock they'll eat the top only....NOW , if your on a ranch in Texas where a horse earns his vittles , he'll gobble it and the cactus !.....As a rule it causes more problems for the horse than benefits, get rid of it while it's controlable..


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## Vol (Jul 5, 2009)

About all you can do this year at this point is mow it and bale it. Clover leaves shatter terribly bad when fully dry. If you have a tedder, use it early in the day as the dew is leaving and stir it 2-3 days. If you can get your grass good and dry and your clover nearly dry then it can probably be baled. When you feel that it is nearly dry and you can bale it, rake it and let dry another hour or two if you have good drying conditions....if very humid you may have to wait a few hours longer...then bale. Clover hay can be a crap shoot baling. It can mold easily.

Regards, Mike


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## MyDaughtersPony (Jun 12, 2016)

Thanks for the advice guys.


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## Bishop (Apr 6, 2015)

We do a bit of clover for sheep and goats. Takes a bit longer to dry. I always bale it with acid no matter how dry I think it is.

Might be an old wive's tale, but we do not feed it to sheep for the month before breeding and the two months the ram is in with the ewes. I think clover has estrogen in it, which can interfere with all the ewes catching. Might be true, might not, but one year we had hardly any catch so we don't feed it anymore during that time.

Other than that, it's good feed.


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## Thorim (Jan 19, 2015)

I know an old timer used to grow it for the seed to sell you might be able to find someone to come in and do this for you....Don't know if there is even a market any more for clover seed??


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## MyDaughtersPony (Jun 12, 2016)

The fungus that can be on the red clover to make horses slobber... Can you see this on the clover with your naked eye?


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## VA Haymaker (Jul 1, 2014)

Clover makes good hay IMHO. It is a legume, don't know how it compares nutrition wise to alfalfa. It is very hard to dry down. Straight cut with a sickle mower, no conditioning, it gave us some dusting. We have since added a haybine and sprayed the fields for broadleaf weeds and ridded the clover with it too.

If you are using the hay yourself, I don't think the slobbering caused by clover is necessarily harmful, but to many dingbat horse owners, it's their baby and clover is a no no and won't buy hay with it. OTOH - these same owners seek out not the highest quality hay possible, but the lowest price, for their "thoroughbred". So if your selling and clover is present and the price is right, it will sell.

If you've got plenty of grass beyond the clover and the dusting from the clover is an issue (cows and goats can tolerate some dust and mold), then wait out the total dry down of the clover. Yea - you'll loose some leaves and from waiting, you're grass hay will be a little more bleached, but should otherwise be dust free hay.


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## MyDaughtersPony (Jun 12, 2016)

Thanks for the info.


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## r82230 (Mar 1, 2016)

MyDaughtersPony said:


> So I've been reading a lot about red clover hay... It seems like there are a lot of very different opinions on it. I have a lot in my field mixed with what I believe is Orchard grass (grows in clumps) some people say it's high in protein and other minerals. The salvation issues is due to a fungus that could potentially grow on the clover not the clover itself. Any ways.... My horses love clover so it'll work for us. Any other opinions on it? I mean it's a legume same as alfalfa... Higher protein and minerals that straight grass hay. How bad could it be?


MDP, can you post a picture of the field, so we can get an idea of thick the clover is? Being you are about the same latitude that I am, you should be seeing some flowers in your second cutting by now (maybe even brown ones).

Being you have no conditioner or tedder (last I knew), this (pictures of how thick, what else is present) would give a better idea of drying, baling with grass that is dry (as Vol mentions), etc. Also, guessing that you might want to feed this hay to YOUR horse, maybe dust is more critical, than for cows or goats (as leeve96 mentions). But, you could still feed it, by wetting it down just BEFORE, giving to your horse (IMHO). Which I have been told, is not a bad practice for a lot of horses (misting hay with water). However, any left over hay, that dries out will have the dust still there, so you might want to control the amount of product provided and feed it outside (giving the chance for the dust to blow away).

Larry


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## slowzuki (Mar 8, 2011)

Clover has been giving me fits. I have one field that is heavy clover and timothy mix. Bales come back every year:

-Horse owners call the clover stems "sticks" and won't feed it

-Even very dry clover seems to develop a dust on the leaves or flowers, I'm not sure which. I'm talking the stuff is dry dry dry but it will be dusty to handle later in the winter.

-The leaves and flowers that do stay on get discoloured and don't look appealing.

I appreciate the free nitrogen but the returned bales drive me nuts. We feed them here no trouble but we aren't as picky.


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## MyDaughtersPony (Jun 12, 2016)

A couple pictures. I did notice yesterday that the clover is literally only on 1/4 of the field. One corner only. All my father in law knows is it was seeded with a pasture mix. I did notice this specific field has considerably less Orchard grass than our back field. Both fields were seeded at the same time and with the same seed. Perhaps it was mixed poorly?


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## r82230 (Mar 1, 2016)

MyDaughtersPony said:


> Both fields were seeded at the same time and with the same seed. Perhaps it was mixed poorly?


MDP, not necessarily, could be couple of reasons, including, soil type, soil moisture, how good of contact seed made, etc., that is just the nature of the beast per se, in our area anyway. Some seeds seem to 'catch' better than others sometimes.

Looks like you may have some 'quack grass' or tall fescue, hoping it is fescue, but in Michigan, I use to call it native grass (quack grass), for the USDA, when they ask what I had planted for a cover crop on set-a-side acres. It appears to be just setting seed (still high in feed value), it wiil not produce the tonnage of OG, timothy or brome grasses. See attached MSU piece on quack grass.

Back to your situation, the varying amount of clover is going to make hay making, a little more work. Where you have more grass the hay will be ready to bale sooner, than the more solid clover areas. With more grass and being the grass will dry faster, meaning your 'average' moisture content in each bale potentially will be lower, than a bale with higher clover content would have for moisture.

But, that is haying when it comes to mixing legumes (alfalfa / clover) with grasses and you can variances across the field with straight grass or legumes also in MY area. This is where I might bale most of the field first, come back baling other 'wetter' areas last, allowing more drying time, if possible.

Depending upon how well the haybine 'conditions' the hay (crimping the stems, there are threads on HT about this and the owners manual usually has directions), along with sun, wind and humidity, will determine your baling day. You most likely will not be able to adjust someone else machine, so you are at the mercy of how they set up THEIR equipment. 

My two cents and guesstimate, cut Tuesday morning (spreading as wide as possible), rake Friday morning with dew coming off, rake (turning it over) Saturday morning with dew (coming off again) and bale Saturday afternoon. If you did not get a lot of rain, last week and your ground dries fast, you could be raking Thursday / Friday and baling. The reason for raking (turning over the second time), is where the tractor and conditioner drove on the hay. It will be packed to the ground and most likely hardly cured (and higher in moisture yet, than the rest of the crop), depending some on ground moisture. This is why I usually cut the outside of my fields first (with heavier 1st cutting), then the middle, reducing the 'tracks', that drive the hay to the ground. But, with my second, third and fourth cut and tedding not necessarily.

With alfalfa instead of clover, cut a day off the times, with neither clover or alfalfa you might be able to cut another day off the process IMHO, in our area.

Now, if you had a tedder, then that would change things, even more. 

My two cents (US dollars, naturally).

Larry

http://www.msuweeds.com/worst-weeds/quackgrass/

PS It may seem like a lot to learn, but once you get some of your own 'bricks' of quality hay in your barn, you will probably never regret the time you took to learn. You have learned a lot about your baler, now you are learning about your rake, you have came a long way.


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## MyDaughtersPony (Jun 12, 2016)

I'm feeling a bit more confident with my equipment. I just need to keep learning about field management. I feel that and everything else takes a lifetime to grasp. I can't realistically expect perfect considering this is my first year doing this. I just want to minimize problems as much as possible. My wife thinks I'm over thinking this. I just want it done right


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## r82230 (Mar 1, 2016)

MyDaughtersPony said:


> I'm feeling a bit more confident with my equipment. I just need to keep learning about field management. I feel that and everything else takes a lifetime to grasp. I can't realistically expect perfect considering this is my first year doing this. I just want to minimize problems as much as possible. My wife thinks I'm over thinking this. I just want it done right


MDP, I think all of us (IMHO), might try to be perfect, BUT, there is too many variables (especially the weather forecast accuracy for 2-4 days in advance). I have been putting up hay, since I was a wee little lad (with my grandfather & dad, I own the family farm). I think I have learned more in the last 5-6 years that I lurked around HT, than in the previous 35-40 years. I am still learning something new, it seems constantly I am learning something new from HT.

The perfect hay, is something I believe most of the people on HT strive for, BUT we are all humans I believe, and with humans you have mistakes. Don't get me wrong there is nothing wrong with perfection, just sometimes you need to be satisfied that you have done a GOOD job. Trying to achieve a better than average is not all bad outcome (at least your critters eating your product will not complain).

About 2 weeks ago I did some of my second cutting, a beautiful 2 year old seeding of alfalfa. Had it all cut, tedded and raked, couldn't get out of my off farm job as soon as I liked. I ended up baling it a little dryer than I would have liked (12-13% moisture verses 15-16%), but It is still pretty nice stuff!!! It is well above the average hay being put up in MY area, BUT I know it could have been better. But then again, how much worse would it have been if it got rained upon??

Your wife might be right, you need to celebrate your victories as they come. Making hay will help teach your to be humble, come hell or high water.IMHO Sometimes you need a little patience, others have mention the steep learning curve. 

Larry


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