# Anyone feeding wheat straw in rations?



## Crookhorn Farms (Jul 3, 2012)

Looking for input on feeding wheat straw


----------



## Gearclash (Nov 25, 2010)

I custom bale some winter wheat straw for a dairy neighbor. He feeds every bale of it to his dry cows. I believe they feed it because it is lower in potasium than any other forage, including oat straw. The thinking is that a ration with higher levels of K leads to problems with hypocalcemia (milk fever) during/after calving.


----------



## rjmoses (Apr 4, 2010)

Right now, I'm feeding the first cutting of a new orchardgrass field that had a LOT of volunteer wheat in it to my horses. They're chowing down on it no problems. This was cut when the wheat was in late boot stage.

Ralph


----------



## somedevildawg (Jun 20, 2011)

4 years ago cattle farmers were beating my door down to get some wheat hay that I had grown for a cover crop and baled for soil erosion....cause there wasn't any grass hay, so yea they will eat it.....


----------



## aawhite (Jan 16, 2012)

Lot of wheat straw being fed in Western KS. Ground fine and mixed with other forages. You would be well advised to work with a nutritionist to determine how much wheat straw you can work into the ration. It's cheap filler with hay prices climing and grass burning up around here, but no real nutritional value to it. Probably better for backgrounding than a finish lot.

Heck, when I was with Cargill, I used to sell wheat dust (what came thru the dust collection system) to a backgrounding yard. 20 tons every few weeks. The guys nutritionist was puching it right to the line (not much nutritional value in wheat dust, unlike corn dust), but cost was super cheap.


----------

