# Hay protein values



## StxPecans (Mar 3, 2018)

So ealier this year we baled some ryegrass first cutting was baled way too wet got to 190 degrees then cooled off and the bales are half the orignal size. After that deal and buying what I assumed was low nutritional value after feeding it. I bought some hay equipment. I made a second cutting on the reygrass it was still a little wet but didnt get hot or anything.
Then baled some mixed grass hay from a pecan orchard.

I took samples and my dad insisted he wanted to send them out. Well 2 months later my dad says, "oh those samples came back". I asked to see them he said he cant find them.. but he said the results were

18% protein for first cutting ryegrass
14.5% second cutting ryegrass
13.5 mixed grass hay from orchard
And 4.5% on some johnson grass hay i bought from our old hay guy who swore it was cut at the right time and never rained on.

We feed a bale of that first cutting ryegrass that got way hot and is like black tobacco inside to an old cow and she ate on it and didnt die then some hungry 700lbs heifers got in to it and couldnt beat them off with a stick. Guess its safe to feed? This was about 3 weeks ago no issues..

2nd cutting ryegrass the cows are loving it, it also was a little tobacco smell.

So what your thoughts on 4.5% johnson grass hay is that real low? Think it was rained on? I knew it was poor hay after feeding the first bale when the cows didnt want it.. almost had to force them it. 
That 4.5 percent just confirms my decision to bale my own.

What is good coastal hay spose to be? 
What is good ryegrass hay spose to be?
And johnson grass too..


----------



## somedevildawg (Jun 20, 2011)

Good well fertilized coastal.....9-12


----------



## dubltrubl (Jul 19, 2010)

Good coastal like dawg says, 9-12, possibly 14 if very young. I've had Bermuda/rye mixes go 14% if the rye don't start putting on seed. Tough to get dry enough though. I haven't done any, but I've seen young Johnson grass (<14" tall) go 14% by testing, but most folks don't bother baling it, much less test it. That was a rare occasion. The only reason it got tested was that the guy was scared to feed it out and wanted to make sure it was safe.


----------



## luke strawwalker (Jul 31, 2014)

Cows are funny critters... they know more about what to eat than we do...

I've heard old cattle guys say, "never get upset looking at the lack of grass in a drought-- instead, look at the cows... if she's still fat and slick, or hasn't fallen off much, then you KNOW she's finding SOMETHING to eat that you don't see or don't think about"... That's true...

Same thing with hay... I used to bale a beautiful pure stand of bahia for a friend of ours... quite a few acres of it in fact, on shares. You'd go out there to the fields and it was well over knee high and thicker than hair on a dog's back. You'd cut it and could barely tell it had been cut it was still sticking up so much. You'd think, "Man we're gonna have so much hay we don't know what to do with it!" Next day, pull in to rake and it was all flat as a flitter, looked like about 3/4 of it disappeared overnight. Rake the field and get it all in big windrows the rake could barely handle, look at all those windrows and think, "man, there's a LOT of hay here!". Come back the next day to bale and the windrows had shriveled up to this little wispy trail of stuff that barely kept the baler feeding evenly... then roll and roll and roll and roll and keep rolling and FINALLY make a bale, tie it, and drop it, and start rolling another... take forever to roll a bale and you're like "there's nothing here!" Made plenty of good heavy rolls, but NOTHING like it LOOKED like it was gonna make. Still, nice hay-- good color, good quality, moisture just perfect... Stack em and store em and wait for winter...

Winter comes, we've got a few 2-3 year old soybean bales that we made during the '96 drought-- all the cotton burned up that year; never rained more than a sprinkle from the time we planted until the end of June, most of it never even came up. After the insurance gave us the go-ahead and we plowed it all up, and disked the fields flat, we FINALLY got a couple inches of rain or so... knowing we had put down Trifluralin and Cotoran/Caparol on the cotton fields, and BADLY in need of hay for the winter, we knew we needed to plant SOMETHING out there... I figured hay grazer or sorghum would probably die from the Trifluralin or Cotoran, maybe kill the germination or the stuff would be stunted and sickly and never make anything... BUT soybeans, well, Trifluralin is approved for soybeans, and Cotoran/Caparol aren't, but at least it's a broadleaf crop like cotton, so it SHOULD be way less effected than a grass crop like haygrazer/sorghum would be... So we flat planted the entire farm in soybeans. I figured, "Well, if it looks like it'll make a decent bean crop, I'll combine the beans, sell them, and then BUY hay... but if the beans look like they're not gonna make a good bean crop, I'll just cut them and dry them and bale them for hay to feed directly." Well, the beans were doing really good, til the armyworms made the decision for me... wasn't worth the expense of trying to spray the crap out of them fighting the armyworms, so I put the hay mower on and laid them all down. We didn't have a conditioner so I just had to "wing it" and dry them down without conditioning... raked them damp and let them dry in the windrow and baled them up, but the stems were a little damper than they should have been (and some grass and weeds and some morningglory that had come up in the fields after the beans were planted didn't help either). Made good hay, and it really saved our bacon that year (along with wild ryegrass roadside hay I had to fight the state for earlier in the year) and we came out all right, even had a couple dozen bales left over when it was all said and done. They were sleeved with bale bonnets to keep them from weathering too badly, and they heated some, but the cows ate them up...

Well, these 2-3 year old soybean bales were in the way and needed to go, so I decided I'd feed them up, one at a time with 2 new bahia bales... loaded the trailer and hauled them out to the place to feed them, and unloaded and started moving them around to unroll them and feed them out. I unroll this beautiful late-cut bahia bale-- still good green color, beautiful hay, smells like fresh flue-cured tobacco inside, just gorgeous hay... cows come running and start munching away... Next I pick up the old soybean bale, which had molded pretty good underneath the bale bonnet sleeve and looked like crap... "well, maybe they'll use it for bedding and nibble at it" I thought...

Imagine my surprise when the whole herd of cows LEAVES the fresh, beautiful bahia bales and comes CHARGING in to line up and eat the old sorry soybean hay I just unrolled... I mean they came RUNNING and were just tripping over each other to eat this molded OLD soybean hay! Every one of them left that bahia for the soybean hay... I was floored... Course, I knew from experience you've got to feed a lot more bahia hay than other grass hay... cows will just about starve to death on bahia, why I don't like the stuff anymore and don't want it on the place at all... Plus, it's like cutting steel... stuff is HARD on mower blades and wears them out like an abrasive...

The guy's brother had a place just up the road from us, and it was mostly native grass and smutgrass... nobody would cut it because the smutgrass cuts SO hard, but if I kept a sharp set of blades on my drum mower I could cut it, so he hired me to make his hay. He told me lots of guys thumbed their noses at him for baling smutgrass, but he'd had it tested and it was better than the hay he was buying elsewhere that was SUPPOSED to be good grass hay! He was a cash customer so I baled it for him, and sure enough his cows stayed slick and fat on the stuff...

Anyway, it just goes to show that you never can tell...

That johnsongrass sounds wrong... j-grass is called "ice cream grass" because cattle will literally eat the stuff to death in pastures, they love it SO much... they'll eat johnsongrass before anything else and will eat it as long as it's available... so much so they'll deplete the roots (rhizomes) and literally eat the stuff to death til its killed out. Makes darn good hay too, but yeah you gotta do it right... Cows are literally like kids given the choice of eating brussels sprouts or ice cream, of course they choose the ice cream, just like cows choose johnsongrass if its available-- its like ice cream to them...

They'll usually choose it in hay over most anything else too, *IF* it's put up right... if its over mature and all stems, little leaf and what leaves are there are course and thick and old, then it's not so appealing to them. They'll usually strip the leaves off it and leave the stems, for the most part. They'll do the same with haygrazer/sorghum-sudan if you wait to cut it when it's 9 feet tall for maximum tonnage, and the stalks have become cane poles...

Johnsongrass, like sorghum-sudan, is best when it's planted or come up thick as hair on a dog's back, and cut when it's about waist to chest high, when it's still VERY leafy and not much stem, or the stems are still small-- (smaller than a pencil for johnsongrass and smaller than about your pinky finger for sorghum-sudan). The tonnage won't be as high, but it's a VERY leafy, nutritious hay that the cows will go nuts for and do VERY well on... which (usually) more than makes up for the reduction in tonnage... plus if the weather is right you can get an extra cut anyway by taking it off sooner...

Sounds like your buddy got you some OLD dried-out or otherwise poor johnsongrass hay...

Later! OL J R


----------



## somedevildawg (Jun 20, 2011)

dubltrubl said:


> Good coastal like dawg says, 9-12, possibly 14 if very young. I've had Bermuda/rye mixes go 14% if the rye don't start putting on seed. Tough to get dry enough though. I haven't done any, but I've seen young Johnson grass (<14" tall) go 14% by testing, but most folks don't bother baling it, much less test it. That was a rare occasion. The only reason it got tested was that the guy was scared to feed it out and wanted to make sure it was safe.


Y'all been having a good season? Riding the weather roller coaster here.....dry/wet wet/dry and sorry forecasting, hit or miss....haven't even made 1/2 of first cutting. Way behind schedule.......


----------



## KYhaymaker (Jun 7, 2018)

I dont see a lot of johnsongrass around here, except as a weed people try to control. I hear it can be toxic sometimes.


----------



## dubltrubl (Jul 19, 2010)

Dawg,

Been a very trying year so far. Got a late start mostly due to wet weather. Baled a few squares and sold out within 3 days. Started some more with a 5 day forecast that was looking ideal. Got rain on it every day for 7 days then had to come back to work offshore. Still lying in the field soggy. Broke nearly every thing on the farm the last 2 weeks with the exception of the square baler and the round baler. Understandable about the round baler since I haven't cranked it up yet! Broke the tedder, the cutter, A/C went out on the cab tractor, busted a brake line on the JD tractor and snapped off a top link. Also busted a sidewall on a truck tire and had 2 flats on trailers, and broke some linkage items on the accumulator. Just can't get a break! Had to come to work to get some rest! We're about 1/4 into first cutting so we're behind you guys. Still counting our blessing though, because everyone is alive and healthy and we're still looking forward to a good hay season.


----------



## Tx Jim (Jun 30, 2014)

KYhaymaker said:


> I dont see a lot of johnsongrass around here, except as a weed people try to control. I hear it can be toxic sometimes.


Johnson grass when stressed from drought or freezing temp's can get Prussic acid which can kill grazing animals. When JG is cut for hay Prussic acid dissipate from hay after about 1 month in storage. I agree with Luke that fine stemmed,not matured JG hay is very good except for '"non educated horse owners"".


----------



## luke strawwalker (Jul 31, 2014)

KYhaymaker said:


> I dont see a lot of johnsongrass around here, except as a weed people try to control. I hear it can be toxic sometimes.


It can if you don't know what you're doing... same is true for a lot of things...

Johnsongrass can have two main problems-- 1) prussic acid (hydrogen cyanide) can develop in two specific conditions-- A) when the grass has been under considerable drought stress and gets a sudden rain event that causes a rapid "flush" of new growth, and B) when it's been frosted. Fortunately, prussic acid rapidly outgasses when the hay is cut as part of the normal curing process (for dry hay) so basically by the time the hay is ready to bale (for dry hay, not baleage) the prussic acid will have outgassed with the moisture in the hay stems/leaves. Prussic acid is definitely a concern if the johnsongrass is grazed, green-chopped and fed, chopped and stored as silage, or "wilted" and baled for baleage...

2) nitrate toxicity can develop when the grass has more soil nitrogen available than it can make use of due to lack of moisture (drought). The plants collect nitrogen with the moisture it absorbs from the soil into the roots, and "stockpiles" the nitrates in the stems of the plant, waiting on rainfall or water so that it can make a sudden "flush" of green growth when conditions become more favorable. If the hay is cut BEFORE moisture arrives and the nitrates are used up in a flush of growth, then the built-up stockpiled nitrates can be built up to toxic levels in the hay... Unlike Prussic acid, nitrates DO NOT outgas as part of the drydown process, so the finished hay can be toxic if fed in sufficient quantities. Toxic nitrates can be present regardless of harvest method.

Dealing with Prussic acid is easy enough... keep cattle from grazing on drought-stressed johnsongrass for a week or two after it greens up after a rain, or after it is damaged or killed by frost. This will give the plant time for the hydrogen cyanide to outgas from the plants and they will be safe to graze. Do not cut or chop johnsongrass for silage/baleage for a week or two after a rain event or killing frost. So long as hay is properly cured to safe storage moisture levels for dry hay, Prussic acid should not be present in normally-baled dry hay, even if it were in the johnsongrass when it was alive in the field.

Nitrates are a more difficult issue. The only way to know for sure is to test the forage. Forage samples sent to the lab will tell the results of how much nitrate is present, if its at dangerous levels, and what those levels are. High nitrate forage isn't necessarily "useless", but it has to be fed in such a way that animals don't consume too much of it and allow the nitrates to build to toxic levels in their bloodstream (nitrate toxicity in cattle causes excess nitrates in the blood, leading to reduced oxygen carrying ability as the nitrates bind to the hemoglobin in the blood, preventing it from carrying oxygen to the animal's cells... the blood turns from the normal bright red of oxygenated blood to a dull "chocolate milk" looking brown color as the nitrates tie up the hemoglobin and prevent oxygenation, leading to asphyxiation and death). So long as the feed is either mixed or "limited" to prevent the animals getting TOO much nitrate at one time, so that it is "diluted" with known low-nitrate feed, then the high-nitrate feed is safe to feed...

These are actually common issues with corn fodder or grain sorghum stalk hay or even with sorghum/sudan haygrazer type forages... ALL of these can have Prussic acid and/or nitrate toxicity if handled incorrectly... Every time we have a drought the extension service goes into overdrive, as a lot of guys want to bale failed corn or milo crops for cattle feed, since drought usually means hay is in VERY short supply... the thing is, the nitrate problem is COMPOUNDED by drought because, particularly in row crops like corn and sorghum, the crop has been fertilized with the EXPECTATION of rainfall sufficient to produce a *normal* crop... in a drought where there is insufficient water to grow a normal crop, the corn/sorghum gathers in this "excess" nitrogen and stores it in the plant tissues, again, waiting for rainfall so it can make a 'flush' of growth and reproduce (make grain). If that rainfall never comes, those nitrates remain concentrated in the plant tissues, even after death from drought or when cut for stover or hay... And, inevitably, there's always some story or other about some guy(s) feeding a bunch of corn stalk or sorghum stubble bales to their cows and killing a bunch of them with nitrate poisoning because they didn't test the forage before feeding it or handle it appropriately...

Later! OL J R


----------



## StxPecans (Mar 3, 2018)

What kind of protein values and tonnage can one expect from clover hay? What is a good clover to plant in texas? Whatsthe best value clover to plabt as i inow seed is exspenive? 
Can you seed clover with some sort of cool season grass?
Looking for anyones thoughts or experiances.


----------



## Fossil02818 (May 31, 2010)

Up here the only clover we have been able to dry down in a reasonable amount of time is Freedom Red Clover. It has a thinner stem and less "hairs' on the stem as well. We've planted with a target of no more than 20-25% clover with mixed grasses but mostly orchard grass. I have no idea if that works in Texas but you can probably dry clover hay a lot easier there than up here.


----------

