If I don't cut this hay ...

[PrettyPaisley]

what's the worst that will happen?

I will begin to rotate my pasture soon. The back wooded area is almost completely fenced and hot so I plan to turn the goats out on it this week.

That gives me 6+ acres to feed 2 steers destined for the freezer in about a year, 1 full grown dairy cow and 2 bucks (goat). I am under the impression that I should not cut this hay but am getting some pressure from the man who built our barn and is helping me do lots around here this year. He's a SUPER guy to have around, full of great ideas, helpful, tolerates my girls following him around like lost puppies, lets me watch and learn, a Vietnam Vet, crazy strong like ox, but offers some advice that makes me cringe, like having my goats stand in gasoline whilst on the milk stand to treat hoof rot. Or telling me that pouring some motor oil down my cow's back will keep the flies at bay. Lord knows I love this man to pieces but I would sooner die than do that to an animal!

He's telling me that the cows want the young fescue and not the old dried hay and that even if I don't want to bale it I need to cut it and at least let it lay there and die. Is that true?

[agmantoo]

He's telling me that the cows want the young fescue and not the old dried hay and that even if I don't want to bale it I need to cut it and at least let it lay there and die. Is that true?

The fescue will go dormant soon. If you want to extend the grazing period you do need to clip the fescue. Cut the seed heads off immediately above the leaves on the fescue. It is difficult to clip at this height.

[PrettyPaisley]

So is that a setting on the bush hog? Is that what I need to get it done? Would I kill my riding lawn mower if I set it on the highest setting and started before the sun comes up tomorrow?

[Harry Chickpea]

Oilers for livestock were common a few years ago. If you have seen the effects of botfly, you'll oil before allowing that to happen.

What will happen if you don't cut? Any thistle heads will bloom, the raspberry seeds dropped in bird poo will start and go to second generation, summac can get a grip, and other problem plants will begin to crowd out the good stuff. Pay to have it bushhogged if you can't do it yourself.

[rambler]

Hog oilers were not mearly a decoration 50 years ago, they were what was needed before modern pesticides, same with the cattle oilers....

Grass will go dormant or slow down when it heads; many weeds come through at this time and really make a mess of a good pasture.

Your pasture will be healthier long term if you mow it if the livestock are not keeping up with it.

Livestock like soft fresh tender grass, and will seek that out, avoiding older, stemy, ripe grass.

This tends to lead to overgrazing of the tender best grasses so they die out.

And they don't graze the courser grasses so they go to seed, along with weeds, and your pasture slowly turns to worse, courser, poorer grasses.

Now, what to do any one year depends on water, temps, amount of grazing, etc.

But in general, the guy is giving good advice for the long term.

I donno about the gasoline on the hooves, I do suspect we have better alternatives to that these days, no doubt it works, but getting raw gas that close to the milk, aside from being a bit harsh on broken skin.....

And your lawn mower would need to be just a bit special to take down 6 acres of mature grass....

Good luck with the progress, you don't -have- to this year, but thinking long term, grass pastures do better if they are clipped even once or twice a year and let to regrow.

Paul

[Raymond James]

If you can cut and put up hay do so. Get one cutting with the blade set high. Let it grow this summer for 4 to 6 weeks than put the cows on it. If you can keep them in a small space then move every couple of days do so (rotational grazing) . Keep them on your once a year mowed permanent pasture till Feb. if the grass holds out. If it gets muddy pen short and feed hay (the hay you put up). In any case try and keep your cows off of your permanent pasture if it gets muddy from late winter until well into spring.

I harvested hay or brush hogged (set as high as it will go) every year for the first 5 years to control weeds and trees. I now do this every other year. Try and get the cattle/horses/sheep/goats to eat almost everything short then move them so that the grass doesn't go dormant. With enough moister and hot days/nights the grass will grow back. Leave it long and it grows well till it stops (goes dormant).

I use a backrub - used oil and a little diesel set the rub so the cattle have to go under it to get to a salt block. Ask at your local feed store they may sell you a chemical instead but in my area it is the used oil with diesel or a chemical (pesticide) and diesel that is used for this.

I use fly tags in the ears to keep flies out of eyes and stop them from stopping eating to shake their head every few seconds. Cattle not bothered by flies put on more weight. Thus the fly tags and the back rub.

There are products that will kill flies in manure fed in a salt block formulation. The anti fly salt must be used all year when it is warm and is best used by neighbors working together to control flies.

[PrettyPaisley]

Good enough. I'll knock on the neighbor's door today. Thanks y'all!

[arnie]

gasoline ,kerosene .and used or burnt motor oil were the goto cure for many problems on the farm and used oil poured on a cow repeled fies and lice were cured on a hog if it had a liberal stripe poured down its back .mange was cured on a dog with a liberal douseing of burnt oil .but today there are better cleaner things though they are costlier .grass or hay becomes tough and unplateable as it matures it also loses much of its nutrition. cut it to keep it growing tasty and tender and .though I'v little eperince with goats I have heard of people having a shallow foot bath trough set up to drive them through regularly; filled with some medication to combat foot troubles though not gasoline

[michiganfarmer]

I agree with everyone els about the hay. It will mature, dry out, and die. Cut it

[o&itw]

If it is fescue, and you don't hay it, then wait till the seed stalks mature (this will throw extra seen in the pasture) then bush hog it. Many pasture grasses in the Midwest are "cool season" grasses and will go somewhat dormant anyway when it gets hot and dry.

When your weeds start to come up, put the goats in the pasture. The goats will like the weeds, and the pasture will like the goats. As soon as it is Autumn and the grass starts to come back, pull the goats back off and turn the cattle in again.

There is a mold that forms on fescue seed heads that is a problem for cattle. Ask you vet friend about it so that he can suggest the best timing for the cutting.
If it hasn't gotten too mature, then cut it for hay... one can always use hay.

[Yvonne's hubby]

It sounds like you are getting pretty good advice from your friend overall. I would use kerosene on the hooves instead of gasoline though.

[Awnry Abe]

This particular season, following last year's drought, I have found that our fescue bolted straight to seed with relatively little vegetation. Mine would make poor, stemmy hay. I've bush-hogged some pre-rotation and some post-rotation. I have been happy with the regrowth in both cases. I think I am about to run out of calendar, though, and the cold-season grasses are about to hit the brakes until the fall.

I have goats, too. Where most cattle folks see weeds, I see goat browse. I am trying to keep the pasture useful for both, though.

The riding mower would be not good to the mower, rider, or grass.

BTW, I have a particular affinity to those Vietnam vets. My very best-ever neighbor is one, and he just oozes wisdom. I love to spend time talking with him. He went through more for our country than any one guy ought to have, but I am grateful that he did.

[motdaugrnds]

You have a wise neighbor! Letting your goats stand on a mat soaked in a solution of Hydrogen Pyroxide and water will do well too with hooves; but the best is to simply keep them trimmed.

The fescue, when mature with seed heads, will contain endophytes, which can cause knots in a dairy goat's udder. (It took me a whole year to get rid of those knots by keeping them off fescue the entire time and giving the udder time to re-do itself.)

The trouble i'm having is "horse flies" as the "Fly Predator" I put out each year is taking care of most of the other fly populations. Wonder if those ear tags for cows work for this!!!

[PrettyPaisley]

Y'all really pour motor oil on the back of your cow?? Really? The flies ARE BAD this year-and I know she is really bothered by them-tell me it won't hurt/burn her. I don't use chemical fly sprays because I don't want to kill the bees. Non chemical ones are a JOKE. Joke, I say. I mean a total waste of money.

I don't mind cutting the hay but I really don't want to feed it back to the cow this winter. We have enough warm season that I should be able to grow grass for 9-10 months or so-and that's my plan. She was the skinniest thing I'd ever seen this past winter, wasting so much energy digesting that old hay. Seemed the more she would chew the skinnier she would get. And no, we don't do corn. Plus-she has been pooping on it all year long. 3 cows and a gallizon goats (we had lots of baby goats this year) pooping on it for months ... then feeding it back to them? That doesn't seem right to me.

Yes- I ADORE my friend. I can't say enough wonderful things about him. He is amazing ... he looked at those huge posts sticking out of the ground and single handedly built me a BEAUTIFUL barn with a loft and steps. Then he came back and in just a couple of days built me a head gate for my cow. <3 He's so stinking tough; he got out there and with a machete like knife chopped down a 12 foot wide, 250 foot long path that had been overgrown for no less than 50 years. There were vines out there as big around as I am. And all for my goats. He will watch me with the goats, watch me milk, watch them drag me around, then offer suggestions on how to get control of them and then how best to build a milking area. He's not been around goats but he gently told me I wouldn't be able to get up and down off my cinder block stoop whilst milking for the rest of my life, so he's going to make a place where the goats can run up a ramp and I can lean against a regular height stool. I told him I wouldn't not go down without a fight-that'd wear out before I'd rust out- but he still thinks I need to prop instead of squat to milk. And turns out he liked the baby goats so well I sold him 10 for a great price and he took them home to his wife, who calls me up squealing with joy. I've now created another goat addict. He had never had raw goat milk and he hesitantly tried mine-turns out he loves it! I give him all he will take!

He's my buddy-and the girls adore him, too. And I most definitely appreciate his service to our country. He quit school early but was given top clearance in the military; turns out he's a genius, too!

[Ramblin Wreck]

Yeah, I'd cut the field. If it dries out this week, I'm mowing my pasture before any thistle, briars, or fennel gets up too high and seeds. I will raise the mower's rear wheels and tractor lift arms such that I'm topping off the growth, not scalping it low to the ground.

As for the oil, we now try to use a spray for fly control with the cows, but we still have an old fly rub that we would oil and hang over the hall of the barn. The cows would rub their backs (and hopefully but not often their heads) against it on the way in/out. It was somewhat effective.

[Yvonne's hubby]

Originally Posted by PrettyPaisley

Y'all really pour motor oil on the back of your cow?? Really?

Naw, I put the old used oil in a bucket, and soak a rope wrapped with cotton in it... hang that up about back high and let the cows walk under it. This gets enough oil on them to keep the lice and flys off pretty good.

[PrettyPaisley]

Where do I get old used oil? I've seen the large rub things at TSC-I can hang a couple of those but don't know where to find the oil. Promise it won't hurt the cows???

[rambler]

Change the oil in your lawn mower? Do you have a car or pickup? It does not take much oil.

Paul

[bruce2288]

Putting some fly insecticide on your cows back will have no inpact on bees unless see has flowers groowing there.

[fordy]

Originally Posted by PrettyPaisley

Where do I get old used oil? I've seen the large rub things at TSC-I can hang a couple of those but don't know where to find the oil. Promise it won't hurt the cows???

...................Large tow sacks soaked in oil work well when suspended above the cows so it rubs their backs ! , fordy