Hay field question

[Fireeyes2899]

I am new to this forum and doing some research before I jump into buying land. I am trying to find out how much land I will need for my homestead. My goal is to have two-three dexter cows on 5 acres. I plan to split the pasture in half to do a rotation. I was wondering in between rotation can I cut the grass and use it for hay. I am worried about using it for hay since cattle would have been on it four weeks before the grass would be harvested. Would it be safe for hay for my animals?

Thanks so much

[sammyd]

you do not say where you are from and that would really have an impact on how your pasture would be managed.
I would pasture a few acres and leave the rest for hay production.
Set the pasture up for more managed grazing and make a couple of crops of hay off the field part.
If you leave the cows on 2 1/2 acres then move them to the next 2 1/2 acres what exactly are you expecting to make hay on?
There won't be much left but any weeds the cows didn't care for and if you wait to make hay you'll have nothing for the cows to eat when they rotate in.

[Alice In TX/MO]

I think you'd better plan on buying hay.

Talk to the extension office farm rep where you are planning to homestead. He will have information specific to your area.

[Fireeyes2899]

I'm looking for land in SC around family. I was going to move the cattle to another pasture. Cut the grass. Let that grass grow and harvest hay. Then move the cows back on it and repeat on the other pasture. I'm just trying to get the most out of the land since it cost so much to clear land and make it manageable afterwards. It was just an idea I had and didn't know if it would work.

[Ramblin Wreck]

It's hard to manage a field both for grazing and hay. I've seen in done, but I'm not sure how successful it is from a maintenance perspective. I was taught (rightly or wrongly) that if you take something off (like hay from a grass field) you've got to put something back on it to recover (like fertilizer or manure). Letting a filed lie idle/fallow can also help it recover.

Sounds like you might need ten acres rather than five, but best wishes, no matter how you proceed.

[Joshie]

Do you expect the five acres to include your home? Either way, I would be surprised if you could get by without purchasing hay. Isn't the purpose of rotation to give a pasture a rest? Two and a half acres isn't exactly a large pasture.

How many hay crops do local farmers get? We're in IL and we get two crops of grass hay or three to four with alfalfa. While I realize SC has warmer weather it seems unlikely that a five acres could support both grazing and hay.

[FarmboyBill]

With 3 cows, youd be lucky if 5 acres were enough just for pasture. Depending on where your at. If your north, 5 acres might be enough for hay for 3 small cows. If here round Okla, it would take around closer to 10 or a bit less depending on the quality of grass. And the winter.

[COWS]

I'm in SC. You don' say what part of SC. There are 2 basic pasture environments, one area, the Upstate, will grow fescue, the other, east of Columbia, will grow coastal bermuda and farmers often will overseed rye grass in the earky fall to have green grazing over the winter. You will need about 3 acres per cow-calf pair, 4 will be better, 5 will provide a lot of year round grazing. It is perfectly permissible to cut hay and then graze cows on it, but don't expect more hay that year. One possible management scheme is to have 2 pastures, graze one, cut one for hay, reverse them the next year. Another possibility is to have 3 pastures, cut hay from one, graze two, rotate over a 3 year scheule.

If you have coastal bermuda, overseeding with rye grass has problems. Lets suppose you have been grazing the bermuda-rye grass field and take the cows off as soon as the bermuda starts to grow in the spring. The rye grass will grow back and put on a crop of seed and in the process interfere with the growth of the bermuda for hay. Assuming good fertilization of the bermuda, it will make more money by selling hay than it will growing beef. A good program for the upstate would be to have fescue pasture and a field of well managed bermuda for hay. Fescue does not grow well east of Columbia due to hotter weather and sandy soil. That area was under the ocean fairly recently in geological terms and there is a succession of ancient beaches from Columbia to the coast. Bermuda grows well there. Another grass that is popular is Bahia grass. I don't recommend it. It does not start growing as early as bermuda and is very cold sensitive. Bermuda will produce about twice as much hay per acre. Cows love to graze Bahia and it is drouth resistant. It also will choke out broomstraw, the presence of which indicates a need for lime, and will choke out bermuda. It will not choke out johnson grass which is a serious pest. Cows love to graze johnson grass and a good management process is to be able to graze a hay field from frost to frost occasionally. If you have Johnson grass in a yard, don't worry about it, regular mowing will kill it in 5 years or less.

COWS

[Fireeyes2899]

I am around the columbia area of SC. I am planning on planting Bermuda grass. I am looking into getting around 20 acres. I have a horse now and want around around 5 acres for my horses and 5 acres for my future cows. I was looking into doing the hay pasture rotation with the horse and the cow pastures. I want to make sure that I have enough pasture to raise grass fed only diets for my horse and cows. I will hopefully have enough land to grow hay separate but since I am already cutting the pastures I wasn't sure if I can just let it grow it longer and harvest for hay. The rye grass should die off when the temps raise since I usually only use annual rye grass to overseed in the winter. I am looking at smaller cows like the dexter which they say you only need half an acre. I was trying to give at least each cow an acre to be on the safe side.

[COWS]

I have no experience with dexter cows, but I doubt if 1/2 acre is enough for any grown cow, especially if we have dry weather. I also don't have a horse, but neighbor across the road has one on 5 acres which the horse keeps pretty well grazed down. Neighbor is not fertilizing, however. If you have well fertilized coastal bermuda there is nothing wrong with cutting a crop of hay off then turning livestock back on the cut section, depends on how much hay you have toward the winter supply. I also don't know how much hay it takes for a horse. When I was feeding cows small square bales, I fed at the rate of a third of a bale per cow in the winter from 40 pound bales.

COWS

[Joshie]

Again, we are in Illinois. We have almost 30 acres. Ten are in hay. The hay field feeds our two (grass and hay only) horses most years. We usually have enough left over to sell some but we sure don't have enough to feed three Dexters.

Do you own hay mowing and baling equipment? It wouldn't make sense for us to own equipment with only ten acres in hay so we go halvsies with our hay guy. Would you need to do the same? Equipment and maintenance are not cheap.

We rotate horses between pastures of two to five acres. Those boys can wear the pastures down to nothing before you can blink. How many horses do you want to support on five acres of pasture?

It sounds like you might do better with bigger pastures.

[rambler]

What works is to let one of your paddocks grow up from spring on and cut it for hay.

Let it regrow again and THRN pasture it back into the pasture rotation.

This means you might need 3 paddocks, not 2.

As others mention, 5 acres of pasture is pretty tight for 3 head, not sure if you will have the extra grass to spare or not, but that wasn't your question so I won't dwell on it.

Typically what happens is grasses grow gangbusters in a cool wet spring, and then the heat of summer they slow way down or stop. So you get too much hay early on, and not enough in mid to late summer.

So you wouldn't want to graze the pasture early on, and then try to grow it into hay. Aside from the bit of fresh manure, the grass wouldn't like that pattern.

It will prefer you let it grow early on, cut it for hay, and then regrow for pasture use.

Paul

[Jennifer L.]

If you have a choice, it's a lot easier to have a few too many acres rather than a few short. If you find you are five acres short, that's something that you may not be able to buy later on, and they may be critical to you enjoying your place the way you want to. Don't try and micromanage what you think you need before you even buy. Overkill never hurts when it comes to land unless it's all lawn that you have to mow.

[Molly Mckee]

I think you will need more land to do what you want. If you use your hayfield as pasture, then bale it a month or so later it will have a lot of cow manure in it. This may make it harder to dry the hay or make it mold, neither which is good for horses. Some times, in some areas, you can pasture a hay field in the fall for a short time, but if it goes into winter too short, it will hurt the hay.

[CountryWannabe]

I have four Dexters and can tell you that they will need more than 5 acres for three. Mine rotate through about 6 acres and that just keeps them grazing from about May through October if the weather is kind (which it hasn't been) I have to feed them October/November through April.

Mary

[Mupwi]

I found 3 acres was enough for my dexter cow yerlin hefer and calf but it needs to be split into small paddocks and intensively rotationaly grazed no more than 3 days on a section and then at least 30 days for recovery and if there isnt much rain it needs to be irrigated. but here i don't have very cold winter not sure about where you are. here as long as we have water the right type of grass will grow all year round.

[FarmboyBill]

I think I would fertilize it after taking off the cows EACH TIME. Test the ground if doing this to make sure your not using too much, OR too little fertilizer. keeping the ground in top shape will go the longest way in securing as much grass or anything else possible