hay quality questions

[HuskyBoris]

my wife and I are at odds about hay quality at the moment.I say 2nd cutting is better then 1st because of less weeds and junk and more protein.
She says it is all the same because it's just grass and having minimal legumes in it makes all the cuttings equal.
so can anyone set us straight?our hay is mostly grass tomothy orchard,brome and some clover plus some other stuff I can't identify.

[secuono]

I don't remember if it was first or second cut that got more fertilizer intake....
Less stems and less seed heads is more important to me, though. Stems have little in them and when seed heads show up, most of the nutrition has then been used up in seed production.
Sorry if that doesn't help any. I never ask which cut hay is.

[secuono]

Found this in Google search. Kind of makes sense, I mow a few times in spring to get rid of weeds and everything is tall and sparse. Then it gets thick, grassy and rich looking. But I make my own hay here and there from summer grasses. I don't let it get stemy, ever.


First cut hay is corse, with a lot of grasses and don't have a lot of legumes such as alfalfa, clover... It dries quicker, It may have quack grass, timothy, brome. It may be weedy too so watch out.

2nd cut hay is very rich in nuturients. It is greener than the 1st cut. It smells sweeter than the 1st cut as well. You have to rake this crop of hay more than the 1st cut because it is heavier and thicker. Also it is more likely to rot if you bale wet or catch fire so you have to make sure it is dry before you bale. I had a couple of friends that had the fire problem because of the hay that ignited in the mow. Also another sign that its wet, its really heavy to lift which may mean to open up the bale and let it dry some more. You can sometimes feel the heat building up in the bale.

3rd cut hay is really, really thick and green. It has a really sweet smell to it and his harder to dry but it has a lot of legumes and less grass which may be harder for the horses to digest. Its too rich for horses and I won't recommend the horses to eat 3rd cut because it may get founder.
Source:
Hay judge at local fairs, 4-H Field Crops member, and Co-Operatives award winner for my club. 1st place winner at the Royal Agricultural Winter Fair, Toronto, Ontario.

[Maura]

It depends on where you are and when it is cut. Around here, farmers wait until there is some length on the hay before first cutting. Because of a shorter day and longer night, the grass and weeds and whatever are leggy. Second cutting is better. However, if you cut the hay right after the first burst, before it is leggy, first cutting will be better than second cutting. Third cutting is going to be the least favorable.

[bellcow]

the only way to know for sure is to get it tested. not that hard to do.

there are a lot of variables that can change the quality of the hay. this would give you good info on what your doing hay wise.

I don't test that often anymore. but you might be surprised what comes back from the test. the "good" hay might be trash and the "bad" hay be okay. one year I tested every thing I bailed, it was surprising.

bellcow

[Awnry Abe]

2nd (and on) cuttings are always better than 1st, when they happen. 2013 gave a lesson on 1st vs 2nd cutting. In 2012, severe drought brought most pasture to its knees, begging for mercy. In the spring in 2013, the cool season grasses barely had a vegetative state. They went straight from washy to bolting to seed. The plant was in survival mode to get a seed head out as quickly as possible. The ensuing hay was thick and stalky. Little in the way of grass. Not very palatable to livestock. There was plenty of it, though, because stalks bulk up well. And I don't know that anyone around here got a 2nd cutting. But bad hay is better than no hay. Ironically, the drought year hay was really good, because the grass didn't get the memo about the weather until it was all put up.

As to the weeds, just like with grasses, there are cool season and warm season weeds. You'll get the cool season weeds will crank it up right before the 1st cutting, and the warm season weeds will thrive in the heat for the 2nd.

2014 has been God's gift to the Midwest grazier. But ragweed is strong this year. Those 2nd cuttings, from weedy pasture, will still have their share of "flavor additives". 2014 is a great "stock up'" year for hay. It is cheap and good. If you can get your hands on 2nd cutting, I'd do so. But if not, the first cutting this year is very good, provided it didn't get rained on.

[Rectifier]

There's a reason everyone wants second cut. Usually it's for higher proportion of legumes (though yours is just grass) but 1st cut tends to be a lot stemmier. You are cutting it so you must be looking at it before you cut, do you cut 1st cut late like everyone does here just to get more tonnage?

We are the opposite Abe.
2013: 120 BIG rounds off 50 acres plus second cut of 200+ squares cut in strips in wet areas (maybe 1/4 of acres)
2014: 41 regular rounds off the same land. Looks like we will not get a second cut. So much moisture but hail crushed all our alfalfa in the spring and late frosts kept it from coming back.

We went from selling to several buyers to buying hay and scraping for screenings and ditch hay. We went out cutting some old fallow land in the pasture that was uncut for a decade (actually came pretty well) How things change from year to year! At least the pasture did GREAT this year. Just keeps coming back huge!

[Lazy J]

Cutting isn't as important to me as when the hay was cut in its growth pattern. To really know the nutritional value of the hay you have to have a sample tested to determine Crude Protein, ADF, NDF, and other key nutrient levels.

[HuskyBoris]

I tried to cut early June this year but equipment problems and rainy weather put me off until early July,,got it all done and not a drop of rain since.
I am not sure how to tell when to cut it,I just do it when everyone else does theirs right now.The fields that I cut are the old pasture from when this was a dairy farm,they are rough and thick and this year was the first year in probably 15 to 20 years it has been cut.
the reason I asked the question is my wife wants to sell the 2nd to her sister who has horses but I am balking on it because I want to save it for my cows,all 3 of them.
I am hoping cutting it and seeing it grow back and thinning out the weeds will give me a better understanding of whats there.

[Rectifier]

Cows do not need 2nd cut, they can do well on poor and stemmy hay. We call it "cow hay" when one cuts late for lots of stemmy bulk.

If a horse owner wants to buy 2nd cut hay, selling it is usually your better economic option, especially if it is in small square bales. You can sell it and buy 1st cut rounds for the cows and make quite a few $/ton, but always remember to factor in cost of hauling!

[idigbeets]

Depends on the cow imo. I've fed hay that tested really well, and the dairy/beef cows would hardly eat it. Other stuff the gobble right up, especially johnson grass.

Most hay is better on 2nd cut. 3rd cut is good for dry hay usually, not too stemmy and if not in bloom you'll have really nice stuff there.

[sammyd]

that's funny we used to call stemmy worthless hay "horse hay". We would keep the good stuff and sell the horse hay...

[Ramblin Wreck]

What Maura said above, except that in addition to where you cut and when you cut, I will add that what you cut enters into the mix also. Our fields are mostly fescue grass, and research at the University of Missouri indicated that fescue hay can have protein contents nearing 14% if cut early in the year before seed heads formulate. After seed heads develop, the nutritional content drops sharply. Second and third cuttings of this grass are much less nutritious. The other major grass harvested around here is coastal bermuda. It produces a more consistent quality in terms of protein content, but it is a Summer (not Spring) grass that loves water, which is sometimes scarce in the hot months.

[rambler]

First cutting might have more weeds.

First cutting is more likely to get over ripe, or rained on, before it gets baled as it is in the typical rainy season and just dang hard to put up timely.

First cutting grows a little faster because it gets more rain, so it might test out a little lower on nutrition per lb. the quick growth means it doesn't get quite fed full of nutrients. Just as slow growth wood is stronger, slow growth hay picks up more minerals and vitamins.

All of the above is 'on average', not a certainty every year.

But generally a second cutting is worth more because it is assumed to be of better quality for the above reasons.

Paul

[rambler]

Originally Posted by HuskyBoris

I tried to cut early June this year but equipment problems and rainy weather put me off until early July,,got it all done and not a drop of rain since.
I am not sure how to tell when to cut it,I just do it when everyone else does theirs right now.The fields that I cut are the old pasture from when this was a dairy farm,they are rough and thick and this year was the first year in probably 15 to 20 years it has been cut.
the reason I asked the question is my wife wants to sell the 2nd to her sister who has horses but I am balking on it because I want to save it for my cows,all 3 of them.
I am hoping cutting it and seeing it grow back and thinning out the weeds will give me a better understanding of whats there.

Your second cut will be hay.

your first cut is good cattle filler. It is over ripe, lower in protein, course stems and seed heads. Weeds.

If you are feeding your cows grain, that first cutting will be great browse for them, keep their multiple stomachs working and get some value out of it.

If you are trying to get milk from your cows and feeding only hay, no or very little grain, then you need to look at things carefully and need a very good hay, probably a large percent legumes to get the protein up.

Horse folk of today will turn up their nose at your first cutting, and will only consider the second cutting.

So, depends on where you are going with all this, its all in the details.

Ideally you use your cows to use up the poorer hay with the mineral and grain mix most people feed to bovines, and you can sell the second cutting for higher do.lars to get some spending money.

But again, it depends on your details.

Your old cow yard of weeds will come around in 2 more years and be very good hay if you keep on time and on track with mowing it, the weeds will die back quite a bit and the grass will respond to the regular timely mowing and get thicker. As an old cow yard it likely has good nutrients in the ground, depending on your area it might be in desperate need of lime. If your soil ph is below 6, it is very difficult for any plants to pry the nutrients out of the soil. However you don't want the ph over 7, so don't just add lime without knowing what you have for soil......

Try to get your equipment in shape, making hay is a matter of timeliness, a day or two makes a big difference..... A month makes junk instead of hay.....

Having said that, understand I'm still trying to make 8 acres of hay for the first time, it was under water most of May and June, and still very wet..... So yea Every year is an adventure.

Paul

[Jennifer L.]

Weeds are not all bad. My father said they used to call chickory "Horse Alfalfa". Not sure why, now, just that it had a lot of nutrients in it that horses needed, I guess. The deep taproot brings a lot of minerals up from the subsoil. Not talking about the stalky stuff, but the leafy parts before it shoots up.

It was really cold and wet this spring, so it's weedy crop and thin here. It's a depressing year for going out with the haybine, I tell ya!

[kasilofhome]

Fyi
Israel gets 17 cutting of hay in a year.

[Mike in wny]

here in wny we can sell 1st cutting to horse owners for for more money because they all want it and i think it's of less quality then 2nd cutting.

[haypoint]

I find it interesting when folks have some poor quality hay for sale they call it "horse hay", because horses mostly are pasture ornaments and there isn't much energy demand. But in truth, horses have very small stomachs and cannot process fibrous low digestibility hay. They are far more susceptible to lung damage when fed dusty hay and moldy hay can kill a horse.
Then there are folks that have poor quality hay and call it "cattle hay" thinking that cows are able to finely digest the course stems found in late cut hay. But in a real, productive farm, cows are either being milked or nursing a calf. Takes a lot of good quality hay to make milk. Then the rest are growing calves or cows in late gestation. Easy to understand their need for top quality forage.
So, poor quality, weedy, late cut hay really doesn't have a place on a successful farm. Unless you are bedding geese.

There is a movement to pastured beef. But if you are going to move to this, you must first understand that replacing the high protein, easily digested corn and soybean, with hay only, you must insure that you produce/buy only top quality hay. You can't simply cut the grass and weeds and expect it to properly feed cattle. Unless you have a 10 year old steer that isn't ever going to market.
For those folks buying their steaks from the upscale stores that advertise, "Pasture Raised", you should know that all cattle are pasture raised. Most are feed lot finished. All cattle are grass fed, too.

[Rectifier]

Well said, haypoint! Now come say it to all the folks cutting crappy hay and wanting $80/ton for it. Though you will NEVER sell 1st cut to a horse owner around here. They are picky, picky, picky folks!
A lot of cattle ranchers figure with grain (especially heated) being actually a cheaper feed than good hay, they will cut stemmy junk for roughage and feed it with grain to make up an acceptable ration.
There is a fellow out right now still cutting ditch hay - first cut! You can imagine that this "hay" is pretty much straw. But it's free (ish), I guess, and it keeps the guts moving.