Oats

[Bubbas Boys]

We are thinking about planting some oats and harvesting them for livestock feed. Have no clue how to do that!! When do you plant oats? Is this year too late? Can you harvest by hand? Can you broadcast them to seed them? Thanks!

[Dixie Bee Acres]

Yes, you can broadcast them, can you harvest by hand? I suppose you can, but whould be much like harvesting wheat by hand.
For livestock feed, I'm assuming you are thinking of pigs, it might be easier to harvest early. Thinking wait till it has formed the grain, then, when it is still green, cut it and use it as hay.

This late in the year, it probably wouldn't do any good. I planted some as a cover crop on my garden, that was about a month ago, it now stands about 6 or 7 inches tall, maybe a little taller.

I broadcast mine with one of those walk behind lawn seed and fertilizer spreaders.

[rambler]

Oats can be cut for silage or dry hay just bfore it heads out.

However I think you are talking for grain?

Now is not the time to plant oats! I guess way down south they can treat it as a winter crop, but not anywhere you get a real winter of any kind.

Here we plant ad early as possible, I get a better crop if the field is muddy and cold than if I wait for it to dry. Oats likes cool spring, so it grows better farther north.

Broadcast works fine. Spread it and harrow it in a bit.

Early in spring!

Hand harvest - well anything is possible.

I plant oats with clover, alfalfa, and turnips as early as I can get in the field.

Swath the oats into windrows when ripe in August. Combine for grain.

Bale the straw off.

About this time of the year I let the cattle in to graze the growth, as well as munch on cornstalks.

The legumes (clover, alfalfa) add a bit of nitrogen to the ground. As does the manure from the cattle.

So I harvest grain, straw, cattle grazing, and a very modest amount of fertilizer replaced on my 10 acres of oats ground. None of these will pay as much as corn or soybeans here; but all together it makes some nice money on a small portion of my ground.

Paul

[Bubbas Boys]

Ok, Thanks! Yes we are wanting it for grain. I figured it would be a pain to harvest by hand but was not sure on the process. Thanks guys!

[TnAndy]

It's a spring plant crop, even down here.

As for harvesting, I made up a little deal for a small plot using a blade on a weed eater. Sort of like a hand scythe with a grain cradle. Does fairly well, cutting and putting in windrows. Then you have to gather into bundles to let it finish drying, and then thresh out.

I tried hulless oats this year ( from Johnny's Seeds) for my first attempt. My understanding is 'regular' oats are a real bugger to thresh out.

I let them go too long, (got rainy for one thing) and the weeds made a mess out of my plot, plus the birds were having a field day (literally...ahahahaa). Next year, I'll cut earlier. It was an experiment......what can I say.

Anyhow, my homemade power harvesting tool:



The blade is a used, carbide teeth, 12" one from my miter saw. I found the 7" blade that normally goes on the weed eater to be just too small. The 'cradle' is some 1/2" copper pipe I fiddled with until I got what I wanted. Bolted it to the place the guard normally goes on the weedeater. Weedeater is an FS90 Sthil.


You just basically take a right to left swing thru the oats, the cradle collects it, and you lay in windrows.

Got the idea from some folks in India/Pakistan/China/Someplace that were doing it. You can buy a commercial version of it from over there, but it didn't look to hard to make to me. I built the cradle WAY too big to start, and ended up cutting it down several times to get the right size for me.

[FarmboyBill]

Yes, its way to late for oats. There a spring planted crop. Wheat can be planted either early spring ot late fall.
If you've never been taught how to hand sow seed, youll likely be disappointed with it. If in doubt watch Tales of the green valley, and these guys have done this several times before.
IF you use a cyclone type hand seeder, youll do much better.

How many acres are you intending to do? IF for chickens, or hogs, youll want several acres. Id suggest around 5.

IF sowing, immeadiatly harrow the ground with a harrow that has the teeth up, NOT DOWN. Regardless, birds will find much seed that hasn't been covered. Its always better to have a drill to sow with. AND NOT a Black and Decker either lol

[rambler]

Originally Posted by TnAndy

It's a spring plant crop, even down here.

As for harvesting, I made up a little deal for a small plot using a blade on a weed eater. Sort of like a hand scythe with a grain cradle. Does fairly well, cutting and putting in windrows. Then you have to gather into bundles to let it finish drying, and then thresh out.

I tried hulless oats this year ( from Johnny's Seeds) for my first attempt. My understanding is 'regular' oats are a real bugger to thresh out.

I let them go too long, (got rainy for one thing) and the weeds made a mess out of my plot, plus the birds were having a field day (literally...ahahahaa). Next year, I'll cut earlier. It was an experiment......what can I say.

Anyhow, my homemade power harvesting tool:



The blade is a used, carbide teeth, 12" one from my miter saw. I found the 7" blade that normally goes on the weed eater to be just too small. The 'cradle' is some 1/2" copper pipe I fiddled with until I got what I wanted. Bolted it to the place the guard normally goes on the weedeater. Weedeater is an FS90 Sthil.


You just basically take a right to left swing thru the oats, the cradle collects it, and you lay in windrows.

Got the idea from some folks in India/Pakistan/China/Someplace that were doing it. You can buy a commercial version of it from over there, but it didn't look to hard to make to me. I built the cradle WAY too big to start, and ended up cutting it down several times to get the right size for me.

Wow. Good job. OSHA might not be real happy with that machine, but nice work.

Regular hulled oats beats off fairly easily when good and ripe, but it will still be in the hull. Good for livestock feed hull and all, but not if you want something to mill!

Paul

[FarmboyBill]

Do you cut straight across, or do you tilt it towards the cradle?

[Bubbas Boys]

Well, I was thinking about doing just a half an acre or so. Didn't even know how much you could get per acre. Andy, that is Nice! I would love to do something like that to just be able to do it ,myself. Thanks

[MO_cows]

Plant oats in the spring. A half acre might be "doable" by hand, but I don't know what the typical yield is, if you would get enough to make it worthwhile.

We only grew one crop of oats, it was planted with a wheat drill, along with grass seed. We made hay from ours, cut it when the kernels just were just turned "milky". It was a transitional crop for us, taking some land from soybeans to pasture. We had plans to plant some more acreage to oats and alfalfa combined for a crop of "super hay", but our farmer friend who had the equipment and the farming know-how passed away suddenly. We ended up broadcast seeding that field with grass seed instead.

More people should grow oats! You can't find oat hay around here any more. Corn or soybeans is all you see.

[haypoint]

Most likely, broadcast oats won't yield as much as oats planted with a seed drill. Not sure of your weed control, but will assume you won't spray any thing. High yielding oats need a few bags of fertilizer or many tons of composted manure. I'll assume that won't happen. I will estimate a yield of 40 bushels per acre. A half acre, 20 bushels, with a market value of $100.00. Owning the land, paying taxes, buying the seed, working the soil, either risk a drought or have a plan to irrigate if necessary, most of a day cutting the oats and another day threshing the oats from the straw. Then, you'll need to run it through a Fanning Mill, seed cleaner, to get the chaff and weed seeds out.
This summer, I planted 6 acres of oats with an assortment of pasture grasses. I used a grain drill, good quality seed and 20 bags of fertilizer. I had a nice stand of oats. But couldn't get anyone to combine (harvest) it. So, I cut it, raked it and had a guy round bale it for me. It was just starting to make grain when I cut it. Horses love it. I wouldn't make oat hay for pigs, too much crude fiber.

[sammyd]

Have done 1/2 an acre of oats a few times.
I use a broadcast spreader behind a riding lawnmower.
Put down about 2 bushel for a half acre and then went back and spread a hay mix.
Drag a piece of welded fence wrapped around a piece of plywood with a cement block on top to work the stuff in. Or I have used a spring tooth set with the teeth just touching the dirt.
I have cut it for hay and green feed and I have harvested the grain.
I started out hand bundling and shocking but luckily a buddy needed to test his old combine out and I left the large portion standing for him to test on. Got to throw my bundles in the combine as well.

[Bubbas Boys]

Sammy, so since you have done it, would it make very good hay for pigs? Maybe oats are not worth the trouble.

[farmerDale]

We grow a lot of oats up here. Anything less than 100 bushels an acre is a disaster. 120 to 140 is what we like to see. Oats needs cool weather and good moisture to perform well.

We grow heavy oats due to our climate. 40 to 48 lbs a bushel, which also contributes to our higher yields.

Seeding rate at least 100 lbs an acre. Fertility, moderate n, high pks. Weed control; Any broadleaf herby will do well, as oats are really competitive and grow fast and aggressively.

There are reasons some crops are common some places, and not so common other areas. There is also a reason not many do this kind of thing by hand, but rather just buy feed. It is not easy to grow crops well by hand.

[sammyd]

I've never fed hay to pigs and don't know what they need from it. The earlier you make the hay the higher the protein and as you wait that goes down and energy goes up.

[FarmboyBill]

As Sammy said. I never heard of anybody feeding hay to hogs. They wont recognize it for what it is, and if they find the oats in it before they wallow it into a nest, youd be lucky. Hogs are fed grain, and grain, either whole, cracked or ground and made into a slop is all they recognize for a feed.

[Bubbas Boys]

Ok. Thanks

[Dixie Bee Acres]

I disagree. If your pigs are raised on pasture, they would recognise hay as a food source.
I grain fed mine, adding garden waste, weeds, etc.
I could take a wheel barrow load of grass and weeds to the pig pen, dump it in and the pigs would eat it all.

[Allen W]

Originally Posted by Bubbas Boys

Sammy, so since you have done it, would it make very good hay for pigs? Maybe oats are not worth the trouble.

I would let them graze the oats after they came up and were growing well. Make sure the oats are rooted down enough they cant easily pull them up.

[geo in mi]

As a livestock feed, oats aren't very valuable. And especially for pigs. The oats grown in the central US tend to be low weight kernals, and don't have as much nutritional value per bushel as those grown farther North, especially into Canada. A high weight/quality hulless oat(groat) will probably have only 15% protein, a high fiber content and low lysine amount--so, most feeders don't consider oats for a pig ration. Home grown oats, when harvested or combined, still have the hull on them, which would make the fiber content even higher, and in order to be palatable, they would have to be ground and liquified(slopped....honey bunches of oats....) to get the pig to eat them. The most usual feed for pigs is ground corn mixed with soybean meal, mixed with other supplements.

For home production, the ration doesn't matter quite as much--the pig will eat anything if he's hungry enough, but his rate of weight gain may slow down, he may become anemic and prone to diseases, and a sow may not breed successfully.....and the meat you eat, well,....you may not be feeding your family the best quality that can be had if you had fed the pig properly.....

In Illinois where you are, oats is a spring crop anyway, so, maybe you can study this during the snow days and come up with some ideas. The terms in this article are what most commercial growers use, and you can get some ideas from that about feeding your pig/s. http://www.omafra.gov.on.ca/english/...3.htm#relative

Though it is best to seed oats using a grain drill on a well-prepared soilbed, you can(I have) sow them and cover them somehow to get a good stand. I use a "windshield wiper" style where I get a handful from the bucket and sling them in an arc, back and forth--takes a little practice. I try to get one seed in each space the size of a Kennedy half-dollar, or thereabouts. If there are gaps, you'll see them, and you can go back over the area in a ninety degree angle. Oats like to be about an inch or so deep, so, covering them is hit ir miss. If you use a rake, some just stay on top, some get buried too deep, and some get dragged along into clumps.....Sometimes I use a spring tooth cultivator, very shallow on the back of the three point 9N. If you are lucky enough to get some very early dry days, that's the best time to plant. As the soil and weather get warmer, heat tends to make the grain heads(groats) lighter weight. And you will get competition from weeds, too. Depending on your soil, some nitrogen helps, too--without it you will get pale, anemic looking stalks, not healthy green ones.....(and again, lightweight heads.)

As for seed quality oats, I just go to TSC and buy horsey oats in the fifty pound bags. They usually have high weight seeds, and they have been run through a seed cleaner. Little more pricey than from the local feed store that sells field run quality, uncleaned.)

Since I use my oats for nurse cropping and cover cropping, the blackbirds harvest mine, but scytheing them wouldn't be too difficult. Threshing the grain could be done by flailing--but you will still end up with oats that still have the hulls on them. Cutting them for oat hay can be done when the seeds are in the milk/dough state, dried then stacked and fed, mainly to livestock or goats. Dried oat stems make great straw--and I would consider them for chicken bedding. The chickens could scratch through them for the seeds, and return you with great composting base, full of nitrogen.

If you get them in early enough, you might also be able to double crop with something like green beans, cucumbers, etc), or late vegetables. Or use them as a nurse crop for a legume to carry over for next year--hay, or soil improvement.

Hope this will give you some ideas.

geo