Comfrey Question

[TSYORK]

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I'm not really sure where to post this, so if it needs to be moved, please do so. I had some brush removal/landscaping work done this evening to assist in putting in more fencing for my cattle. My cousin, who did the work, stopped by after the job to just "talk" for a bit, since we only see each other at Christmas and Thanksgiving. Anyway, he was telling me that he has been reading up on all of the nutritional benefits of comfrey and what a good feed supplement it makes. Also, he said that the harvest is five times greater than that of regular grass hay, etc.

Be be honest, I don't know that much about comfrey, so feel free to educate me on the matter. A few questions that pop in my head are: What average protein is it, is it a good forage crop, can it be mixed with dry feed to make a grower ration for hogs and cows, etc.?

Another blessing, he told me that he had purchased a hammermill that he got fixed up to my grandfathers old tractor. He runs a belt from the PTO of the tractor to the mill and we will be able to grind our own feed for the cows and hogs that we have. He said I was welcome to use it any time I want. Right now I'm paying about 18.00 per hundred for dairy chop and hog feed. Once I get up and running on this I'll mix my own feed with corn, soybeans, hay, comfrey, molasses, and minerals. A local farmer in our our area will sell us corn for $3.00 per bushel. So if my math is roughly correct: 70-pounds of corn, a bale of hay, some soybean, comfrey, molasses and mineral; I should end up with about 150-pounds of feed for roughly 6-8 dollars per hundred. Now I can feed with those prices, but it's breaking me up now.

Any thoughts on the comfrey appreciated.

TIA

[godsgapeach]

I don't know personally but I googled comfrey for cows and found a reference to it in a Mother Earth News article http://www.motherearthnews.com/Organ...ey.aspx?page=4(basically stating that comfrey's good for LOTS of things) and this link:
http://groups.google.com/group/perma...811332030f881a

[francismilker]

From what little I know about comfrey it doesn't do well unless you have the cash to pour the nitrogen to it. As well, it leaches the soil pretty hard for all it's worth. I'm not sure if there's another crop that will rotate well with it to offset it's tax on the dirt. Once you get through using a field to grow it in, that field could be done in before spending lots of cash to replentish the ground.
From what I can gather in the Mother Earth news article that godsgapeach posted (thanks) it likes tropical environment with steady day/night temps. Do you have that in your area?
Once again, I know little of it and have only heard of it from our local extension agent at a county cattlemen's meeting a few years ago.

Here's a link I found about it:
http://www.hort.purdue.edu/newcrop/AFCM/comfrey.html

[Trisha in WA]

I grow comfrey in a muck bucket. I don't immortalize it with anything and it grows like crazy. It is invasive and will take over if not contained. It is a fantastic feed for many different animals. I live in a climate where we get hard freezes in the winter and not at all what I would consider a "tropical"environment.
Trisha in Western WA