good hay ruins a cow?

[Callieslamb]

I bought some hay from a local guy. His hay isn't as good as mine. My grass hay was green and leafy, while it lasted. His hay, brome grassy mix, is yellow with lots of stems. It took my 8 mo old babies 6 days before they decided they would eat his hay. He said you can ruin a cow by feeding it too much rich hay. I thought the idea was to feed them great hay! Is he right? or is he crazy, I mean, misinformed? Is it the rich hay or the too much that is the problem?

Thanks!

[oneokie]

Good hay will spoil livestock. The calves became accustomed to your hay and turned up their noses to his hay until they decided they would have to eat what is available.

Kind of like children and candy vs. green beans, carrots, and spinach.

[agmantoo]

Sounds to me as if the seller is trying to justify the junk hay he is selling.

[Chixarecute]

Hay should be green and leafy, whether grass or legume. Stemmy, yellow hay is usually cut way too late, (or it got a lot of rain) before it could be properly baled.

Good hay grows good cattle - & nothing can replace good hay!

I have bought alfalfa hay that was treated with proprionic acid - it was brown! The dairy cows ate the leaves fine, but left the stems behind - they were just too coarse & ouchy.

[ksfarmer]

Originally Posted by agmantoo

Sounds to me as if the seller is trying to justify the junk hay he is selling.

[Cliff]

Originally Posted by agmantoo

Sounds to me as if the seller is trying to justify the junk hay he is selling.

Agreed. The guy is either stupid or dishonest.
You can't give a cow too much hay. They should have all they want.
And there's no such thing as hay that's too good.

[springvalley]

Today I agree with cliff, you can never give cows to much good hay. Cows need alot of hay , and why not feed them good hay. That is one thing we are short of this year is good hay, we have alot of hay, just not alot of good hay. When it rains every other day it is hard to get hay up. I made better hay in november than the rest of the year.The only thing I would not feed high quality alfalfa hay to would be baby calves and horses. It can give calves scours and bloat and it is way to hard on horses kidney`s. I dislike it when hay sellers take advantage of buyers. Thanks Marc

[francismilker]

Back to the OP. I've noticed this year when I didn't fertilize the bermuda grass before first cutting do to needing weed spray and not getting a break in the weather long enough to put it down. The cows are turning up there noses at it if they've just finished a bale of 2nd cutting that had been sprayed and fertilized. Both first and second cutting hay is what I consider good, but you can sure tell the cow's have taste buds and personal preference.

On the junk hay idea, I bought some a couple years back during a drought when everyone was baling anything they could get their hands on including bar ditches and right-of-ways. Some of it was what I considered "just roughage" terrible stuff. My cows ate what I considered junk hay as well as I've seen them eat some good hay in other years. I think due to the fact they'd been standing on dry talcom powder like dusty pastures since July they were awful glad to have something to munch on in August when I had to start feeding hay that year.

[Callieslamb]

Great. I don't have to worry about making hay that is too good, then? LOL!!!
I spent a lot of time trying to figure out how to get good hay, I would hate to think it was all wasted! I am sure even my dad got a good chuckle from his grave out of that question -

I traded 100 bales of my first cutting - the stuff that was cut 2 months later than normal....for 3 of his big bales I still have enough of the good stuff to get them through the colder temps this winter. They are digging into his hay now - it is much better in the middle.

Hay is really tight here this year. A bad year for baling it correctly, that's for sure!

Thanks for your replies.

[copperhead46]

Wow, Callieslamb, explain, if you would, why would you trade 100 square bales for 3 big bales????? Around here, that would be the equivalent of paying about $100.00 per big bale. I know it's none of my business, but that doesn't make sence to me.
P.J.

[Callieslamb]

Uh...it was 100 for 2 large bales! LOL!!! Good question though. I have no illusions of being sharp at business decisions.

My 100 bales were junk. The first cutting didn't get done until July, rather than the end of May as is usual here. I was using them for bedding. We probably shouldn't even have put them in our barn. However, these folks thought they could feed it to their horses so, I traded them for the larger bales. We did the trade on a cost basis - if I had sold my bales outright, I planned on $1 a bale. The large bales here are $50 each - about 700 lbs. It was a trade 2 for 100- per the cost of each. I am just glad to have them out of the barn to make room for other projects. The two large bales will get me through most of the rest of the winter.

I wanted a large bale to make it easier on a hired hand while I was gone for Thanksgiving. Since I wasn't sure about this girl's abilities, the large bale in the feeder would at least guarantee them food to eat. One in the feeder would be easier on a hired hand than the sq bales - which they would have to remember what was what to be used where and when. I visualized coming home to NO good hay..... I wanted the sq bales gone. I now have so/so hay enough to last through the winter and supplement with my better hay. Perhaps not the best business deal of the century, but it served my purposes. These folks can also get me grain for $6/50lbs directly from a mill - since we pool to get that price. I am paying over $14/ 50lbs right now.

If you think I really screwed it up, please let me know. I am totally a beginner here. Obvously, they were pulling something to think that good hay can ruin a cow.

[myersfarm]

what feed cost $14/ 50 lbs my horse feed only cost $7.00 for 50 lbs

feeding feed that cost that much I do not see a way of making money on cattle not sure if at $6.50 you can


my feed mix 18 % protien cost $110 a ton figure that one


also if you had a hay ring you could just fill it with square bales and if that was not enough take a 16 ft WIRE cattle panel strap it to the top of the hay ring and fill it full of square bales


we all started somewere

[Callieslamb]

I have to buy my feed - grower/ finisher ration 18% ( I think - might be 16%)- by the bag from the feed store. It is $14/50 lbs. That's why I was excited to find 16% freshly milled at $6. When I quit buying hay from these folks, I will lose the deal on the grain. If I could store a ton, I would buy it that way, but I just have two calves, almost a year old. I am afraid it will go bad before I could feed it all. I feed them about 1 1/2 gallons of grain a day between both of them. It keeps them friendly more than anything else. I am not trying to make money on my cattle. Good thing, huh? If their condition goes down due to the hay situation, I will give them a bit more grain. Right now, they are still gaining and looking fat and round.

[Lazy J]

The farmer was probably refetting to the fact that by feeding good hay, the cows learn to sit around the hay feeder rather than ranging to consume pasture. They also get picky and turn their noses up to other hays. The high quality hay also changes the bacterial population in the rumen away from those that can digest poorer quality forages.

Brood cows don't need high quality hay. Look at the conditions of cattle in the Plains and Mountain West where the cows "sticks and stones".

Jim

[Callieslamb]

Originally Posted by Lazy J

............. They also get picky and turn their noses up to other hays. The high quality hay also changes the bacterial population in the rumen away from those that can digest poorer quality forages...... Jim

Now that was what I was wondering about. It would seem logical that different hay would need different bacterias. Is this a well known fact, or something you just 'heard'. I really doi want to know. So it really isn't the hay quality, but the switching them between that is the problem?

[randiliana]

The thing is, you have to know the animals you are feeding. Milking dairy cattle NEED pretty much the best quality of hay that you can get. If you want them producing as well as they can, you better be feeding them to produce that. They milk as well as they are fed.

Beef cattle in decent BCS, and especially non-milking cows don't need top quality hay. In fact, by feeding top quality hay to them you are wasting your money. The extra protien (which is usually what your price is based on) is simply excreted. A non milking beef cow needs about 8-10% protien. Extra energy just makes them fat, which is really only necessary if they are in a poor BCS. Milking beef cattle DO need better quality feed, but not on the same level of a milking dairy cow. 14% is usually good enough for a milking beef cow. Besides which, most milking beef cattle are doing it on pasture, an they should be able to do a decent job on a calf, and stay in decent BCS, if the pasture is in decent condition.

Baby calves are a totally different story. If they have a mama, they don't need much of anything extra. Sure you can creep feed, but that, IMO, should be just to gain extra pounds. Baby calves that are being bottled, I think need the best quality feed you can give them. 20% protien minimum, if you want to grow them out, and not have that pot-bellied look. Top quality MR, top quality calf starter and top quality hay. And the hay can make a big difference. Grass hay just doesn't have the protien in it that alfalfa hay has.

Now, it doesn't really matter much which class of cattle you are feeding, you can't change a ration suddenly and expect to do it with out problems. In the case of changing the quality downward, usually it isn't too big a deal. For the most part the only problem you will see is what the OP said, they just don't want to eat it. If you drop your quality too much though, you can see problems with impaction. Changing your quality upwards is where the big, big problems occur, and it can result in death. You can have bloat, scours, acidocis, founder. A lot of this is caused by a lack of fibre, high quality feed has less fibre (in general) than low quality feed, it takes time for the rumen to adapt either way, but you see bigger problems with high quality feed than low quality. But cattle can adapt to many different feeds.

The big rule of thumb is that no matter how you are changing the feed, change it slowly.

Don't suddenly put 15 lbs of grain in front of a cow that's only been on pasture, that's half of what she'll eat in a day!!. Start her out on 5 lbs or less and increase it by a few lbs a week. Of course, dropping quality is harder to do than increasing quality, simply on the fact that most good quality feeds are more palatable than the poor quality ones are, and the cows just don't want to eat the poor quality stuff. In this case you may have to force them into eating it. So feed a set amount of your good quality stuff, and have your poorer quality stuff out there free choice. Depending on how poor quality you have, you may NEED to let them have it free choice in order for them to get enough quantity for them to meet their body's needs. Or, if it is bad enough, you will need to feed some sort of supplement to increase the quality. Believe it or not, straw can be fed as a majority of the feed ration, IF you are feeding enough grain, or even second cut alfalfa to keep enough protien for the rumen microbes to continue working.

So, hay doesn't need to be top quality, just make sure you know what you're paying for. A feed test is a great idea, then you KNOW what you are getting. Don't expect to pay the same for 2nd cut alfalfa hay as you would for grass hay. You pay for quality, and when measured, it is usually the protien you are paying for.

A couple good links
Beef cattle Nutritional needs
http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/an190

Dairy cattle Nutritional needs
http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/ds087

[copperhead46]

Callie, if your neighbors "thought" they could feed it to their horses, you had some pretty good hay. Horses need a lot higher quality hay than calves, if it is horse hay, it's good hay. Keep any you have left and feed it to your calves. If you just have two of them, just through a bale out every 2 or 3 days and they'll do fine.

[randiliana]

The statement that horses NEED better quality hay than cattle always makes me laugh. Other than the fact that horses don't deal with dusty or moldy hay as well, their needs aren't a whole lot different than a cow. As with cows, it depends what the horse is doing, and the age of the horse.

http://www.extension.umn.edu/distrib...s/0480_03.html

[Callieslamb]

Originally Posted by copperhead46

Callie, if your neighbors "thought" they could feed it to their horses, you had some pretty good hay. Horses need a lot higher quality hay than calves, if it is horse hay, it's good hay. Keep any you have left and feed it to your calves. If you just have two of them, just through a bale out every 2 or 3 days and they'll do fine.

Well, good luck to them on that one. Those bales were AWFUL. I have about 40 of them left. I will put them out as bedding and if they want to eat it - they are welcome. I also have some just alfalfa bales that I give them about a 1/2 a flake of every day too. I am not so sure they treat their animals as well as I would like to think I do mine

Oh there is so much to learn here! I hired someone to watch the calves while we visited 2 daughters for Thanksgiving. Our bale feeder isn't quite finished yet - and they pulled most of the bale out of the feeder. The hireling didn't know to put it back in so they slept on it and stomped on it. I think I saved about 1/3 of it. DH is building the feeder - hopefully we can get the front gate on this weekend - the one with the slanted bars to keep their heads INSIDE. The siding and winch will have to wait until next year, I am fairly sure, but the tarps seem to be working out just fine so far.

[copperhead46]

Well, we all have different opinions as to what our animals need. I don't think a horse does as well on rough hay, that a cow can do just fine on. I know it's so hard to find someone to take care of animals for us, even family members don't take care of them the way I would, but, you've got to get away sometimes. It sounds like you're doing just fine, I hope you get your hay feeder up and going. We are in the process of building one that the horses can't pull the hay out over the top and waste so much of it, but the cows can still get to it.