Grow your own oats?

marusempai · #1 07/03/14, 07:33 PM

Still looking at feed.

The thing is just plain oats are hard to come by around here, and very expensive when you find them - so I was thinking maybe I could try growing my own next year. Has anybody done that? And do you think that hulled oats would be ok? All the gardening websites insist that hull less oats are the way to go, but they also assume you are growing for human consumption, and I'm pretty sure the birds would eat the field bare if I planted the hull less kind. My thought is goats have very powerful teeth, I could just cut the seed heads off, dry them, and store them that way. Processing would be minimal, it would at least be a fun experiment (I have the space), and I'd potentially save a good deal of money on feed (always a good thing). Or have you grown other grains for your goats?

Dixie Bee Acres · #2 07/03/14, 08:04 PM

I never have grown them, but am considering them as a cover crop this fall.
A local feed mill has quoted me at $11.00 for a 50 pound bag of whole oats.
Have you checked feed mills?

marusempai · #3 07/03/14, 09:20 PM

That's a pretty good price for oats! I've looked into feed mills, the only one within reasonable driving distance, appears to have a very large minimum order (I only have three goats!). I may give them a call though, as their website is quite minimalistic, I might be missing something.

sammyd · #4 07/04/14, 06:40 AM

if you have warm dry weather oats make great hay if you cut it in the boot stage.
If you make grain with the oats then the goats are more than capable of chewing them and getting a bit more out of them than cows would.
Oats are going for around 3 bucks a bushel for bin run here which would be over 9 bucks for 100 lbs.
Usually elevators around here only have minimum orders on stuff that needs to be custom mixed. If you are buying something like oats or corn or a mix they normally make you can buy it a bag at a time.
A bushel of seed oats cost 11 bucks or 9 bucks for 1 year off certification this spring.

coso · #5 07/05/14, 02:03 PM

Sure you can grow your own, but if you have very many goats at all your going to need a combine to be able to get the actual oat seed from the plant. You can thresh your own I guess but your talking a lot of manual labor if you need very many pounds of oats for your goats for the year.

Alice In TX/MO · #6 07/05/14, 03:14 PM

http://www.gardeningblog.net/how-to-grow/oats/

marusempai · #7 07/05/14, 07:22 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by coso

Sure you can grow your own, but if you have very many goats at all your going to need a combine to be able to get the actual oat seed from the plant. You can thresh your own I guess but your talking a lot of manual labor if you need very many pounds of oats for your goats for the year.

See that's actually what I'm curious about - threshing is getting the hull off and separating the oats from the extra plant matter, right? But if I'm feeding it to goats (my family doesn't really care for oats anyway), couldn't the goats chew up that plant matter themselves? Then for harvest I could just go along and cut off the seed heads with a hand scythe, and store them in an airtight bin until feeding to the goats. Sounds easy to me. I mean obviously goats are capable (I've seen Sundae suck down small tree branches like a wood chipper), but would that defeat the purpose of feeding them oats, or...?

coso · #8 07/05/14, 07:36 PM

Quote:

couldn't the goats chew up that plant matter themselves?

If you are going to do that you are talking about making hay like SammyD is talking about. It is better protein and better hay if you do like he says cut it in the boot stage up to the milk stage. You are talking hay then not grain.

Basically if you cut it when it is mature and dry. You have oat straw. (not much nutritional value) and you oat head, which they could utilize but I fear you would have a lot of waste for all the work you would put into it doing it manually !!

Hulless oats would be easier, because you wouldn't have the chaff around the seed. But you are still going to have to be able to cut it (Scythe). Put it in shocks. (So it can dry) If oats are too wet when combined they go to a bin with a propane dryer in them. Then when it gets dry enough separate the seed(whole oat) from the plant itself. Then store it so it won't ruin for your whole feeding season.

Alice In TX/MO · #9 07/05/14, 07:40 PM

Too wet and it spoils and molds. If you try to store it for a year's worth of feeding, you'll need a plan for weevil control.

sammyd · #10 07/06/14, 09:03 AM

Oat hay is very desirable. Made properly it will not mold or spoil in storage. If you are using hay equipment a tedder is a must, if you are doing a small patch by hand then using a rake to turn it and putting up in a haycock to dry would be helpful
If you cut in the boot stage there is very little actual grain so some vermin problems are not so prevalent as when cut later.