Feeding Pea Straw

[Willow Springs]

Looking at feeding pea straw as my only forage source to cows over the winter. I will supplement with an amount of grain depending on feed test quality of the straw and intake; hoping to only feed a few pounds/cow/day. For those of you that have fed pea straw what is the intake like? Will I get similar intake to hay, or somewhere in between cereal straw and hay? I would like to get them to eat about 30 lbs/day.

 

[randiliana]

It has been a long time since we've fed Pea straw. I recall, that cows generally like the stuff. I do recall, that has very little nutritional value.

 

[Flacowman]

I'm not sure how you define pea straw, but if it's anything like the stuff we fed when I was a kid, it's extremely palatable and high nutritive value. Ours was the residue left after harvesting dry field peas, and while we didn't test hay back then, the cows were extremely fat and we had to alternate it with poor quality grass hay to make sure they didn't founder.

 

[Willow Springs]

Seems to really vary. Got my tests back and they are all about 6-7% protein abd about 50% TDN. Dessicated and combined with a conventional combine. I saw lots of tests this year that were 4% and 40% TDN so suspect they were done with the newer combines and got hammered up and lost leaf and peas.

My tests were about as good as I had hoped for but will still need grain supp for the winter.