oat hay

[bigbruh]

What kind of protein can you expect to get from oat hay? Good enough to winter catttle on?

 

[dun]

Good oat hay will run around 10%. That's enough or at least close to enough to winter mature dry cows.

 

[1982vett]

as with any grass it depends on when you cut it

 

[Angus Cowman]

if cut in the boot stage it will be in the 14-16% protein range and in the dough stage will be around 12%protein

 

[Keren]

I have never had oaten hay get over 10%. But it is great to maintain your dry stock on. Even better is wheat hay. I have trouble with dry stock getting too fat on wheaten hay.

 

[Mid South Guy]

Squared baled a lot in my youth (the days before round balers). The worst thing was keeping the bales on the wagon while hauling to the barn. That oat hay was slicker than cat s***, but the cows devoured every bit of it.

The quality varies quite a bit. The window of time between pre-boot (highest quality) and past dough stage (lowest quality) is very short, and usally occurs during a period that is not good hay making weather.

 

[shorty]

Squared baled a lot in my youth (the days before round balers). The worst thing was keeping the bales on the wagon while hauling to the barn. That oat hay was slicker than cat s***, but the cows devoured every bit of it.

The quality varies quite a bit. The window of time between pre-boot (highest quality) and past dough stage (lowest quality) is very short, and usally occurs during a period that is not good hay making weather.

The best way we found to do oats hay is to cut it in the early boot stage and round bale it and wrap it for haylage . It makes really good feed , we've had a wrapper about 10 years now before that we did the best we could in trying to get it dry and sometimes we ended up using it as straw . It always amazes me , they can have feed in the trough and some of the best hay in feeder and when you put some of the worst straw you have they'll stand there and eat that first.

 

[1982vett]

Squared baled a lot in my youth (the days before round balers). The worst thing was keeping the bales on the wagon while hauling to the barn. That oat hay was slicker than cat s***, but the cows devoured every bit of it.

The quality varies quite a bit. The window of time between pre-boot (highest quality) and past dough stage (lowest quality) is very short, and usally occurs during a period that is not good hay making weather.

The best way we found to do oats hay is to cut it in the early boot stage and round bale it and wrap it for haylage . It makes really good feed , we've had a wrapper about 10 years now before that we did the best we could in trying to get it dry and sometimes we ended up using it as straw . It always amazes me , they can have feed in the trough and some of the best hay in feeder and when you put some of the worst straw you have they'll stand there and eat that first.

That's the thing about the looks of hay....worst looking hay may not be all that bad.