Your thoughts about hay quality

[msscamp]

Unless you do the hay analysis, your just flying by the seat of your britches and really know nothing about hay quality.

Billy

I've got to disagree with this statement. Hay analysis is a relatively new thing, and people had to learn about good vs mediocre hay the hard way before its inception. The oldtimers who have been around hay for a good number of years have learned what to look for in hay, and they can tell good quality hay from bad quality hay simply by the way it looks - over the years I've learned that they are seldom wrong in their judgement. ;-) If I live long enough, I might be able to tell good hay from mediocre hay like they can. In the meantime, I'm stuck with hay analysis.

Ok, I gotta' do a trump disagree on your disagree. I have been testing my hay now for the last two years and all as I can say is "wow" what an educaiton. I stood at the hay auction yesterday next to some old timers that had been buying and selling hay their whole lives and based on some of their comments they were way off on the presumptions of hay quality. You should try testing your hay and see for yourself. I have argued with vets and made them admit that they were wrong when talking about hay qualtiy (which I don't know why a vet thinks they are an expert nutritionist anyways) based on my testing. If you are balancing rations based on protein and energy of different hays you can really save money and not over feed and have optimal weaning weights and body scores on your cattle but you can't do that really accurate unless you are testing. Modern agriculture is forcing everybody to be more efficient because there is not a lot of room on that bottom line. Plus, a lot of my competitors that sell hay now are advertising that it is lab tested. Now remember - msscamp - this is just a friendly debate.

Ray

Yes, this is a friendly debate. ;-) I should have qualified my statement about oldtimers. The oldtimers I was referring to do have their hay tested and the tests generally confirm the initial assessment of the hay - once in a while they are proven wrong, but that is the exception rather than the rule - I neglected to mention that, however. That is my bad, and I apologize for my oversight.

Now that I test I can look at hay most of the times and be pretty close guessing what the protein and TDN is, but that is only because I have tested enough hay.

I'm not an oldtimer, and I certainly don't profess to be an expert on hay quality, either, but I've noticed that it's easier for me to tell good quality from mediocre quality because of the testing we do. Another thing that has helped me quite a bit is being an active participant in the summer irrigation of the hay fields. Thanks to that, I have a much better understanding of why some hay is stemmy, some isn't, identifying the different kinds of grass, and just a better idea of what to look for in a field of alfalfa or grass. I'm making progress!

 

[Susie David]

Testing is as good as the samples tested....need a honest sample mix representative of the entire field not just the patches of the best looking cut. Poor hay is pretty easy to identify and good hay stands out and I'm no expert in grading alfalfa but the mamas sure let me know. They sort out the stems in the lesser quality hay and eat all stems and all of the better quality stuff...the production steers easily clean up the leavings that the o'l gals pick over.
Knowing the field helps....we constantally get 16+% alfalfa from our supplier's fields so have learned to stick with his hay...always save the better stuff for the third trimester and post calving.
Just my two bits worth.
Dave Mc