Feeding livestock???

[old fashioned]

Not that we have any livestock to feed, but it's something I'd like to know if it's doable.
If I understand it correctly, cows need alfalfa & horses need timothy. Is it okay too if cows get timothy & horses get alfalfa? My thought here is in planting pastures with a good mix of alfalfa, timothy, clovers, & other grasses that would be fenced/cross fenced into smaller pastures for rotational grazing/mowing. Such as a pasture fenced into 4 sections, with animals on #1 and mow #3 then move animals to #2 and mow #4, that way there is always a section left to grow before being cut/grazed.
Or would it be more feasible to grow the alfalfa & timothy seperately from grazing pastures as crops to be put up where the animals couldn't get to it?

I realize you'd need alot of land and small number of animals to be sure the one could sustain the other and still have enough time to replenish between grazing/mowing......but what do you all think of the possibilities here or what has been your experience?

 

[valmom]

Horses can eat alfalfa, but it isn't ideal- wrong CA/Phos balance and high protein that horses mostly don't need. Cows can eat timothy, but it is lower protein than alfalfa and milk production can drop. That said, alfalfa makes a terrible grazing/forage crop for animals to be on because it gets destroyed in a pasture really well. It is much more effective as a hay crop. I put bermuda grass in my pastures and feed the horses grass hay. They are all fat. The only time I used alfalfa is for pregnant/lactating mares (balancing the phosphorus with beet pulp) or to put weight on a hard keeper. I used the dry alfalfa cubes soaked in water rather than the hay- it is really expensive as hay around here, and the cow people usually don't part with it.

 

[patandchickens]

Is it okay too if cows get timothy & horses get alfalfa? My thought here is in planting pastures with a good mix of alfalfa, timothy, clovers, & other grasses that would be fenced/cross fenced into smaller pastures for rotational grazing/mowing. Such as a pasture fenced into 4 sections, with animals on #1 and mow #3 then move animals to #2 and mow #4, that way there is always a section left to grow before being cut/grazed. Or would it be more feasible to grow the alfalfa & timothy seperately from grazing pastures as crops to be put up where the animals couldn't get to it?

Several things mixing together here.

First, plenty of horses eat nothing but alfalfa hay and some ration balancer all their lives and do fine. The main issue is that alfalfa is unnecessarily expensive as horse hay in some places, also it's calcium-phosphorus ratio needs to be corrected for horses, especially for young growing stock.

Cows can perfectly well eat grass hay too, however it is lower in protein (sometimes MUCH lower) than alfalfa and does not always work well for pregnant or lactating animals, or if you want to put meat on fast.

Grazing-wise, alfalfa SUCKS for being grazed, unless you have a whole lot of it and are very careful with rotation. It doesn't have much of a sense of humor about being overgrazed even slightly, especially later in the year. (At least in the north, not certain about, say, California). If you want to graze legumes there are much more grazing-tolerant ones.

Some serious livestock (i.e. not horses) producers do have single-species stands for grazing, but vastly more common (for cattle and horses both) is to graze mixed pasture, usually containing both grasses and legumes. Mixed pastures are also more "all-season" grazeable, since different species do better at different times of year.

It is possible in some areas to get both grazing AND a (single) hay crop off the same piece of land in one season. Typically what you do is let the hay grow up and harvest it, then let the animals graze the field for the rest of the year. Sometimes the animals are also allowed on the field at the very very beginning of the growing season, tho usually out of necessity mroe than choice.

But I have never lived, nor heard of, anywhere that you can make hay within a rotational grazing system in the way you describe. The mowing you do when the animals move out is not going to be hay-able... it will mostly be very short stuff with some areas of taller weeds, neither of which makes good hay.

What most people do who grow their own hay for the winter, in places I've lived i.e. various parts of the US east of the Mississippi and here in Ontario, is: if they want to do alfalfa or alfalfa-mix hay, they seed a field or two in alfalfa and use it ONLY for haying (altho over the years they may rotate that eventually to other fields). If they want to do grass hay, usually they still keep their hayfields separate from the grazing pastures (in warmer regions you can get several cuttings that way, even up here you can get two per year). But if you are situated right, some people do use the aforementioned system where they take one grass-hay cut off a field and then graze for the rest of the year... this is particularly appropriate if you have a lot of land and don't need all *that* much hay.

Does that help any?

Pat

 

[Bubblingbrooks]

Grow alfalfa for hay
When trying to determine how much acreage per animal, if you are concerned with real pasturing, you need at least 3 acres per cow, and they should be moved onto new areas everyday, so as to prevent over grazing, and so that regrowth is steady.

And Pat is right. You cannot hay and graze the same areas.

 

[Bubblingbrooks]

If you want good reading on this subject, this blog is tops.
http://matronofhusbandry.wordpress.com/
Look through her different subjects.

 

[ohiofarmgirl]

and you can always check with your local extension office for what is going to work best in your area.

there might be a pasture mix that you can use from our local feed store - and then supplement with extra alfalfa/clover if needed.

 

[aggieterpkatie]

Well you can hay and graze the same areas depending on time of year. For instance, in the spring when grass grows quickest, most producers can't graze their animals fast enough to keep up with the growth before the grass gets rank. What they normally do is hay part of the grazing acreage so it won't go to waste while the animals are grazing other areas. In summer, when grass is slow growing (at least most cool season grasses are) there won't be much haying going on unless you have a real surplus of acres.

Alfalfa can somewhat persist in a pasture if it is really managed well, but there are other legumes out there (like white clover) that do better in pasture. Timothy is a bad pasture grass...it's very delicate and is better left to hay fields.

I'm not sure what area you're in, but fescue and white clover makes a really nice hardy pasture. You can find endophyte friendly pastures out there that have a novel (not toxic) endophyte in there. Max Q is an example of this, and it's safe for all animals in all life stages.

 

[old fashioned]

Thanks to all for the replies. It seems as though it would be better to grow the alfalfa/timothy as seperate hay crops and give as supplements to grazing daily all year long. Is that right?

 

[patandchickens]

Thanks to all for the replies. It seems as though it would be better to grow the alfalfa/timothy as seperate hay crops and give as supplements to grazing daily all year long. Is that right?

It just really depends. For one thing, in most climates you *can't* graze year-round, either because of winter or because of summer shutdown of pasture growth, or both.

And then, for whatever climate you're in, it depends a whole lot on how much land you have. If you have enough land, it's usually more efficient to just have them on 100% pasture during the growing season, reserving hay for the non-growing part(s) of the year. OTOH if you are marginal on the amount of land, you can eke a bit more living off a given amount of ground by confining the animals to a small area with little or no grazing and then feeding them hay; but it's not as good for the animals and is certainly a lot more WORK and requires more equipment.

And sometimes you can do the aforementioned scheme of taking a hay crop off the land and then grazing thereafter.

It just really depends.

Pat

 

[DrakeMaiden]

If you want good reading on this subject, this blog is tops.
http://matronofhusbandry.wordpress.com/
Look through her different subjects.

Thanks for the link to that blog! I love it.