A22-Lancaster Farming, Saturday, November 28, 1992
George F.W. Haenlein
Extension Dairy Specialist
University of Delaware
DID YOU REALLY WANT
TO MAKE THAT HAY?
Does, anybody have dairy cows,
good dairy cows, and not make
hay? Not too many. In the west,
the general rule is that if you don’t
use alfalfa hay, good alfalfa hay,
and liberally, you won’t have a
high-producing dairy herd.
Of course there are hays other
than alfalfa, but if com is “king”
in dairy cattle feeding, alfalfa is
“queen” for its tremendous contri
butions to the high-producing
dairy cow and the income of dairy
farmers.
Yet, what is “good” alfalfa hay?
There are many opinions. At a hay
auction, more often than not in
this highly scientific and biotech
nological age, empirical criteria
such as the green color, the odor,
and the leafiness of the alfalfa hay
determine the price,' reflecting the
so-called quality. On a more so
phisticated level, protein content
(20 percent is desirable) is the cri
terion, but a lab test is required to
determine this. You also need to
know the degree of solubility or
degradability of that protein for
your ration formulation.
An even more sophisticated cri
terion is the stage of flowering,
which reflects the stage of imma
turity. This factor, which corre
lates highly to the protein content,
is even more indicative of the fiber
content. And fiber content, in turn,
relates to acid-detergent Tiber (less
than 30 percent is ideal) and neu
tral-detergent fiber (ideally less
than 40 percent). This then, in
popular usage, has led to the term
of 20-30-40 alfalfa, the standard
for good quality for high-milking
cows.
However, many high-produc
ing dairy cows are fed a large
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12:00 - 1:00
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Dr. Robert Goodband
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Economics of Using Growth
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Bruce King
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Doug Clemens
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9:45 - 11:15
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Dr. Tim Trayer
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Dr. Jerry Appelgate
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amount of high-energy supple
ments to sustain them. These cows
are often more in need of a source
of just plain roughage (an effec
tive or functional fiber, nicknam
ed the “tickle factor”) which may
be belter supplied by lower-quali
ty, more mature alfalfa, grass hay,
or straw.
Some dairy farmers long ago
observed that cows like to pick up
oats, wheat, or barley straw from
their bedding, if it is clean, not
weather-damaged nor moldy. And
some dairy farmers have said it is
easier to supplement protein with
commercial feeds than to buy fi
ber.
So what kind of hay do you
really want to make? If you want
fiber, immature hay is wrong. If
you’re after protein, then mature
hay is not the answer. In either
case, you can lose a lot of hay be
fore it gets into the cows’ stom
achs if you’re not aware of the
four areas that rob you of your
hard work in making hay: plant
physiology, weather, harvesting
methods, and storage.
Plant physiology means that the
plant is alive and breathing. Like
any pther living organism, it syn
thesizes and metabolizes nutri
ents. If plants are cut for hay, they
do not die immediately, but con
tinue to breathe and metabolize
their nutrient contents until they
have wilted down to 35 percent
moisture content. As a result of
the continued metabolism of the
plants, hay that docs not dry fast
can lose as much as 15 percent of
its substance.
Weather is widely known for
making a mess of even the nicest
hay, especially on first cutting,
and much of that so-called hay
ends up in bedding or is sold for
mushroom composting. This is
probably the foremost reason that
some farmers have sold (heir hay
■'V
Dairy Herd Management Report
balers and gone to all-silage feed
ing. Many have then struggled
with various veterinary problems
as a consequence, because cows
by nature are “hay burners” and do
not want to change. Rain damage,
leaf shatter, and molding are the
major problems for hays. Weather
can cause at least 25 percent ma
terial losses, and refusal of cows
to eat that stuff freely or only
when they are hungry, results in a
reduction in milk production and
reduced income.
Harvesting methods include
raking, redding, and winrowing,
which may have to be done more
than once depending on condi
tions or how thick or wet the stuff
is, and finally baling and trans
porting into storage. Every time
leguminous hay such as alfalfa is
touched after it’s finished drying,
it loses leaves. Plant geneticists
have not yet come up with an al
falfa variety with tough leaves that
do not shatter. And leaves are one
important criterion of leguminous
hay quality. Who wants to go
through all the work of hay mak
ing to harvest just stems? Losses
of alfalfa hay as the result of prob
lems with harvesting methods can
easily amount to 20 percent. There
is a difference between alfalfa and
grass hays, which do not have
leaves to shatter.
You can avoid this loss when
you make grass hay instead of al
falfa hay. And if you put enough
fertilizer on your grass field, you
can make grass hays containing
the same amount of protein as al
falfa hay has. Here in our research
at the University of Delaware, we
have accomplished this high-pro
tein hay, especially with orchard
grass.
Storage losses can also be high,
especially if the hay is not really
dry when baled. This hay will then
heat in storage (a fire hazard) or it
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may lose nutrient content and sub
stance and become moldy, making
it unpalatable to cows. Sometimes
you can treat hay that was baled
too wet with kitchen salt or sod
ium propionate as a mold inhibi
tor.
You can always expect major
storage losses of the hay’s caro
tene content just because of air ex
posure. After a year of even the
best storage, hay may have lost
most of the carotene or the import
ant vitamin A value.
The worst storage is outside,
where the hay is uncovered to the
weather, and unprotected from
rotting from the ground up, such
as large, round bales often are.
The loss can easily exceed 25 per
cent of contents and substance.
If you are not an expert in hay
making and don’t have all the
weather luck that goes with it.
your potential loss could easily be
more than half. Some people,
therefore, have despaired and now
buy all of their hay. But this can be
expensive, except perhaps for
Californians, who seem to have an
edge over us easterners, with their
great supplies of economical and
high-quality alfalfa hay.
Some eastern dairy farmers
have found a profitable alterna
tive, alfalfa haylage in large
round bales wrapped in plastic.
This hay keeps all its leaves and
ir.wMMl jf *4
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nutrients inside without shatter
ing, avoids all storage losses, does
not mold, doesn’t carry a weather
risk, and has a high palatability for
high-producing dairy cows.
Though this method and equip
ment have been around now se
veral years, amazingly only few
dairy farmers have switched to it.
It is less labor-intensive (a one
person operation) and involves
much less investment and
maintenance cost than a haylage
silo.
There is very little failure or
problems with this alternative
method to making hay. Even after
opening the plastic wrapper one
year later, I have observed a lot of
excellent round bale haylage that
the cows relished in preference
even to good com silage.
Recent research from Wiscon
sin supports the contention that
feeding alfalfa silage, especially
as haylage in plastic-wrapped
round bales, is superior to alfalfa
hay in terms of milk produced per
cow per day, irrespective of stage
of maturity. It would seem that for
the sake of watching the profita
bility of dairy operations, dairy
farmers had better take a hard look
at the way they make hay, and de
cide whether it makes money
sense to switch to a now well-es
tablished alternative.
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