Swampgrass/Rush Hay

[Texan]

Soapweed's post on Jason's thread got me to wondering if any of you guys have any tips on feeding swampgrass hay. I guess I could call it hay--it's round with twine around it. Pretty rough and coarse, but considering the year, I'm kinda proud of it. LOL

I've got some left over from last year that I rolled just to get it out of the way to allow something else to come up for winter pickings after the cows finished their good hay. It worked out pretty good as far as getting them to graze the tender regrowth of the rush and a little bit of fescue/ryegrass, but the swampgrass 'hay' was pretty much useless.

I had already bought more grass hay than I needed and never really had to get into the junk. I unrolled some of it on some washed out places to let them pick through and stuck a few more out for them to gnaw on when they walked by it. I tried pouring some liquid feed down in some of the rolls, but that was late in the year so I never really had to get real aggressive about making them eat it.

I think I've still got about 80 rolls of the crap left from last year and I might be lucky if I can get another 200 by October. As dry as it is around here, it would sure help me a lot if I could utilize that. I had hoped that the last year's junk would rot enough by now to make them want it, but we haven't even had enough rain to do that.

I've thought about trying to find a cheap used grinder to mix some with some alfalfa. But in most years I'd never need a grinder, so I hate to leave that kind of money sitting around to rust. I'm not really set up to use it in a feedlot-type situation, so I needed to try to find a way to make them really want to eat it, instead of gnawing everything else in the pasture down to the ground first. It will be pretty rank and seeded out by the time I try to cut it, so I was thinking about trying it with some free-choice 3/1 csm/salt to bump the protein and keep them drinking good.

Ideas from any of you guys that have made it work? Will probably be dry cows only by that time. Thanks.

 

[Faster horses]

I sure don't know anything about swamp hay, but I can tell you a little about nutrition.

Even though you might grind it, you can't change the nutrition value. It is what it is. Grinding it might make it easier for them to eat, but it will have a forage value the same as if it wasn't ground.

You will need to feed some protein with it, so that the cows rumen will
be enhanced (lots of good rumen flora) and will better digest the feed.

You might get it tested so you know what you have to work with. A forage test won't cost much, about $10/sample and if it is all the same, you'd only need to take one sample. There are 3 main things to look for on a forage sample. Protein, energy and ADF. The ADF shows the digestiblity of the feed. A high number means it isn't very digestible, a low number means it is more digestible. Second cutting alfalfa hay, for instance, should have a pretty low number.

As with anything, I think if you can mix some good hay with the poorer stuff, it will keep you from having problems. If they don't clean up the swamp hay, don't cut them back on the good hay. They need the better
stuff to help digest the poorer stuff. That is a common problem people tend to do~cut back the good stuff...then the cattle are shorted on nutrition.

I'm sure Soapweed can add a lot to this subject. He's fed it, and he runs a pretty good ship, it seems to me.

Well, there is my two cents worth. Good luck!!!

 

[Soapweed]

As for feeding swamp grass hay to cattle, they will eat it if it is all they have available. In Texas, cottonseed cake is easy to find, and it works especially good as protein supplement with poor quality hay. For some reason, cows really crave roughage when getting cottonseed cake for protein, and will even eat soapweeds (yucca). One note of caution, though, don't feed bulls too much cottonseed because it can make them sterile.

Sometimes year old swamp hay is more palatable than current swamp hay. Maybe this is because a certain amount of fermentation takes place in a longer period of time, and the cows get a certain buzz from eating the stuff. Another option might be to hire a hay grinder to grind it up and mix it with alfalfa or some other more tasty type of hay. I've never fed ground hay, so can't speak from personal experience.

Good luck in your swamp feeding endeavors, and don't blame me if it doesn't work. :wink:

Swamp hay in bale form

Slough hay

The ditch is dry

Slough hay in windrows

A slug of slough hay

Doggoned ditch is dangerously dry

Good swamp baling rig

Big flotation airplane tires keep the baler from getting stuck

Sideview--Agco Allis 8630 tractor, 120 hp with FWA, and Vermeer L baler

 

[Denny]

My uncle has fed quite a bit of low ground hay as have I we think that it feeds better when it is 2 or 3 years old it tends to not be as rank.We can feed it until it get's real cold about January 1st then they will just turn up their noses to it.I will be feeding about 300 to 500 bales of it this year as the old timer's say if it won't make a Turd It will push one.

Also a good friend say's to call it meadow hay not swamp grass,He says the DNR would think you were hurting the environment haying swamps but hay meadow's are ok our government at work.

We have been ditching in this meadow it's dry enough to bale and it's good for 300 bales.

 

[Denny]

Another trick to baleing it is try not to rake up alot of the moss on the ground Thats where alot of the skunkyness comes from alot of guys here cut with a haybine cut it high and bale it out of the winrows.

 

[cowsense]

The old timers always called slough hay "gut rip".......sometimes isn't too good a feed but it sure beats snowballs!! I think the old saying also said that if gutrip wouldn't make a turd it might just push one!!!!!!!!!! :wink:

 

[Northern Rancher]

There's thousands of cows winter on slough hay in our country-our winters are as tough as any and cows do fine on it as long as they get all they can eat. I'm beginning to wonder if the more you supplement cows-the more you have to supplement them. Kind opf interesting there a group of real mossback heifers in this bunch I'm a'i'ing they're cycling like bandits while the slicks and shines aren't.

 

[Jason]

With any low quality hay, grinding it allows the cow to eat more than she normally would.

This makes her able to squeeze more nutrition out of her roughage.

Some roughage cows just won't touch without grinding.

Compaction and starving to death become factors with poor forage.

Corn is cheap and soymeal, cottonseed meal, or canola meal etc etc so can provide all the energy and protien the cow needs.

1/2- 3/4 pound of soymeal and 3-5 pounds of corn and all the crap hay a cow will eat will bring those cows through in fine shape.

As for NR and the slicks not cycling, cattle need to be on a gaining plane of nutrition to cycle. The slicks might be losing weight instead of gaining.

 

[Northern Rancher]

I wouldn't say they weren't gaining but they sure aren't going backwards but those mossy haired heifers looik rough but are coming around good-makes me wonder how they were wintered.

 

[HAY MAKER]

Aint no swamps around here LOL,but I sure would'nt hesitate to feed my cows sorry hay if that's all I could find.
I forget what year it was seems like 98 we were feeding anything we could find,we located some milo stubble around Hondo,that had been combined for seed instead of plowing it under as usual,they cut and baled the stalks,pretty rank stuff, I bought around 300 bales and had the local mill grind and mix it for me,fed that to my best heifers/cows and had another bunch that just got milo stubble round bales with tubs free choice,they all made the winter just fine and as best as I remember had a 100% calf crop................good luck
PS Hang in there,it will rain IM already getting ready for a wet fall :wink:

 

[pknoeber]

Aint no swamps around here LOL,but I sure would'nt hesitate to feed my cows sorry hay if that's all I could find.
I forget what year it was seems like 98 we were feeding anything we could find,we located some milo stubble around Hondo,that had been combined for seed instead of plowing it under as usual,they cut and baled the stalks,pretty rank stuff, I bought around 300 bales and had the local mill grind and mix it for me,fed that to my best heifers/cows and had another bunch that just got milo stubble round bales with tubs free choice,they all made the winter just fine and as best as I remember had a 100% calf crop................good luck
PS Hang in there,it will rain IM already getting ready for a wet fall :wink:

Haymaker, around here there are a lot of cows that winter on milo stalks and corn stalks. If the guys have irrigation, they winter on corn stalks, if they're dryland farmers it's milo stalks. Both will get some supplements if needed.

Why is most of the milo there plowed under and not cut? Or were you simply referring to the stalks being baled and not farmed under?

 

[HAY MAKER]

Aint no swamps around here LOL,but I sure would'nt hesitate to feed my cows sorry hay if that's all I could find.
I forget what year it was seems like 98 we were feeding anything we could find,we located some milo stubble around Hondo,that had been combined for seed instead of plowing it under as usual,they cut and baled the stalks,pretty rank stuff, I bought around 300 bales and had the local mill grind and mix it for me,fed that to my best heifers/cows and had another bunch that just got milo stubble round bales with tubs free choice,they all made the winter just fine and as best as I remember had a 100% calf crop................good luck
PS Hang in there,it will rain IM already getting ready for a wet fall :wink:

Haymaker, around here there are a lot of cows that winter on milo stalks and corn stalks. If the guys have irrigation, they winter on corn stalks, if they're dryland farmers it's milo stalks. Both will get some supplements if needed.

Why is most of the milo there plowed under and not cut? Or were you simply referring to the stalks being baled and not farmed under?

I should have been clearer,the milo gets combined,and the stalks plowed under when we have normal weather,because hay is readily availible, during periods of drought,everything gets cut and baled, milo,corn,peanuts you name it if it can be cut baled and fed,it is.............good luck

 

[Texan]

Thanks for your replies. A lot of good advice to think about. Like some of you mentioned, I noticed that what I baled last year is probably already more palatable than it was right out of the baler. Easier to chew and even tastes a little better than when I tried it last winter. Looks like the only thing that might keep me from trying to winter some cows on it will be if I have to finish summering them on it first.

Thanks again.

 

[Northern Rancher]

Lots of cattle in our country winter on straight slough hay-even those big exotic cows-no grinding needed. Just feed lots and let them bed on the leftovers-lots of time straw costs more than slough hay does.Creek water,slough hay and blue salt has made alot of rich ranchers up north oif the medicine line.

 

[cowsense]

Slough hay gets expensive in our country.....usually only get into the sloughs in really dry years.........end up with more old dry stuff than good but a bale is a bale even though we have to run all over a township to get any amount baled. Our repair and fuel bill get too high on that program! It's quite different from the north country where they have big hay meadows that they can cut almost every year! There's probably been more cows wintered on straw and grain than anything else in this country........usually is the most economical ration going!

 

[EastTexasGal]

What part of E.Tx are you in Texan? Sounds like you must be up north.

 

[Texan]

What part of E.Tx are you in Texan? Sounds like you must be up north.

"Up north"? You make it sound like I'm from New Hampshire or Massachussetts. LOL

I'm north of the Sabine River, so I guess you could say I'm up north. Guilty as charged.

 

[efb]

All this talk about poor quality roughage made me think about some work Gardiners in Ashland KS did. If my memory is correct they baled wheat straw and injected anhydrus ammonia into the rolls. It increased the protein and was pretty good feed. Has anyone else heard of that or tried it ?

 

[IL Rancher]

I have heard something like that... I know a lot of folks who feed wheat straw but they feed gluten with it..

MY wife's great uncle used to raise cattle and he used to bale soy beans residue. The cows really didn't like it to much but they injected it with molases and they sucked it right down.. I can't imagine that being very economical... Lots of cows around here have been fed on stalks and protein tubs for the first 2 months of winter.. They seem to do okay before the cold weather really hits.

 

[EastTexasGal]

LOL ..TEXAN sorry..guess that was a cuss word huh?? :roll: We are doing okay on hay and rain, not that a little more wont hurt right now. But, we been getting enough to keep things alive.

sighhhh..sorry again for the NORTH comment lol....guess I better watch that there remark to a Texan.

Easty