Raising good groceries for livestock

By Justin Baldwin

When you buy feed -- especially feed as expensive as high-quality alfalfa -- it is important that it goes into the animal and stays there to do some good.

At Friday's 2004 Alfalfa Expo, University of Missouri Extension Office Livestock Specialist Al Decker provided a presentation on the quality and value of alfalfa hay.

Despite popular opinion, protein levels are not the only factor that determines the quality of forage. Even lactating mares, which require the highest levels of protein in their food, only need 13 percent of their feed to be protein.

While protein is important, determining the relative nutritional value includes looking at the ratio of digestible fiber to non-digestable fiber. "If we want to get a high relative feed value we are really managing for a low fiber content," said Decker.

It is a fine line to walk, however, because the indigestible fiber is the woody cell walls which make the plant strong enough to stand up.

In Missouri, one of the biggest factors that affects the quality of hay is the weather. In order to maintain quality in alfalfa, the cut grass has to dry and cure for about 3 days. The problem is that the first couple of alfalfa harvests occur in May and June. "In this part of the world (in May and June), we've got less than a 30 percent probability of having three consecutive dry days," said Decker.

This is further complicated by the fact that the optimum time to harvest alfalfa is between the first budding and when 20 to 30 percent of the plants are in bloom, a condition which exists in a time span of less than a week. Decker said that such a narrow window for the possibility of good quality hay can limit its value.

Surprisingly, in many cases getting the most value out of an alfalfa crop does not mean raising the best quality hay. Decker showed that in most markets lower quality hay in small square bales was worth more a ton than high quality large round bales. In fact, it is possible to get incredible prices for very poor quality alfalfa. Decker produced a 24-ounce bale of rabbit hay he had bought at Wal-Mart and said, "if you look at that you will see that there is little round curled up seed pods in there. I'm pretty sure there is not a lot of quality here. Butthat's $3,000 a ton."