Bulk Hay Purchase - Fall and Winter Feed at TLR

 Throughout the season, we make various bulk purchases of hay to get us through the dry summer months, and the slow-growing winter.  Historically we have experimented with wide array of options for feeding hay, including Bermuda hay, orchard grass, oat hay, teff grass, and alfalfa.  Based on this experimentation, we have found that alfalfa gives the best return on investment, with high protein content, high palatability, and high utilization by the animals.  Alfalfa is the gold standard for protein, and all other feeds use alfalfa by way of comparison for the amount and quality of protein they contain.  Alfalfa is also high in minerals (the "Ash" content in the image below), which ensures that the animals are not eating empty calories, and are instead eating a ration that truly produces healthy animals and healthy meat.  Alfalfa has a digestible energy content of 10.7 megajoules per kilogram of dry matter, and sorghum Sudan grass has a digestible energy content of 10.9 megajoules per kilogram.  


Although alfalfa is one of the gold-standard feeds, it actually includes more nutrition than is needed for most needs, such as maintenance of body condition.  Growing animals greatly benefit from the high protein content, but as a maintenance ration, alfalfa is excessive, and unnecessary.  For adult males, and non-pregnant, non-lactating females, a ration that is lower in protein, and higher in carbohydrates is a more sensible ration, and such rations are also more inexpensive by about 15%.  For this reason, our adult animals are fed a mixed ration of alfalfa hay, and Sorghum Sudan grass.  This fast-growing annual replaces some of the protein of alfalfa with carbohydrates, to the point that it has a "sweet" scent and flavor.  The hay tends to have a higher ratio of straw (undigestible and unpalatable stems), so utilization goes down, but the average cost still tends to be lower than alfalfa.


This year, our fall/winter bulk hay purchase was 100 bales of alfalfa, and 100 bales of Sorghum Sudan grass.  This purchase is expected to last us into the end of February, when the spring season growth is well underway, and the animals will obtain their entire caloric intake from pasture.


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