grazing instead of baling?

[WTA]

I may not be able to bale my giant bermuda field again due to it being too wet. I'm now having the same problem everyone up north had earlier in the year.

SInce I cut and fertilized last time, 5 weeks ago, we've gotten 16 inches of rain here. The bermuda and alfalfa field are loving the wet stuff but I haven't been able to bale in a month and since we sold all 5 of the previous cuttings I'm now out of hay.

A few days ago I just turned our horses out on the bermuda. I also finally got to plant my wheat field and it's already coming up with all the rain. We have more rain coming this weekend but I hope to at least cut my alfalfa and put it up this month.

If I do just graze the Bermuda till it's down to the ground in probably about 3 months is it still good to feed to the horses after it's been frosted? Right now it's still green but barely growing with the cool nights. It's about 18 inches tall.
I'm just hoping it will be enough to graze that till my winter wheat is ready to graze.

 

[meadowlarkponds]

WTA,

I had a similar situation last year with a 20 acre fertilized bahia field....too wet to bale.

Since I was very short on hay as a result, I tried to maximize utilization of the standing hay crop. I held the cows out of it until November and then turned them in to graze the standing hay up through early January. As a result, I was able to save what hay I had...no hay feeding in November or December...for the coldest months of Jan. and February.

It worked out actually pretty good....but when the field got really wet in Janurary and temps were low, the cows pretty much trampled down what was left...but it did save me from having to buy some very expensive hay.

 

[tanglefoot]

I'm in northeast Texas, and I've had similar experience in stockpiling standing grass and not having to feed hay until January. One thing I would advise as a word of caution, though, concerns Johnson grass or any sorghum strain of grass. After frost or drought these grasses can form prussic acid which kills any animal that eats it. So, if there is any in those pastures I plan to stockpile, I've found it best to graze the Johnson grass down before those times that it gets stressed.
Butch

 

[weldingisfun]

Hey there WTA, send some of that excess rain down my way. We are 8 inches below normal for the year.

 

[N80]

I don't know anything about the process, but have you considered haylage? I'm assuming you can rent a bale wrapper.

 

[chh]

Standing hay is actually by far the cheapest way to utilize fall grass growth. Rainfall after it dies will wash out the nutrients slowly. Acording to studies done by OSU in Oklahoma the forage is on average good until January. I let my excess bermuda hay meadows come out like this the last 3 years and have not had to use any hay until late December or early January each year. If we got snow that would change things though. The big caution for me though is wet weather. Cattle will leave trails and can trample heavily used areas if it gets too wet.

 

[WTA]

We just got done with another 5 + inches of rain here last night. I had been keeping the horses put up but I had to let them out on the bermuda this morning. The whole barn area is ankle deep in water. Hopefully it dries out so I can cut and bale part of it and I'll just let them graze the rest till it's gone. I was planning to disc that field early in the spring anyway to loosen up the compaction caused by 4 years of baling and grazing. All I have is a big chisel plow with 10 inch wide sweeps and a big disc. I wanted to wait and do this when I got a nice pasture renovator but that's not in the budget for a while now after this stock market mess.