? for you horse people
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Topic: ? for you horse people
Posted By: orangeman Ia
Subject: ? for you horse people
Date Posted: 01 May 2011 at 6:49am
| I just bought acreage ,I'm thinging about putting into hay . Alot of horse people in my area. What would you guys and gals use for a mixture? Thank you. |
Replies:
Posted By: AaronSEIA
Date Posted: 01 May 2011 at 7:26am
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My wife prefers mostly grass. Maybe 10-20% alfalfa. Horses don't need dairy quality hay, despite what their owners think.
AaronSEIA
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Posted By: ky wonder
Date Posted: 01 May 2011 at 7:33am
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it is a little late hear to sow grass seed, old farmers addage (only sow grass seed in months that have a r in the spelling) but if you are wanting to sell to horse people i would look at a alfalfa for a fall planting.
this is a good legume with excellant nutrition for livestock, sells at a premium, and will give you a cutting about every 30 days during the season, buffalo alfalfa, seed sell's hear in the $2, range and a broadcast rate of 20 lbs per acre will lead to a seed cost of just over $40 per acre, for the alfalfa, and with a drill it it can be cut down to about 16 lbs per acre.
i would also incorparate about 1 lbs of orcard grass seed as well as a bushel of oats to the acre in the fall planting,
the orcard grass will help fill in when the alfalfa begins to thin out, the oats will give a good quick sprouting root system that will keep your ground from washing to bad in the fall/winter/spring rains. and horses love oats
the first cutting will be mostly oats with some alfalfa, but that gives the alfalfa time to get rooted and going good, and it will take over from there.
your soil will need the proper ph and nutrients for this crop so a soil test is the only way to go, know what you need and follow the recomendations of what the test will reveal.
alfalfa farming will require one other item, you will need to sray it in the springtime to keep the bugs from eating it, but once each spring works well here.
alfalfa here will work in a seven year cycle, with the stand increasing the first couple of years and then beginning to thin out, and by the end of the seventh year i rotate to another grop
this will require you preparing a good seed bed, so there is some substancial cost involved. and it will keep you hoping in the growing season to get it in on a timely manner
if you do not want to spend all that time and money i have had good success starting clover stands by overseeding clover on top of a light early or late snow fall and letting the melting snow sink the seed into the ground, before or after the ground has frozen
the snow also lets me know where i have been with the seeder
a fescue/clover mix is better that feeding snowball to livestock, and does not have to be cut as regularly as alfalfa ------------- i like old tractors of all colors |
Posted By: junkman
Date Posted: 01 May 2011 at 7:41am
| I know several big time horse trainers/ farmers, and they preferred prairie hay over anything. sometimes driving 100 miles to get it. |
Posted By: orangeman Ia
Date Posted: 01 May 2011 at 7:43am
| Thanks guys for the help |
Posted By: John (C-IL)
Date Posted: 01 May 2011 at 7:55am
| Around here the number one choice is orchard grass with a little alfalfa in it, second would be brome with a little alfalfa. All of them could use a little timothy in the mix, about 10%. Alfalfa is for top end show and race horses and dairy cows. |
Posted By: Sitesstables
Date Posted: 01 May 2011 at 8:41am
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Timothy and orchard what we use on our race horses ------------- 1965 D17 Series IV |
Posted By: DOlson
Date Posted: 01 May 2011 at 9:24am
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Clover is not a good choice for horse it tends to be to dusty even when its dried properly. We prefer alfalfa grass mix for horses. http://www.rafterbardmorgans.com - http://www.rafterbardmorgans.com |
Posted By: wjohn
Date Posted: 01 May 2011 at 9:26am
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Yep, timothy, orchard and some alfalfa. A little clover won't hurt anything either. ------------- 1939 B, 1940 B, 1941 WC, 1951 WD, 1952 CA, 1956 WD-45 |
Posted By: AaronSEIA
Date Posted: 01 May 2011 at 9:47am
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Clover also carries a fungus that makes horses drool when they eat it. Horse people do not like that.
AaronSEIA
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Posted By: Gerald J.
Date Posted: 01 May 2011 at 10:32am
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Cash up front when selling. Bad checks take all the profit out of the enterprise. Otherwise making hay is good exercise. Its hard to keep grasses in an alfalfa mix, most grasses can't take the cutting intervals that produce the best alfalfa (cut just before blooming it has the highest quality and protein content. Climax timothy is supposed to match alfalfa for cutting intervals. Have run that exercise, I'd rather let the field to to weed than to sell to horse owners. With all the demand for corn and bean ground this year, most any patch worth working for hay can be rented most profitably for growing corn and beans and in Iowa raising hay is wasting that potential. Gerald J. |
Posted By: 427435
Date Posted: 01 May 2011 at 10:46am
Gerald makes a good point. Are you planning on making the hay yourself or leasing out the hay making? How many acres are you talking about?? If you were going to do the work yourself, raising soybeans or corn might be easier and a lot more profitable. It doesn't take much equipment or time to grow Round-Up ready beans or corn on a small acreage-----especially if you hire the harvest done. ------------- Mark B10 Allis, 917 Allis, 7116 Simplicity, 7790 Simplicity Diesel, GTH-L Simplicity Ignorance is curable-----stupidity is not. |
Gerald J. wrote: