Value Of Forage Testing

“I was always told that stockpiled grass, like fescue and Bermuda cured on the stem and left standing to provide late-fall or early-winter grazing, lost its feed value after a frost,” said Pattie. “But by testing it, we discovered that the protein in stockpiled grasses stayed right up in the range of seven to eight percent.”

Pattie’s focus on grass came about through the Arkansas Beef Improvement Program. The five-year program requires pasture grasses to be tested for forage quality. He had always forage tested his hay, but never his pastures.

His cattle were grazed in late fall and early winter on mature fescue and Bermuda grass, but because he thought the protein was so low, he gave the cow herd a high-protein, grain-based supplement during these months. “By sampling the winter forages the cows were grazing, we were able to better balance our supplemental feed to match the actual protein level in the forage,” he said. “That kept us from overfeeding costly purchased protein.”

The expensive pre-formulated supplement had a protein content of 20 percent. When Pattie learned the protein was higher than his cattle required he switched to a lower cost custom-formulated supplement that takes into account the protein content of the winter grazing forages.

Fed In The Field

The new supplement is 14 percent protein and is made from feedstuffs that cost the least at the time of formulation. His most recent supplement was made from cotton seed meal, corn, and soybean hulls. His cattle receive the pelleted ration in troughs out in the pastures where they are grazing dried grass in late fall and early winter.

Managing Pasture

When he took a close look at his fields of Bermuda grass, he saw grass going to waste. The grass was growing faster than his cows could graze it in the summer. The ungrazed grass grew rank as it matured, the cows didn’t like it, so they trampled more grass than they grazed.

Since his cattle couldn’t keep all the Bermuda clipped, Pattie set aside 100 acres of it to harvest as hay for sale to horse owners. To adjust the size of his herd to fit the change in management, he sold 60 cows, reducing his herd to 150 head.

“Bermuda grass is a leafy grass people like to feed to their horses,” he said. “It’s high in protein, running about 14 to 15 percent, if it’s cut before it starts getting mature. The protein content drops when it’s harvested after it matures. Bermuda grass should be cut every 21 to 28 days after the first cutting, which we take the first of June.”

Keeping Quality In Hay

Pattie has harvested Bermuda grass hay for his own cattle for 25 years. Over time he’s learned that the key to retaining quality in the hay is to provide a short but thorough drying period. Three days of dry weather is his ideal. After cutting the grass with a hay conditioner, he lets it cure in the swath for a day. The second day he teds it to speed drying. On the third day the grass is raked two swaths into one before baling. He prefers baling the hay into small square bales but also puts some up in round bales.

Bermuda grass multiplies by rhizomes and covers the ground quickly. “If you get it planted early, around the first of May, it will cover the ground by fall, and you can harvest it in its second year of growth,” said Pattie.

Double-Cropped Hay

A warm-season grass, Bermuda grows most vigorously from April through the summer and slows down or stops growing altogether in September. But that same land produces another hay crop from wheat or annual ryegrass that is no-tilled into the Bermuda after it has gone dormant for the season.

Because wheat and rye are cool-season crops, they grow well in the lower temperatures of fall. They, too, go dormant during the cold of winter, but come on vigorously in early spring, before the Bermuda starts growing. This crop is cut for hay in May. After the wheat or rye hay is harvested, the Bermuda grass begins growing again.