– Stan Smith, PA, Fairfield County OSU Extension
Much of Ohio’s 2025 first cutting hay was beyond optimum maturity when it was harvested. Lab analysis indicates little first cutting has adequate quality to meet the nutritional needs of beef cows in lactation or even gestation.
As we recently began our 30th year of publishing the Ohio BEEF Cattle letter I took a look at the hot topics that were up for discussion in 1996. Looking back it’s interesting to note we were concerned with how best we could manage feeding poor quality hay resulting from a very wet spring of ‘96, alternatives for feeding cows when faced with a shortage of high-quality feed, and marketing calves from a declining U.S. cow herd. Sound familiar?
While it may feel like déjà vu all over again, today let’s only consider the feed management concerns we’re dealing with and leave calf marketing for another time. If there was any question regarding this year’s hay and forage quality, I hope you agree they were laid to rest a couple weeks ago when the results of 180 forage samples collected by OSU Extension throughout Ohio were released. To recap, only one of all the 180 samples tested will support a 1200 pound lactating beef cow and only a few will maintain a gestating cow post-weaning.
For a refresher on that release including a chart summarizing the results from those 180 samples, see Navigating Forage Quality in a Year of Extremes . . . Again!
For those who prefer to just see some numbers, consider this. While the average crude protein of those 180 samples slightly exceeded 10%, TDN averaged barely over 51%. Unless supplemented, a beef cow simply can’t consume and digest enough of that poor quality of forage without declining her body condition.
Let me try to put the concerns for the forage quality of all those samples tested into one more perspective. I recently had some early cut cereal rye straw tested. It’s TDN was 51% . . . the same as our “average” Ohio hay sample!
While nothing can be done to improve the quality of what’s harvested, consider these suggestions moving forward:
- Get harvested forages tested . . . we can’t efficiently manage what’s not been measured.
- Inventory the forages you have available according to differing qualities.
- Identify and value any supplemental feeds that might be available. IE: distillers grains, brewers grains, corn gluten, wheat middlings, corn screenings collected at the grain dryer, soy hulls, stockpiled forages, and even whole corn, etc.
- If not certain how to react to the information gathered from the three suggestions above, consult with your County Extension Educator or an expert in ruminant nutrition regarding how to best manage the feedstuffs you have available.
Suggesting “it’s better than snowballs!” simply doesn’t suffice. The inability to evaluate and efficiently manage hay quality can easily result in loss of cow condition, breed back issues, failure to successfully gestate and retain the fetus until calving, poor quality colostrum, and ultimately poor calf health and performance next year.
Considering the value of each pound of calf that will be born and weaned in the coming months, if ever there has been a year to begin with “don’t guess, forage test” it would be this one!