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| Here if no hard killing frost you need some height to the plant to graze. Do not cut 3rd or 4th crop then have 3-6" type of growth and try to graze without killing it. Neighbor kid just learned that lesson two weeks ago. We had frost through most of valley, he thought he was ok. Moved weaned calves up in elevation just couple hundred feet in valley to short alfalfa. Was there 5-6 days and thought he was ok, tipped 5 head over. Had another 12 head that if he wouldn't have moved then they would have tipped over as well.
I try and keep all 3rd crop alfalfa standing and hope for frost, 99% of time I don't get killing hard frost in time. But with crop at 18" or taller I don't have a problem if we fill them up on hay, turn out with no dew or rain in early afternoon. That way we have daylight to monitor calves or cows. Tall crop alfalfa will degrade faster in lesser frost than short alfalfa. Bottom line is short crop is the killer.
I've also tipped milking cows over with free choice 3rd crop alfalfa at bunk if cold rain or snow comes and cows lose stomach fill during storm if they go off feed because of storm. So I tried to feed all 3rd crop alfalfa before main winter came to help stop that would feed bloat blocks, because we fed free choice hay at manger, no TMR wagon, grain, commodities were fed in computer feed system.
Just depends how hot your hay is, our 1st and even 2nd crop hay has tipped calves over. We try to cut hay with lots of bloom for beef animals, dairy had to cut early. We just finally got hard hard first to take last of flies out this weekend.
Main problems I see with grazing is where guys try to crop it all season, then want the last of it grazing without frost. Worst thing about grazing tall alfalfa is as plant degradation happens calves reaching down in plant and irritation of eyes. Its a fine line grazing great feed, but have to watch eye problems as crop degrades. Cows being bigger animals dont seem to be a problem. | |
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Alfalfa bloat
