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| I have put up oat hay for the last 25 years. I let it get all headed out and when the bottom 1/4 of the head is milky I swath it down. It makes better hay if baled in early morning when it is tough and not bone dry. It breaks up bad and shatters the oats out if baled to dry and makes it hard to unroll a bale without it falling all to pieces. It makes great feed for the cows. When I unroll a round bale they love to dig in and eat all the oats that go to the bottom of the hay. I feed a ration of about 1/3 oat hay 1/3 hay millet and 1/3 cane. They do great on the oat hay and really clean it up. If it gets rained on a lot the quality of the hay goes down. I use plastic twine on my bales and mice are not a problem. They do like to live in the bales though. I never stack any bales close to buildings so mice are not a problem. Cats, coyotes, and anything else that eat mice always hang around the oat hay bales. Bales will keep a couple of years if net wrapped. I live in western Nebraska so we probably don't get as much rain as you do. Got mine put up this year without a drop of rain on it. Nice and green. Horse owners love to buy it from me also. | |
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Making Oats hay ?s
