We were lucky that we were able to make enough hay in the early summer to get us through the bad part of the summer and through this winter. However, we decided we needed to change our strategy around where we would be able to provide forage for our animals in the coming years. We have always made some summer hay plus relied upon forage being available in our pastures during the summer and fall periods.

Our concern was focused upon relying on occasional summer rains to allow us to grow and bale hay for the winter. There was no summer rain in Texas this year and may be the same in the future. There are better chances of having rain in Texas during the fall and spring and we decided to adjust our forage strategy to take advantage of that instead of hoping for summer rain.

We are changing to growing cool season grass that can be cut and baled in the spring. We are also planting cool season legumes in our 6 grazing pastures to provide high quality forage for our animals earlier during the spring and last for a longer period of time towards summer.

Annual Ryegrass has been planted in our hayfield this fall. The top picture to the right shows our hay field in November with 30 days of growth in the Ryegrass. The second picture was taken in April, 2007 when we had also planted Ryegrass in the fall. In 2007, our neighbor cut and baled the field for us and the result was 60 large round bales or around 72,000 lbs. of hay. Now, we cut and bale our own hay. We either make the hay into small, round bales (600 lbs.) or small, square bales (50 lbs.). That means, if we got a similar pounds of grass, we would be able to make around 60 small round bales and 720 small, square bales. We only need around 450 small, square bales to get through a winter until spring arrives. We could certainly make enough hay to carry us through a bad year and sell a little to our friends. Here is a web page discussing our earlier experience with Ryegrass hay.

I was surprised to learn that Ryegrass can have between 20-24% crude protein value in it. That could minimize having to buy some pelleted feed for our animals. The other benefit of the cool season grass coming up early is it helps prevent weeds from growing in the field. That is a big plus if the Ryegrass will choke out the bad weeds and if we decide to plant a summer crop of haygrazer, we don't have to disc the field to remove the weeds before planting the haygrazer seed.

Hairy Vetch is the cool season legume that we have planted in our 6 grazing pastures. We planting one pasture with Hairy Vetch last year and I was amazed at how early it came up, how much there was and how long it stayed in the pasture. The bottom picture shows our animals in the Hairy Vetch grazing in May of this year. Forage quality can be similar to alfalfa; 18-20% crude protein. Hairy Vetch does not require Nitrogen feterlizer. It actually produces nitrogen and puts it back into the ground. Hairy Vetch also chokes out weeds in the pasture as they try to start growing in the spring. Here is a link to a video showing this field with the animals grazing it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6skiXItMafA

We believe that switching to cool season grasses for producing our hay will give us a better chance of taking advantage of the better chance of having rain in the fall and spring. Also, by planting the Hairy Vetch, we feel we will have a good chance of having high quality forage for several months in the spring and early summer while we are producing the hay and having it available if we have another bad summer of drought and heat.

30 days after planting Ryegrass seed in October, 2011

April, 2007 Hay field with Ryegrass

Hairy Vetch in grazing pasture - May 01, 2011