Feeding Alfalfa Hay
Are you getting full value?
Many beef producers stretch hay supplies by feeding straw or some other low-quality forage, balancing the diet with high-quality alfalfa hay. However, if alfalfa leaves are too dry and shatter, falling off the stems, cattle won’t get much benefit from them even if the leaves are still in the bale.
“This past winter we had enough wind that there was a lot of leaf loss when hay was fed,” says Glenn Shewmaker, University of Idaho forage specialist. “I’ve seen many bales in which the leaves are just dust. We didn’t have much dew in this part of the country last summer when we were baling hay. We had more heat and wind, with less humidity than usual,” he says.
Most of the large one-ton alfalfa bales go to the dairy market to be put into a total-mix ration. “In that scenario, leaf retention doesn’t matter as much. The drier the big bale, the easier it is to mix into the ration. People use big vertical mixers and a moist bale is harder to grind down,” he says. So for that target, being a little dry is fine — for ease and uniformity of mixing.
“Since you can drop a whole one-ton bale in those mixers, you don’t lose the leaves like you do in a small bale. In the vertical mixer, where grain and silage are added, moisture in the silage keeps dust down and keeps alfalfa leaves suspended and uniform, and not just piling up as dust and blowing away,” he explains.
When feeding beef cows out in the field, though, the leaves are lost. Most of the protein and nutrients are in the leaves, so you don’t want them blowing away in the wind or shattering off the stems. “The leaves fall out of the hay as it’s fed,” says Shewmaker.
If you are feeding on grassy sod or a packed snow base, cows can lick up most of the leaves, but if leaves fall onto the dirt they can’t eat them. Whether you can get adequate value from alfalfa hay depends on feeding conditions.
“If you consider the whole system — from putting up the hay through feeding it — for beef or dairy cows, a dew simulator and/or preservative to put up alfalfa with better leaf retention might be economically positive. If leaves have fallen off and it’s just stems, cattle won’t eat those stems. They’ll eat straw before they’ll eat alfalfa stems. Dew simulators cost a lot, but may pay for themselves in better hay,” he says.
“A dew simulator (and a good moisture tester on the baler) enables you make big bales for a much longer window during the day. If it also had a preservative application system, this would be the ideal piece of equipment for putting up top-quality hay.”
It all costs money, but when a person pays a high price for alfalfa and most of the leaves are lost and cows won’t eat the stems, you’ve overpaid for the value of that protein supplement.
“Most producers underestimate the amount of leaf wastage in the field and in the feedbunk. If leaf loss is even 20%, this lowers the protein quality tremendously. When hay is dry and the leaves shatter, you need a wet feed like silage to go with it, and put it in a mixer. This also makes the stems more edible; it’s difficult for cows to sort them out and leave them. They need the stems as roughage,” he says.
Editor’s Note: Heather Smith Thomas is a freelancer and cattlewoman from Salmon, Idaho.