Alfalfa pasture

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I have planted alfalfa, about 1/4 acre, for my bees. After the alfalfa flowers, can I turn my cow out into this alfalfa? I am concerned with her bloating. Does alfalfa need to be cut and dried before letting the cow out into this field? I dont have any way of cutting it down at this point. (Friend has a DR mower I could borrow)

-- June (jblue@telecom.dgs.caa.gov), April 17, 2002

Answers

By the time the bee's are done with it the alfalfa will be pretty coarse, at least not lush. You risk bloat with any rapid feed change so start her slowly by letting her out after a good feed of hay and then only for a couple of hours. Do that for 3 or 4 days and then she should be fine to finish the pasture off.

-- Ross (amulet@istar.ca), April 17, 2002.

Might look at this post on 15 April 2002, it may answer some of your questions: what causes bloat in legumes? What makes non bloating legumes non-bloating?

This was my post on that question: Bloat, Univ. Nebraska, http://www.ianr.unl.edu/pubs/beef/g149.htm Bloat occurrences can be reduced through several pasture management methods: 1. Plant pastures so that no more than 50 percent of the forage mixture is alfalfa or clover. Consider planting non-bloating legumes. 2. Fill cattle on dry roughage or grass pastures before turning to legume pastures. 3. Provide grass pasture, hay, crop residue (cornstalks, milo stubble) or grain along with the legume or wheat pasture to reduce pasture intake. 4. Graze in a rotation using different grass and legume pastures. 5. Fertilize and graze to stimulate grasses in the grass-legume pastures. 6. Strip graze or rotational graze grass-legume pastures to force cattle to eat most of the plant material rather than just the succulent top growth. Plan with your veterinarian for emergency treatment for bloat before the grazing season. Equipment needed includes: 1. good handling facilities, 2. a rubber hose about 3/4" to 1" in diameter and 8 to 10 feet long, 3. a supply of defoaming agent, and 4. a large trocar (and a sharp knife suitable for opening an incision into the rumen if the trocar fails to relieve the bloat).

-- BC (desertdweller44@yahoo.com), April 17, 2002.


Don't just turn her out into the alfalfa, that would be bad.

Following some guidelines, you can fairly safely do so, esp when it gets that old. Would it be possible to fence in about an equal amount of grass hay when you put up the fence? Cattle actually eat the grass first, nibbling on the alfalfa & this works best.

Follow the rest of the info on that other thread mentioned here.

--->Paul

-- paul (ramblerplm@hotmail.com), April 17, 2002.


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