How can I cheaply cut some grass to see if it passes as hay?

[beppington]

This is probably not the season for it (dormant now), but I have a couple grassy areas, maybe 3 acres total, of Bahia grass. I have no hay'ing experience whatsoever but would like to cut some of it to see if it passes as "hay", using my parents' mini horses as testers . My idea would be to cut the grass & simply manually rake some up into my utility trailer & take it to the horses to see if they'll eat it. (sort of dip my toe in the water)

So, the question: Since a lawn mower, bush hog & flail mower all "seem" (to me) to cut grass into small bits, is there any cheap way I can try this without buying an expensive sickle mower?

Or do you think either the bush hog or flail might actually suffice for my little experiment?

 

[bullbreaker]

Hello Bepp :

I would not even experiment feeding it to them. Would not even be nutritional IMHO.

Bahia hay? - Chronicle Forums

Google

Might try bailing it and selling it to Cheech and Chong and hope the TBN safety police does'nt catch you. :laughing:

Boone

 

[sweettractors]

Some of the Rotary cutter mfgrs made a Brush hog with a removable side. These work well for cutting hay and not chopping it. I would cut a little with the weedeater to do a TDN and protein content test. That would also be a way to get a sample to feed the horses. Ken Sweet

 

[Western]

For a "test", you can probably get along with a weed-eater just to "see".

I have seen Bahia feed to cattle and goats, but never heard of it feed to Horses, at least around here. Never having a Mule or Donkey, I don't know how they would take to it either.

 

[SLHawkins]

They'll eat it for sure. But, I don't quite get your whole process. Is your plan to cut, rake, load on your trailer, and feed the whole 3 acres at once? Or, do you plan to eventually bale it once you determine if your horses will eat it. According to the information that I found, bahia grass is suitable to feed.

You can mow it with a with a rotary or flail mower. But, the quality will be sacrificied as these types of mowers beat the nutrients out of the hay. You may be able to get by with raking by hand and loading into your trailer. But, 3 acres seems like a lot to me to feed at a time. The longer stems from the sickle (or disc) mower will handle better, in terms of both raking (mechanical or hand) and baling (again, mechanical or hand gathering). The 'chopped' grass will be hard to pick up and bale. I know it is generally more 'fun' doing it yourself, but you may want to consider hiring someone to cut and bale for you, if you do not have the equipment.

Hawk

 

[beppington]

I would not even experiment feeding it to them. Would not even be nutritional IMHO.

Boone - I think Bahia is what they stand in & eat 24/7 now. However , my parents do supplement by feeding them horse feed twice a day. Maybe they just like to munch, munch, munch, so any ol' "grass" will suffice, in between their morning & eve sweet feed servings.

Might try bailing it and selling it to Cheech and Chong and hope the TBN safety police does'nt catch you. :laughing:

Haha! I don't think my Bahia has the "nutrients" Cheech & Chong are lookin' for!

Some of the Rotary cutter mfgrs made a Brush hog with a removable side. These work well for cutting hay and not chopping it. I would cut a little with the weedeater to do a TDN and protein content test. That would also be a way to get a sample to feed the horses. Ken Sweet

Actually, now that you mention that, the bush hog I use is wide open across the back ... maybe the cuttings I get from that would suffice.

For a "test", you can probably get along with a weed-eater just to "see".

I have seen Bahia feed to cattle and goats, but never heard of it feed to Horses, at least around here. Never having a Mule or Donkey, I don't know how they would take to it either.

... or a weedeater! That would be the quickest for a little test.

Thanks all ... Here are some of the "testers" standing in what they eat now:

 

[sailfast]

This is probably not the season for it (dormant now), but I have a couple grassy areas, maybe 3 acres total, of Bahia grass. I have no hay'ing experience whatsoever but would like to cut some of it to see if it passes as "hay", using my parents' mini horses as testers . My idea would be to cut the grass & simply manually rake some up into my utility trailer & take it to the horses to see if they'll eat it. (sort of dip my toe in the water)

So, the question: Since a lawn mower, bush hog & flail mower all "seem" (to me) to cut grass into small bits, is there any cheap way I can try this without buying an expensive sickle mower?

Or do you think either the bush hog or flail might actually suffice for my little experiment?

Whatever you do, DO NOT put the grass into a plastic bag.
IF you do that it starts to break down and the toxic byproducts can kill the horse.

 

[beppington]

They'll eat it for sure. But, I don't quite get your whole process. Is your plan to cut, rake, load on your trailer, and feed the whole 3 acres at once?

I only mentioned the 3-acre total for size reference, but my preliminary plan is to just cut a smaller amount of it & rake it onto my 6x10 (2' high sides) trailer as a test batch; If I can 1/2 fill the trailer or so, that would be good. My thinking is that if the horses will eat it, maybe even right off the trailer, my parents could save some money from buying hay rolls. They're not super expensive, but if I have perfectly good "hay" that they can have for "free" (besides cutting it & loading it onto a trailer), then why not.

Or, do you plan to eventually bale it once you determine if your horses will eat it.

I have considered the idea of baling it with baling equipment some day. Guess I'm just trying to get a feel for the process without spending any real money, yet. Also, the 3 acres I mention is part of a 40-acre prairie type area that could potentially be bush hogged & converted to hay, but my local EPA is sensitive to it having labelled it "wetlands" (which is a joke right now since it's bone dry!), so I'm supposed to only touch it for "bona fide agricultural" reasons. Sometimes the prairie holds standing water, & haying would surely not be possible during those times.

According to the information that I found, bahia grass is suitable to feed.

OK, that's good to know ... although it seems to go against what Boone indicated above. Either way, I don't think it can hurt, since my parents supplement with horse feed anyway.

You can mow it with a with a rotary or flail mower. But, the quality will be sacrificied as these types of mowers beat the nutrients out of the hay.

OK, also good to know. I'll try either the weedeater, or as a last resort the bush hog ... And keep my eyes open for maybe an old, beat-up, cheap sickle ... as my next step easing into this possible "venture".

You may be able to get by with raking by hand and loading into your trailer. But, 3 acres seems like a lot to me to feed at a time.

Yeah, the equivalent of 1/2 to a full "jelly roll" would be a good test I think. If they eat all that & seem to like it just fine, then we can think about getting more, or getting more serious about it.

The longer stems from the sickle (or disc) mower will handle better, in terms of both raking (mechanical or hand) and baling (again, mechanical or hand gathering). The 'chopped' grass will be hard to pick up and bale. I know it is generally more 'fun' doing it yourself, but you may want to consider hiring someone to cut and bale for you, if you do not have the equipment.

Depending on how this goes, maybe I will hire someone instead. I'm looking to take small steps here in the beginning.

Thanks for all your info!

 

[beppington]

Whatever you do, DO NOT put the grass into a plastic bag. IF you do that it starts to break down and the toxic byproducts can kill the horse.

OK, will not do that. My idea was to let the "hay" sit on my trailer, with its expanded metal floor & sides, & then just rake it into the hay feeding area. No plans to seal it up.

Would the expanded metal floor & sides of my trailer let the "hay" dry out too much? Can hay even dry out too much??

 

[Western]

Would the expanded metal floor & sides of my trailer let the "hay" dry out too much? Can hay even dry out too much??

Bepp, it can dry out to much, but not likely. Better dry than wet for sure. Should do just fine for what your doing to see if the animals will take it. Even extremely dry hay will gather some moisture if the humidity is up.

When I was baling 220 -300 acres, it was cheaper in the long run for me to have a neighbor that already had the equipment to bale mine. we did it on the "halves" which is fairly common here. He fertilized,cut and baled. I'd give him half the hay. Some years I just paid to have him bale if I was keeping more of the yearling's, or thought I'd make a dime that year selling the excess.
He used a moisture tester made for hay baling and tried to bale when the moisture Meter was less than 15%.

I have seen "wet" bales catch fire when they get to hot.

Is Your Hay Cut Right but Baled Wrong?