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Show Do ready to harvest hind qualify hay As haying time approaches, approach-es, remember that early -cut hay that has been rained on may be better dairy hay than hay cut 10 days later during good weather. It likely will be if leaves are intact and it has good palatability. This is pointed out by Mel -vin J. Anderson, research animal scientist who has done much testing of hay Hay that is rained on and bleached is not necessarily of inferior quality. If the leaves are saved and pal. atability is still good, it will : still be high in digestibil- ! ity and high in protein. Digestibility of the energy, j palatability, protein and vi- : tamin content all decrease j with advancing maturity. : Delaying the cutting ser- ; iously reduces its feeding value. Therefore, ifyouare harvesting your own forage, strive for high-quality hay. If you are buying hay, insist in-sist on high quality early cut hay, if available, An-derson An-derson advises. Even if you have to pay ex- ; tra for high quality hay, you will be money ahead," he stressed. quality at Utah State University. Univer-sity. He also suggests, "To be ready for that early cutting, cut-ting, have your hay harvesting harvest-ing equipment checked to make sure it is ready to use." He states, "High quality hay is a must for top production pro-duction of milk from good cows. That requires harvesting har-vesting the hay at the proper pro-per time. If it isn't, the quality of the hay will be decreased de-creased and the producton of the cows will be greatly reduced." adeally," he said, "alfalfa "al-falfa should be harvested in the bud-to-early -bloom stage. This stage gives the maximum yield of milk per acre. Higher yields of hay per acre can be obtained by waiting until about half to full bloom, but the quality of hay is much lower. The commercial hay producer usually perfers to wait until un-til this stage unless he knows he will be paid to produce high-quality hay. On the other oth-er hand, quality of hay in the vegetative stage is higher high-er than in the bud or early bloom stage, but yields of hay are dramatically reduced reduc-ed and the danger of bloat and low fat test are increas -ed because of the low fiber fi-ber content of the hay." The scientist acknowledges acknow-ledges that it is not possible to harvest all of the hay at the optimum stage of maturity. ma-turity. Therefore he says, harvesting should start before be-fore and extend beyond the ideal time, preferably start a little on the early side if high -producing cows are to receive the hay. Since storms may have different effects on hay quality, qual-ity, weather causes difficult decisions regarding hay cutting. cut-ting. Anderson explained that a rain immediately after af-ter cutting may cause little lit-tle damage, whereas the same amount of rain when hay is nearly dry can cause severe damage. Prolonged storms may cause the hay to be nearly worthless because be-cause of leaching of nutrients, nu-trients, loss of leaves, and effect on palatability. |