Good foundations You can't make nutritious summer hay unless you start thinking about your fields' health now. In this new mini series, expert hay ...
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Good foundations
You can’t make nutritious summer hay unless you start thinking about
your fields’ health now. In this new mini series, expert hay producer Christine Page
explains how to assess your pasture for potential and when to rest it
S
tacking that very springy bounce from the PLANNING IN land in good time for any
last bale of sweet- fresh smelling grasses of ADVANCE manure to be fully degraded
smelling hay in light green, cream and There are just two and for the worms to pull it
the dry safety of pink hues, and that fall requirements for making all below the surface well
your barn after a long, hot apart easily in your hand. that beautiful meadow before hay making time
day lugging them around Hay that has a musty or hay: the quality of the in order to ensure a clean,
is a joyous and satisfying mouldy smell and that is underlying pasture, and uncontaminated crop.
moment. However, long firmly compacted into a the quality of the make. Large animals, like horses
before the weather warms heavy lump of beige and Preparing for that good or cattle, should ideally
up, considered planning grey stems will have little quality make means be off the land by the end
is needed to reach that nutritional value and the planning many months in of the prior year for this
goal, along with a generous dust will be no good for you advance. Livestock should reason, but also to help
dose of blessing from the or your livestock. be removed from the prevent the land from being
weather gods. It is also poached over the winter.
important to understand Sheep and goats should
the prerequisites for making be removed by the end of
good quality hay, whether March.
feeding your beloved When choosing a field
equine, a few ovine friends, in which to make hay, the
or providing that all- slope and evenness of the
important fodder necessary ground should be taken into
to enable your house cow to consideration. While hay
produce delicious, nutrient- can be made on quite steep
rich milk for you through land, the ground needs to
the winter. be even enough to allow the
The aim should always length of the tractor plus
be to make hay that, when the mower, tedder or baler
opened in the depths of behind to ride comfortably
winter, gives off a sweet over the field without
summer-meadow aroma There are two requirements for making beautiful meadow hay: the quality of getting snagged on rises
from a bale that has a light, the underlying pasture and the quality of the make or falls.
XXII Country Smallholding March 2021 countrysmallholding.com
Part 1
Hay Making n
Preparing the pasture
Generators for more on Grass species
grazing management.) found in
a diverse
GRASSES, FORBS pasture
AND LEGUMES
Assessing a pasture for the Common and creeping
potential to make good bent
quality hay is the same as
assessing whether it would Red and meadow fescue
provide nutritious and
palatable fresh forage for Rough, annual and smooth
your stock. Like the best meadow grasses
pastures, the best hay is
made from a well-managed Sweet vernal grass that
diverse sward: an ideal will give hay that magical
pasture will have at least 15 sweet meadow aroma
Well made hay should be of pale green, cream and pink hues different species made up of
grasses, forbs and legumes. Meadow foxtail, which is
The Field Studies Council very similar to timothy and
MOB GRAZING and fuel, with good grazing (www.field-studies-council. provides fantastic early-
Traditionally fields would be management using mob org) produces excellent season growth and bulk to
chain harrowed in March to grazing techniques whereby pocket identification guides the hay
scarify the pasture, spread fields are temporarily to grassland species. It is
any remaining clumps of split into small areas well worth taking the time False oat-grass
manure and knock out any that are grazed for only to assess pastures prior to
mole hills to maintain a flat, a day or two before the hay making, not only out of Crested dog’s-tail
level surface ready to make stock are moved to the interest, but to ensure that
hay. However, this process is next area. This prevents you don’t inadvertently bale Smooth hawk’s-beard
usually only necessary if the over-grazing, ensures that up any poisonous plants.
land has been set-stocked, manure is evenly spread Ragwort is one you Cock’s-foot
creating uneven pastures across pastures, and the definitely don’t want in your
with over-grazed sections, ‘mob’ both knocks out any hay, but the cinnabar moth The bromes
and heavily mucked areas mole hills and tramples caterpillar relies upon it,
where the stock prefer to dead grasses into the soil so if you find a plant mark Couch grass
camp each night. to feed the worms. (See it, leave for the moth in the
Harrowing can be made Country Smallholding, May spring and remove it before The now ubiquitous rye
redundant, saving time 2019, Great Green Energy hay making. 4 grasses
Hay can be mown any time from May to September
countrysmallholding.com Country Smallholding March 2021 XXIII
NUTRITIONAL VALUE and lower fibre content, but
The importance of diversity also a lower micro-nutrient
doesn’t just involve knowing content than hay made in
that you are providing July. This is because July is
wonderful native wildlife the time when the highest
habitat for a diverse range number of species will
of insects, birds and small have gone to seed and will
mammals, but the diversity be starting to senesce. The
will have a significant plants will be mostly fibre-
impact on the nutritional rich stem and seed heads
value of the subsequent hay. that are extremely micro-
Each species of pasture nutrient dense, with all
plant will have different the vitamins and minerals
root depths and symbiotic needed for a new plant to
relationships with many grow contained within the
different soil microbes, and protein-rich seed germ.
each will contain varying
amounts of the many micro- WHY CATTLE
nutrients needed by your NEED JULY HAY
stock: minerals, vitamins Well-made June hay is,
and phytonutrients. This therefore, sweeter, shorter
will not only keep your stock and extremely palatable:
healthy through the winter it is ideal for horses or
months, but the nutritional ponies that are not prone to
value of their meat or milk laminitis, or for fattening
will also benefit you. lambs or hogget over the
In addition, depending winter. However, the
on the spring and summer microbes in the rumens of
weather, when the hay walking bio-digesters like
was last grazed and when cattle, both dairy and beef,
it is made, each grassland need the long fibres from
species will be at a different July-made hay to provide
stage of growth and this will them with the cellulose and
impact the macronutrient micro-nutrients they need
values: fibre, protein and to produce the fatty acids
metabolisable energy. and other fermentation
Hay made, for example, by-products on which cows
in early to mid-June, from thrive.
plants with lots of succulent Hay can be made as early
leafy growth, will have a as May for even shorter,
significantly higher energy sweeter hay, but it will
A traditional diverse native
pasture ready to be mown
PICTURES: CHRISTINE PAGE
Lady’s smock: the flower will be gone by hay-making
time, but the plant provides valuable micro-nutrients
XXIV Country Smallholding March 2021 countrysmallholding.com
Hay Making n
Preparing the pasture
forbs and
The non-native chicory bursts into blue legumes in
flowering spikes up to 5ft tall the field
Greater plantain with its
rounder leaf
Ribwort plantain with its
narrower leaf
Cuckooflower, otherwise
known as lady’s smock
Red and white clovers
Bird’s-foot trefoil
Salad burnet
Common and sheep’s
sorrel
Dandelion
Yarrow
Creeping buttercup
Common nettle, which
come with even lower
micro-nutrient levels and
‘When making However, unless you are
feeding racehorses or
is extremely mineral rich
and, when dried, is loved
will probably need to be hay, the further needing to keep an animal by cattle and sheep.
fed with some mineral
supplementation.
into autumn the on a very specific diet for
some reason, the lab tests
Hay can also be made in more nutrients are unnecessary. The best
August, and even as late as
September, but the further
are lost as the hay is not that with the
most impressive list on a lab
into autumn the more seed heads fall’ report, but is the hay your
nutrients are lost as the stock will eagerly tuck into
seed heads fall, and the through the hay selecting and relish eating. n
quality will deteriorate as for the plants that may
the old senesced grasses contain what they need. NEXT TIME: How to make
are mown together with the The various nutrient good quality hay, plus
regrowth. values of hay can be safety issues, bale types,
Stock will always select ascertained by sending storage and finding a local Chicory — a non-native
what they want from a bale samples to a laboratory. contractor. plant with a beautiful
and may not eat everything. blue flower and a natural
Animals we may think of anthelmintic. It is worth
as fussy eaters are either getting a small bag of
telling us the hay is not to All about Christine Page this wonderful plant and
their liking or, more likely, Christine Page owns and runs a small-scale, regenerative organic throwing a few seeds into
they are lacking particular pastoral farm in south Shropshire. For more information visit each knocked out mole
nutrients and so are picking www.smilingtreefarm.com tump in the spring.
countrysmallholding.com Country Smallholding March 2021 XXV
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