Question regarding Hay?

[Junkmanme]

I have alfalfa growing "wild" out in front of my place by the drainage ditch.

When it is growing, I grab handfuls of it and take it to my chickens....They LOVE it !

I reckon that it must be good for them...so later in the Season, I don't mow it....I let it "go-to-seed" although I probably don't need to do that. Alfalfa has DEEP ROOTS !

But, my chickens will eat ANYTHING !

I use just plain ole straw-grass hay for bedding. CHEAP and sufficient.

-Junkmanme-

 

[welsummerchicks]

My chickens are absolutely mad over fresh alfalfa. They mow it down like a hoard of locusts. They do not eat it, they descend on it and strip it bare. Go chickens go! We've got too much of it growing in our pastures anyway.

Hay - hay is from a very old word similar to 'hewn', or cut. It means animal feed that is made of dried, cut plants.

It may be grasses, legumes (like clover alfalfa, etc) etc. The difference between the fresh plant and hay is, that the moisture is removed. That changes the amount of nutrients in a given weight.

But a diet of all alfalfa, also has been recognized for a long time, to cause problems.

Different cuttings over the hay-making season, have different characteristics. A first cutting may have a lot of weeds. Later cuttings may have coarser stems. The trick is to feed each species the right amount of stemminess, leafiness, etc.

My understanding is that it is not a great idea to feed ANY animal a diet very high in alfalfa. A little goes a long way.

Today, farmers are more pressured to grow heavier yielding crops, and alfalfa yields higher and sells for more than hay made from other plants, so there is a lot of pressure to grow it. There tends to be a pressure to feed more of what sells for more, LOL.

 

[savingdogs]

Breezy, who is going to eat this hay? I thought you meant it for rabbits because you said you were looking on a bunnie thread.

I don't give hay to my chickens at all but they like to steal a little from my goats.

I think the type of hay you choose depends a little on what you are feeding. I buy grass hay because both my goats and my rabbits like it and I sometimes buy Timothy when I can find it because I've heard that is the best hay for buns.

 

[protodon]

I figured out the differences between hay types a while back. I only need to know for my goats though and all I know is they will not eat timothy. Sometimes it just looks like straw to me. I just bought some all alfalfa bales recently to feed m,y goats and I can now actually SEE the difference between the all alfalfa and the grass /alfalfahay mixes. The alfalfa really is meant as a supplement when it comes to ruminants. For rabbits, I have no idea. I've fed rabbits before but I usually fed pellets, which I think are mostly alfalfa then alfalfa cubes or hay but just as a treat.

 

[breezy]

Im not feeding hay to anything really other than an occasional flake of alfalfa for the chickens. I was reading the advice on a bunny thread and they mentioned in the thread timothy,alfalfa,grass and oat all under the term hay. I didnt know there were so many kinds and was just asking about them. I feed alfalfa to my chickens as a treat and for something to do in the winter when they are confined to their run due to bad weather. They pick all the dried green leafy stuff off of it and leave the long stems behind. Gives them something to scratch through and something to stand on when the run is snowy.
I want to thank eveybody who answered. I learned lots.