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Manage Forage Quality & Animal Nutrition

3:56
28:45
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At 3:56 in

What's wrong with my farm? Sustainable farming lessons might change your life

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What happens here

Trees are shown to reduce lignin in forages, making them more digestible for cattle. The discussion on fescue (Kentucky 31) highlights its dual nature as both beneficial and potentially toxic due to endophyte infection. The toxin is concentrated in the first 1-2 inches of growth. Therefore, grazing fescue too short in winter can lead to animal health issues like lameness. For a comprehensive understanding of forage quality and potential nutritional deficiencies or toxicities in plants, soil nutrient testing is essential. This can reveal if soil health is contributing to poor plant growth (leading to high lignin) or if imbalances in the soil exacerbate problems with certain forage types. Supplementing animals with minerals like phosphorus is also discussed, emphasizing the direct link between what animals consume and the nutrients available in the soil.

Goal: Understanding forage quality, like lignin content and fescue toxicity, is vital for animal health and productivity. Soil nutrient testing informs decisions about improving forage quality to meet animal nutritional needs and mitigate plant-based toxins.

Tools and materials

  • Mineral feeder
  • Forage (grass
  • trees for shade)
  • Phosphorus and other minerals

What they say

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work to do so trees give your forages lower lignin lignin is a compound that cattle can't digest so if you have a few trees spotted across your landscape if you fortunate enough you can find a farm to lease don't go out there and cut them don't cut anything for a couple years and you may be some out there that are too thick you need to take out a few but don't go out there and just indiscriminately start cutting them what we have found out folks is we try and graze around all of our farms twice in the wintertime in the non-growing season we'll get two rotations so as long as they don't take it all now in that first rotation those cows are thriving they're getting the very best so on the second rotation around your farm how do you make sure they don't lose weight because the good stuff is gone you got to give them a bigger piece so you're making up for quality with quantity given more of it and there's still not enough food there to keep that cow working well you might need to give her a molasses lick and you can tell look at the cow pass if they start getting thin on you your stockpile is no good you can't starve a profit out of a cow and the beautiful thing about fescue is in the in the sun spring late winter early spring what we call march mud month josh you ever had a mud month in there yeah it's pretty bad isn't it you just can't keep them out of the mud fescue it's your friend it can be a curse and it can be a friend what i mean by the curse is kentucky 31 that's what this is endophyte infected fescue so it's got an endophyte in there and the endo fights in there to keep the cows from overgrazing it if you don't graze kentucky 31 down short the worst toxin is in that first one to two inches that comes out of the ground right above ground that first two inches well don't grace your pasture short they're not getting pretty much of that toxin okay so that first two inches don't graze fescue short in the winter and you'll get by pretty good if you have a cow that does get affected by fescue she starts limping real bad she never gets over it you got a celery but the

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