Oat hay

TDJD · Jul 11, 2018

Hi. The other day a local farmer told me that sometimes they cut and bale oats for feed. This is my first year farming (I just turned 17).
I planted 20 acres of oats and I'm looking for the best price for my harvest. How much do oat hay bales sell for? Do they want round or square bales? (My biggest tractor is a 1947 late styled John Deere A so I can't pull a round baler, but I could hire it done.) The field has some grass and weeds -- does that help or hurt the price per bale? About how many bales per acre do you get?
Any other information would be appreciated.
Thanks

Bruce from Can. · Jul 11, 2018

Oat hay is always cut before the grain appears on the plants. After the grain had headed out, the would have been hay is just straw. The highest nutritional value is just when the plant is in the early ? boot? stage. And the protein and feed value goes down from there. Depending upon the temperature you have , the prime cutting time can be from two days to a week, the hotter the temperatures, the shorter the prime cutting time. The plants are very lush and difficult to make into dry hay at this stage. Most farmers I know either chop it for silage or wet bale and wrap for haylage. Bruce

TDJD · Jul 11, 2018

The guy I was talking to said if it wasn't good enough for combining, (before it turned) he would cut it and bale it heads and all.

caterpillar guy · Jul 11, 2018

I just did exactly what you are wanting to do. 2 fields were not up to cutting for oats and the third would have been. I had seeded alfalfa with the oats so wanted the second cutting the alfalfa would have given. It would have been a small cutting if the dry weather hadn't stalled the alfalfa. I am hoping the seeding comes on better. I got about 40 4x4 bales off the oats on the better field about 6-8 acres.
I opened the field up then came back about 3 days later and finished the field as Bruce said you have about a day maybe 3 from good to straw.

rustred · Jul 11, 2018

that is quite common, some guys wait to have some oats in it but the cows dont go much for the straw. not like young oats.

tomturkey · Jul 11, 2018

I seeded oats as a cover crop for alfalfa. Small square baled it in the boot stage. My son took all I made for cattle feed. They eat it up very well. I do not know what the market is for oat hay, but you should be able to sell it. Cattle think its candy lol gobble

flying belgian · Jul 11, 2018

Where you at? Here in so. Mn. you are to late to do anything with oats but leave it ripen for grain.

tomstractorsandtoys · Jul 11, 2018

Bruce there is a lot of oat hay made much later. You can cut it for hay when the grain is in the dough stage and get very good feed. It will not have the protein that boot stage oats have but will have much more energy and yeild much more. Dad often cut and baled it for his beef cows and years ago would chop it with a direct cut head on the chopper for his dairy cows. I just made a silage bag of dough stage oatlage for my beef cows. I would like to have made it sooner but weather and other more important crops pushed it off. Tom

TDJD · Jul 11, 2018

I'm in Michigan North of Grand Rapids

Brendon-KS · Jul 11, 2018

My experience is that if you cut and bale oat hay after the grain forms (even if it is in the milk or dough stage) you are inviting major rodent problems later on. If you're selling it and it will be off your farm right away it isn't your problem but if you shed it yourself you'll be doing your local mouse population a huge favor. After that unpleasant experience I cut it just as soon as the heads appear. Also, our goats clean it up better when it is cut early since it is more like grass hay and less like straw.

TDJD · Jul 11, 2018

Does anyone know about how many small square pre acre you get?
Thanks for all the replies!

Traditional Farmer · Jul 11, 2018

We used to cut and bale Oats that we planted to help get grass established, seeded Hairy Vetch in the Oats to up the protein content.In my area Oats have gone past combining stage by
now.

Briar Hill Brittanys · Jul 11, 2018

I planted about an acre of oats as a cover crop, last spring. I couldn't get in to mow before the oats headed out. Made straw out of it, $4.00/bale, seeds and all. Made for some pretty heavy bales. This is SW MO, straw at the feed stores around here is $7.00-$8.00/ bale.

paul · Jul 11, 2018

Grasses in it probably don't hurt much, unless they have gone to seed.

Weeds hurt tho, typically they just kinda make a worse product of the feed....

Price is all over the place, very local and depends on the year for demand.

Here in my humid climate of southern MN it is often best to make silage out of it, wrap it as individual big round bales. It is very hard to get oats hay to dry dow, and if it is made into silage those stems seem easier for the cattle to clean up and consume.

Paul

paul · Jul 11, 2018

Oh, and yield of bales per acre, that too depends on how tall it is, different oats get different heights, and how thick it was planted, and the year, and so on. Pretty hard to guess, did you plant a tall or short type?

Paul

Tx Jim · Jul 12, 2018

My Dad cut/baled oats many years in my youth. He liked to cut them when seed heads just emerged from stalks if weather permits. I have some 4X5 rd bales of oats that I bought for $40 & the field due to dry weather only made 1 rd bale per acre. My cows will eat every last stalk when I put it out for to them & they have green grass to eat. I only put the oat hay out to pen them so I could sell some older cows.

IMHO there are too many variables to state bales per acreproduction for TDJD's oat crop

Bruce from Can. · Jul 12, 2018

Yes Tom , I understand, some times plans are subject to change according to weather and time allowed. The protein level is not going to be as critical when fed to beef cows, but feeding the more mature oat hay to milk cows, and you can just watch the milk drop off. Silage is always the best way to handle this stuff, chopped or wet wrapped big bales. Anyone in drought conditions will need to feed anything they can get, but if you have the choice, I was only stating the optimum harvest time, and highest feed value. Bruce

BarnyardEngineering · Jul 12, 2018

(quoted from post at 20:39:12 07/11/18) Does anyone know about how many small square pre acre you get?
Thanks for all the replies!

Anywhere from 10 to 40 bales per acre.

As for selling it as hay, it's pretty much worthless. As for selling the grain, it's pretty much worthless. None of the feed mills or grain elevators around will take oats anymore.

The most value it has is in feeding it to your own animals.

showcrop · Jul 12, 2018

Though there is not a strong market for oats it may be worth checking into. A lot of horse people will feed it to a horse that does no work, which around here is 90% of them. If you find that you will be combining the oats you can follow that up by baling the straw that is left. Around here small squares of straw can sell for a lot more than hay if it is fairly clean. Hopefully you already have a plan for what you will be planting next and what you will do with that crop. Farming really works only when you plant for your market.

TDJD · Jul 12, 2018

Showcrop, In my area there are a LOT of Amish. The local farm and garden said the Amish ALWAYS need oats. He said they'll buy it in the field and harvest it themselves. I was just looking for options.

ss55 · Jul 12, 2018

Dad put up some oat hay only one year. When we fed it the next winter, every time I picked up a small bale of oat hay at least one mouse would jump out of each bale, mice were everywhere in that barn that year. We moved in some cats but they could not stay ahead of all the mice. Stock cows liked oat hay fine and ate it all.

David G · Jul 12, 2018

I am just curious why you planted oats, and are now looking at how to market it.

Very few oats around here because no elevator will take them, even though we are 20 miles from 2 largest oatmeal plants in world.

TDJD · Jul 12, 2018

David G, I'm planning on selling them to the Amish. I am just looking to see if I can get a better price than they will pay. All the elevators in my area will take oats (because of the Amish).

ss55 · Jul 12, 2018

In some livestock areas clean oat straw sells for more than small square hay bales. Your straw may be more valuable than the grain. Foreward pricing grain and livestock sales is one way to lock in a profit and reduce your exposure to market risks. Things like that can also impresses bankers when you are applying for an operating loan.

David G · Jul 13, 2018

Thanks for response.

You are lucky, I would like to raise some oats, but there is no one to take them.

Oat hay

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