oats

I plant 2 bu oats per acre in spring as a cover crop, harvest for oats, bale straw. Works well for me. You always get the 'bad' year when things don't work out. But normally works out fine.

If you cut the oats for hay - and it makes good hay - cut it EARLY before you see but just a head or 2 in the whole field. If you see 10% heads, you waited too long. You want to err too early than to wait another 2 days & flub this. The stems will have all the protien you want, livestock will love it. Wait too late, & the rats will eat all the grain out, & the livestock won't like the stemmy low-energy stems you baled. Trust us on this one. Cut it when it seems way too early, & you'll have good quality oats hay. Can be hard to dry out tho, need a crimper/ moco/ haybine.

--->Paul

Back in the days when we used to thresh a big strawpile in the cowyard, the oats were threshed first and then the barley and finally the wheat. We had to watch the cattle as the ate their way into the strawpile over winter. When they got into the oat straw, they would tunnel in so far we had to collapse the tunnel so they didn't get smothered in a cave-in.