Poor hay

Try to keep this short... thinking I will be a little short on hay this winter IF it?s a harsher one than recently like they?re ?predicting?. I planned on buying a little, but not much floating around, think I could find a couple dozen rolls of wheat hay if I got in a pinch. Friend of mine knows a guy that bought a small place just up the road a couple miles, bought it over the summer after the owner passed in the winter prior. Has about 12 acres that had been cut by a neighbor yearly but didn?t get cut in all the settlement of the estate this year and now the guybis looking for someone to bushhog it. I drove by and looked at it this evening, it?s got plenty of overripe fescue, probably 10-15% weeds and there?s still some short green grass growing under all that fescue. I know it?s relatively low in feed value, but it?s better than a snowball if I were to run out. I always have plenty corn on hand to supplement. In other words... I could run the batwing over there, be a nice guy and just mow it for next to nothing, or I can clean it up nicer and take the hay off of it for nothing more than my time, fuel and twine. Guy is out nothing and it looks better than if I bushhog it. Make sense to roll it? I can get it all home in two trips I?m sure. Ample room to get my step deck in and out. Can?t believe it would be any worse feed than stalks, and I hate to run those through my baler.

For animals such as cattle which are ruminants I'd rather have poor,over mature, weedy hay than "no hay" especially if Winter grazing for cattle will be limited!

Agree with Tx Jim, over ripe hay is better than no.

Talk to the new owner and see if he'll let you wait a few weeks before baling it, The green under growth is dry and tuff now from no rain. A good rain will help make it more tender, also in late fall the root system sends up higher sugar content to the plant increasing the protein of the hay.
I've have cows clean up a over ripe fall cut bale before eating good dry stored 1st cutting hay.

Yeah cows need filler at least. Bale it.

It bad years you wont believe the places / weeds I see people baling. But the cows will eat it when hungry.

Roll it, I would. I'm 2/3 short of what I normally sell. We'll see $100 hay by the end of the season.

Where I am we have a whole lot of hay. I filled my hay barn with the first cutting which I have never done before. Just did 98 square bales and there all sold I think

Get a tub, or needed quantity, of molasses-chicken feathers at your feed supply house. The protein's high, the molasses is sweet and keeps them at it, they lick it (or bite off a chunk...undesired) and it gets their bellies hot and they take off for that junk hay. Sometimes I have cows go after years old, junk hay put in a ravine for erosion control before they went after new hay I had delivered.