planting fodder crops.

mike and louise · planting fodder crops.

I'm not sure where to put this, so I've opted for here.
We usually plant neeps to feed the sheep overwinter but they were a disaster last year, some others have said they had the same problem.
The farmer who prepares the ground doen't think it would be a good idea to plant again, its the same spot each time.
He is suggesting barley and baling it green, then putting into those black silage sacks. Now I am not keen on this because of the environmental issues, but I also don't think it would be a good idea to feed this to the sheep anyway, aside from the fact we will end up with only a couple of bales and have to find somewhere to store it.
I'm thinking about putting marrowstem/thousand head kale (same family as swede I know) in the hope it will be a bit more successful than the neeps. The other thing (and I want to plant it as much for the fact it is an old crop with a brill name) would be mangel worzel, can it be fed raw to the sheep, and where can you get seeds for any of these crops.

bracken · mangels

Mangels aren't frost hardy so you would have to make a clamp. Sugar beet/fodder beet is another crop for sheep or cattle but again they aren't as frost hardy as neeps.
I would take my cue from farmers around you - hereabouts they buy in neeps and scatter them for the sheep.
I've tried to grow kale in large quantities for winter fodder for goats but the rabbits decimated it.........

I buy mangel seeds from Kings seeds - they do a largish packet (but not for field scale farming).

We overwinter our sheep (Shetlands) on home made, ad lib, hay and a few concentrates if the snow is on the ground for more than a couple of days.

mike and louise

Cheers for that.
Our sheep/goats are kept in a small paddock overwinter (goats come in at night and stay in on bad days), but quite a few are very elderly and need a good supply of food, they also get hay and concentrate, but i want to give them something a bit more juicy and it cut down quite a bit on the hay consumption, I used to pull up a barrow load a day and give it to them.

Can you feed sugar beet raw, I thought it had to be 'cooked/ pulped' first.

What about the barley idea, I don't think it is a good idea, is it.

As you can guess, I haven't got a clue.

Julie

If you make silage (which it sounds like) it has to be eaten fairly quickly once it is opened so a couple of large bales would end up mostly wasted. Do you have your own baler etc? You could make haylage and pack it into smaller bales of a more useable size. It is baled up when it is not quite dry and ferments in the wrapping, and is more nutritious than hay - sweeter too. It isn't as green, as you pointed out but it might be a better way to utilise your land for fodder. If you plant Brassicas in the same ground in successive years, you run the risk of getting club root on your land. If you get that you will not be able to grow any Brassicas for seven years.
You didn't say how many sheep you were feeding or how much land you have available to grow fodder crops on - that might make a difference of course.
The only other thing that I can think of is to see if you can do a deal with the farmer. He might be willing to bale it up for you in smaller sized bales in return for a portion of the crop or a payment.
This might sound like a silly question but, have you any idea whether your sheep will eat this kind of stuff? In the fifteen years of sheep keeping we have done. ours have consistently turned their noses up at neeps, hashed or otherwise. They were a bit sniffy about the haylage too, so I didn't buy any more. I think they have been spoiled on the sheep nuts and molasses mixes I've fed them in the past.

mike and louise

Hi julie,
we have 10 sheep and 11 goats, and it is only about a 1/4 of an acre. Our farmer friend does these jobs in return for the use of our top field, and I think he has a baler etc, he has cut hay for us in the past off a small paddock. He used to do square bales which were very handy and we buy round bales from a local farmer. His square baler broke last year and he cut the paddock as round bales- we got 5 1/2 bales.

The sheep do eat the neeps, although we need to chop them for the toothless ones, but I guess, I'm a bit wary of silage and haylage as they can go off, and I agree that we wouldn't use a big bale quick enough.
I also agree about growing the same family of crop on the same plot so often, that was why I was thinking of mangels, and fodder beet, but like you say, what if the sheep don't like it.
Problems, problems, all I want is to save a wee bit on hay and give the beasts something a bit moister over the winter, to make the diet a bit more interesting. The sheep, whenever they see me pushing a wheelbarrow into the neep 'field' start shouting at me, so I think they enjoyed their wee treats.

Any other ideas would be greatfully recieved.

Julie

The only other thing I can think of is that you might try to get your hands on a small quantity of whatever you are thinking of growing for them and see if they like it before you plant a quarter of an acre of it - but I expect you have already worked that one out yourselves.
It sounds to me as if they have probably had this kind of feed in the past and so recognise it, but as you say, it's not ideal for the older ones unless you hash it for them.
Haylage isn't something you would want to buy in as it tends to work out a bit pricey, unless you can make your own. Have you considered planting something you could sell to finance their feed bill? Or using your top field yourselves to grow more stuff for your animals. It would bring you more profit than it would cost you to pay the farmer for a bit of cutting and baling. If you made haylage on the top field as well, you could sell your surplus and subsidise some of your other feed bills as well. It's worth roughly three times as much as hay if I remember rightly....someone may correct me there but it's definitely far more valuable.

mike and louise

The farmer has been up today and we have agreed on sowing kale this year, and to think about an alternative next year. Hopefully the kale will be easier for the oldies to eat.
Its a good idea to grow something we could sell, but we need to think of something that is low maintenance and a good cropper- any ideas as I could start thinking about next year and get prepared. I'm quite liking the idea of permanent crops in the area that could either be sold or used as fodder, but have no ideas as to what I could grow!

Maria

I've copied this over to permaculture as I think it's a permaculture issue...and also to remind myself that I must find out more about permanent fodder crops! I'm pretty sure something was said on Farm for a Future about trees being a good option, but for the life of me can't remember which?

Wish my memory wasn't so floppy. A Fine Malt belives that in my quest for knowledge, I'm pushing more info out of my brain than I'm putting in....I'm beginning to wonder if he's right.

Smooth Hound