Cleanliness, consistency, convenience, composition and cost-effectiveness (the five C’s) are important characteristics to consider when discussing the ideal hay for horses. Some of these characteristics are important to the health or performance of the horse, while others are important to the horse owner.

Question: Why does a toddler walk off the edge of a picnic table and face-plant?

Answer: Because the child doesn’t know that he doesn’t know. Feeling fully capable with a newfound ability to walk, but without the soon-to-be-learned ability to face-plant, a child has confidence … dangerous and reckless confidence. He just doesn’t know that he doesn’t know.

Are you using a forage inoculant in your forage program?

The evidence is clear, and the industry’s leading experts agree that it’s no longer a question of “Should I use a forage inoculant?” but rather, “Which forage inoculant should I use?”

How important is hay?
Horses need fiber in their diet to maintain a normal digestive tract. For grazing horses, fiber comes from pasture, but for horses without access to pasture, hay provides the needed fiber.

Piles are a popular storage system for corn silage on many livestock operations, particularly large dairies. However, an estimated 18 to 22 percent of the corn silage stored in piles never makes it to the feedbunk because too many piles are not sized and shaped correctly.

Dr. Mark Boggess has been selected as the new director for the U.S. Dairy Forage Research Center (USDA Agricultural Research Service USDFRC) in Madison, Wisconsin.

He has been with ARS since 2009 as a national program leader in Beltsville, Maryland. A native of Iowa, Dr. Boggess earned a Ph.D. in animal breeding from Iowa State University, an M.S. in animal breeding from Cornell University and a B.S. in animal science from Iowa State.

The relationship of corn silage harvest moisture and maturity to its quality and performance is often underestimated. It’s important to minimize fermentation and storage dry matter losses because it’s difficult and costly to compensate for lower-quality forage in ration balancing and animal performance.