# Baling weeds??



## Milk n' Honey (Aug 14, 2005)

Can you bale weeds? We have a couple of pastures of grass/weeds...probably more weeds than anything. Once dried and baled, do they retain any nutritional value? Is this something we could consider, along with supplementation of pelletized goat feed and alfalfa pellets? With hay being so high, I thought I'd ask. We are going to plant these fields in alfalfa this fall but in the mean time....thanks for your advice.


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## Scrounger (Jan 6, 2007)

Depends on the weeds. I always have 3-4 bales that are close to the edge of the field that are "weedy". I bale them up - as long as they are good and dry, they will be fine. My goats eat them and do fine. My neighbor always brings some of his that is weedy. No one else will buy it, so he gives it to me. Make sure there is no milkweed, Hemlock or other plants that are harmful. If the goats eat it green, they will usually eat it dry.


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## topside1 (Sep 23, 2005)

Why not bale weeds; it's generally what goats eat daily. Just bale it before it goes to seed, if not most of the weeds nutritional value has gone to produce strong seed for next yearâs crop.


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## BelleL (Jun 13, 2007)

Well, I have cut weeds and dried them in our barn upside-down and saved them for the winter to feed to our goats. I guess that is sort of like baling weeds. :shrug: So I would think that would be a great idea!!  I have also save fallen leaves for my goats to eat in the winter they love them!!!! I never save oak leaves because I have heard they are poisonous.
Belle


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## Milk n' Honey (Aug 14, 2005)

I have a very long list of hazardous plants and the only oak listed is "Holm Oak" which I've never heard of. Anyone else? I think we might try this weed baling. Even if it gets us through the first two months of cold weather, that would be worth it. My father-in-law has baling equipment so we could do it ourselves. My goats adore dried leaves but we don't get many here. We live against a woods and it all blows back into the woods I guess! My husband's aunt lives nearby though and they have lots of leaves!!


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## hoggie (Feb 11, 2007)

Holm oak is evergreen oak - my goats love it unfortunately as I have a cuople planted as memorial trees. But they don't seem to come to any harm from eating it fresh at any rate - apart from me chasing them round the field that is!!

Baling weeds - my goats eat all the weeds in their hay first. Pick them out deliberately. The only thing you have to watch is that weeds take longer to dry than grass so m ake sure that the weed stems are thoroughly dried beforeyou bale it.

hoggie


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## fishhead (Jul 19, 2006)

I've been wondering that myself. For sure weeds with the larger woody stems would take longer to dry and might be more prone to molding because of that.


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## Scrounger (Jan 6, 2007)

If you "tedder" it it will be fine. If you don't have a tedder, just rake it, wait a day or so, then rake it again to flip the windrows over to make sure the underside gets dried. Do it when you can pretty much be assured of 4 rainless days and hot weather (a breeze would help). They will take a long time to dry.


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## Cat (Jun 19, 2004)

I know around here we have a lot of kochia which is equivalent in protein to alfalfa. I'd definitely consider baling it but that's usually what I put the animals on at the end of the summer to clean up since our grass is usually gone by then.


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