Feeding Pea Straw

[WSS]

Looking at feeding pea straw as my only forage source to cows over the winter. I will supplement with an amount of grain depending on feed test quality of the straw and intake; hoping to only feed a few pounds/cow/day. For those of you that have fed pea straw what is the intake like? Will I get similar intake to hay, or somewhere in between cereal straw and hay? I would like to get them to eat about 30 lbs/day.

[grassfarmer]

Only fed it a couple of times and got mixed results. Tremendous variability in pea straw quality and digestibility from year to year. No way a cow will eat 30lbs of pea straw though.

From Ab Ag site:
"Generally, a cow can consume 1.25% of her body weight in straw dry matter (DM). Therefore, a 1400 lb cow could consume 17.5 lbs on a DM basis, or 19.9 lbs on an ‘as-fed’ basis if the straw was 90% DM"

[WSS]

Ya I'm hoping with the dry year that the stem to leaf will be lower (lower fibre) and that they will be able to eat more as what you have quoted would be for lower quality straw. The guy is using a conventional combine for this so hopefully can save more peas and leaf in the straw. I'll know in a couple weeks once its baled and I can test it, but don;t want to put all my eggs in one basket if others have had poor results.

[grassfarmer]

Pea straw may be higher than cereal straw but it's fibre content and hence digestibility is generally lower than cereal straws. Feed testing is essential as I've read the protein can range for 3-18%, then you need to consider the energy levels etc.
Good luck with it but don't assume it'll be closer to hay than a cereal straw.

[grassfarmer]

"may be higher protein…"

[greybeard]

Haven't seen anyone in this area feeding pea straw in many years.
As GF says palitability can be a real issue.
The possible nutritional advantages are obvious.
Getting anything but stems into the baler has to be a problem and finding clean disease free straw may be the biggest challenge.
Can't imagine they will be to happy to eat that stuff that turns the combine black with dust from fungal disease.
I hope to get some good oat straw for them to pick through.
Probably have about 10# of hay and feed some med protein pellets to balance it up.

[kaj100un]

We feed pea straw every year.Can be a good feed source but one of the biggest factors is how the combine is set.If u drop your concave and slow the cylinder down u can get a lot of pods remaining on stem.Quality will vary yearly for sure depending on conditions testing will give u idea how to feed it.We feed it with barley or oat straw run through a processor. Also have the baler in the field with the combine if possible

[smcgrath76]

Assuming a sort of average pea straw and an average barley as an example, a 1400 pound cow at 2% DM intake can eat about 30 pounds of pea straw (maybe).
Based on my cowbytes program and a couple of quick changes to the amount of pea straw/barley it is a bit touchy. With 10 pounds of barley a day you are stretching the limits on DM intake and about 90 days to gain a 1/2 BCS. This is assuming a sort of mild winter. It will take feed testing, and a lot of attention to how your cows are performing but is probably doable. We have lots of neighbours that feed pea straw but soft white wheat straw is probably becoming the most common thing fed at lots of places now.

[WSS]

If I can get them to eat 30 lbs of pea straw (6% CP & 50% TDN) then I only need 2 lbs of pellets a day (rumensin) based on cow size and when we are calving. So yes it will all depend on what the tests say (and fibre for DMI); and as everyone keeps saying it really varies with pea straw and on-line test estimates say the same. I was just wondering if anyone had tried to get their cows to eat a large amount of it.