Red clover

[gng]

Our once primarily alfalfa/ brome grass hayfield has been invaded by red clover, it came in by itself. I have also overseeded with orchard grass so it is now probably 70% red clover/ 20% orchard grass and 10% alfalfa from the original planting with traces of the brome grass here and there, not much though. The horses seem to like it, I have been feeding this hay for about 2 years. I have two ancient pensioners who seem to do pretty well on it, eating the dried flowers, they are soft and easily chewed. Nothing in the hay is stemmy, it was harvested in midbloom. All horses are out on good pasture as long as the weather holds out, I am in a climate where we feed free choice hay all winter so the above hay is their predominant forage for 5 months out of the year.

I would like your opinion, since there are so many good minds here on this bb with so much experience..........do you think its ok to feed this hay mixture? No problems so far, the two young horses seem to be doing well on it too, they get supplemented with a Nutrena product, as well as the old horses get their Senior feed 2x per day. I have heard that some western ranches prefer red clover/ orchard grass hay because there is less winter kill and you don`t have to worry about it becoming too stemmy and coarse; your window of harvest time is much wider. I have also heard that red clover is not ideal horse hay. I know that it has to be harvested DRY, those flower heads are like sponges and the chance of mold is higher with red clover. Also, if its too dry, those broad flat leaves can be a source of dust. My hay is harvested at the right time and has never gotten rained on and is not dusty.

Opinions?

Thanks.

[Lkramer]

I love feeding red clover. It makes some horses drool pretty heavily, others don't. That would be the only down side I would see in it.

[Char]

We purposefully seeded our hay field with a mixture of red clover, orchard grass and alfalfa. The horses LOVE it, especially when I take them down to the edges of the field and let them graze on it. :D

[SpringOakFarm]

I'm in the "HATE RED CLOVER" club...my neighbor planted it in his garden which is adjacent to my front pasture - now my pasture has been invaded. One of my horses is fine on it but my other horse drools so excessively after being in the pasture. It's fine now, but in the middle of the summer, it got so bad that I completely stopped using the pasture.

My vet confirmed that he was okay - the slobber was a reaction to the clover and it wouldn't bother him. However, it couldn't have been comfortable for him and his feed bin would literally have 2-3 inches of slobber in it daily when he was in the barn. (Because he stood over it with his face to the fan, waiting for his next meal. Ha.) It just constantly poured out of his mouth.

I'm so careful about the type of seed and fertilizers that we use on our pastures - this ruined my pasture and interrupted my pasture rotation plans.
My neighbor committed to not using red clover again. (I was never upset with them - they didn't know and nor did I!)

In summary - your hay/pasture may not work for other horses, as it certainly wouldn't work for one of my boys who is so sensitive to it.

[Robin@DHH]

A caution about red clover. It has hard seed. That means that
any red clover that goes to seed and leaves its seed on the
ground has the potential for that seed to sprout next year...
or the year after...or the year after that...or even the decade
after that. I have neighbors who have never seeded their
hayfields with red clover but it is coming up in their fields.
And it didn't blow in from any neighbor field as none around
them are in red clover. The last time their fields were seeded
with red clover was in the early 1900s!

You can get it out of a pasture by using a herbicide which is
targeted to legumes and not grasses. Of course, it will also
kill alfalfa and white clover. But won't bother timothy, brome,
bluegrass or orchard grass (they are all grasses, not legumes).

I am curious, has anyone else had a horse suffer from slobbers
from eating red clover hay? We had had red clover in our
pasture cause slobbers but have never seen slobbers as a
result of eating hay containing red clover.

[shakeytails]

I am curious, has anyone else had a horse suffer from slobbers
from eating red clover hay? We had had red clover in our
pasture cause slobbers but have never seen slobbers as a
result of eating hay containing red clover.

I've never had slobbers from any kind of hay, including the year our hay was nearly 100% red clover because it overtook the orchardgrass. (That year I had to limit hay because my horses were turning into porkers!) I've also never had slobbers from red clover in pastures. The only time I've had slobbers is when it's dry and the only thing growing is white clover.

I welcome red clover in both the hay and pasture. It keeps my grain bills lower. The horses love it, do well on it, and it's a whole lot cheaper and more persistant than alfalfa. The only time I don't like it is when we have a really tight weather window for baling- clover can be difficult to dry down.

[gng]

I thought that horses get the slobbers from WHITE clover, not red.(fungus) I have never had a horse get slobbers from red clover, fresh or red clover hay but........I have let my horses into my yard to graze and they have gotten the slobbers, the yard has a large percentage of white clover in it.