# forage to decrease the HC worm burdon



## Bella Star (Oct 27, 2007)

I have been reading up on the HC worm and what will help my goat's with the problem I have here in E. Texas . I read that Sericea lespedeza is a perennial invasive grass that grows up to 5 feet tall ,loves poor,dry soil and goats love it ,however other cattle doesn't , It seems to be growing all over Arkansas . 
Does anybody here have this grass ?? Sericea lespedeza ???

I think anything beats cactus !!
This sounds like a goaters dream :biggrin


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## Guest (Dec 3, 2007)

Linda ,,, yes , it grows readily in most road right of ways and open fields around here......but it really is not much grass like as you might be thinking. It is more weed like if anything. We have planted it on hunting properties in the past, because it has so many benefits to both large and small game. It is a deep rooted and very drought tolerant plant that normal matures every year at about 2 ft tall. 
We had our best success planting it by using a grain drill. Heavy grasses tend to choke it out a little bit if planted in rich soil. It works best around here to reclaim poor, over worked ground, that may come as a result from strip mining, ect.
I think it would be best if with goats on it, that it only be made available to them in rotation. I really believe that constant over grazing on this plant would kill it out . Unlike grass, its regrowth is much slower.


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## Ashley (Oct 25, 2007)

_That's_ what that stuff is! We have a little, though my goats didn't seem terribly interested in it, maybe they just need to get a taste for it. I wonder if that would be good to plant on our hillside to the southwest of our house, it's rocky and grass grows sparse there.


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## Kaye White (Oct 25, 2007)

:lol One field my hay man does has a lot of lespedeza gowing in it...along with Johnson grass...HE KNOWS we want the hay from that field.  When fed as hay, the goats have a very hard time choosing between mouthfuls of johnson or lespedeza. As we drive along the interstate DH & I make the comments...sure wish we had all that baled. 
Here's an interesting site on planting Sericea Lespedeza.
http://www.scsrpc.org/SCSRPC/Files/Files/SL planting & weed control.pdf
Kaye


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## Guest (Dec 3, 2007)

Just be sure to research this plant a little to be sure that you know what your getting......there are several lespedeza's....... ..bi color ? is one that can be bought and planted, and it is more of a shrub or bush, and can spread like wild fire and be a pain. I've seen it 10 ft tall , which is to high for most goats, unless they were to ride it down. ......cobe? is a low growing type...6 to 12 or so inches, and would be more helpful to smaller mammals.......
Whatever the case.....be sure that your seed dealer knows exactly what your talking about, because in my case I found that they had different idea's of what I was wanting.......I had to send back , and have them re-order at least a couple of times.
Like perennial clovers, you would have to give this stuff a little time to get established in order for it to do well.........I think I would like it to be at least a foot tall before putting anything on it.


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## Kaye White (Oct 25, 2007)

Ya, know...whim... this made me think :really..OUCH! I wonder if the tannin acid, that's suppose to be bad for HC,good for goats, is not diminished when it's fed as dried hay??? Kinda' like oak leaves, acorns, ect...
Oh,well...I just know, by fecals, that I still need to use a chemical wormer for HC and the goats like the hay. :lol
Kaye


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## Guest (Dec 3, 2007)

Kaye; I know there's research on this plant that I haven't looked at in a while, but I have to wonder in these evaluations, if it was factored in that one reason the goats get less wormy is because they are feeding way up off the ground on this plant . I really don't find heavy worm troubles around here until people try to convert these natural browsers into grass grazers.


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## Kaye White (Oct 25, 2007)

:rofl Don't you guys just love it when us OCD type get to over-analizing these things?? :rofl
Kaye


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## Guest (Dec 3, 2007)

:twisted I hope I can take that as a compliment......OCD...old collie dog?....over collected dust?........Old cantankerous devil?....... :rofl I usually do well with 3 and 4 lettered words.....I must have had to much wine last night.


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## Kaye White (Oct 25, 2007)

> Old cantankerous devil?.......


 :rofl Yep, that's me.
OCD= Obsessive Compulsive Disorder or "dang it that just don't make sense". 
Kaye


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## Guest (Dec 3, 2007)

Do not get serecia lespedeza. This is considered a weed around here. Highway Dept. Planted it along roadsides for soil erosion and it spread like wildfire. Now they'll pay you to spray for it. http://www.missouriplants.com/Whitealt/Lespedeza_cuneata_page.html


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## Guest (Dec 3, 2007)

OCD....well, at least you know what your problem is. I can't seem to get a diagnosis on me from any of these quacks around here. After about 2 visits with them, they usually start taking medication themselves and tell me not to come back. :crazy
Linda, I swear I'm sorry for leaving the topic a bit, but your county agent may have a lot of info on Lespedeza growth in your area. At one time the state would help with the cost of planting it, because of the value that it had on trying to restore the bobwhite quail population.


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## NubianSoaps.com (Oct 26, 2007)

I have to wonder in these evaluations, if it was factored in that one reason the goats get less wormy is because they are feeding way up off the ground on this plant .
.....................

I asked this also. It's too tall for worms to float up onto with most normal pasture moisture. I did get some to overseed last year and this year with my seed mixture, they had it for sale after the talk at the Bryan coop. I think  I have identified it in my pasture last year after planting, this year I just did 10 pounds mixed in one pasture to be sure. I keep husband and his brush hog out of my pastures, with most of the grasses belly high, that in itself is going to really help. Vicki


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## Ashley (Oct 25, 2007)

coso said:


> Do not get serecia lespedeza. This is considered a weed around here. Highway Dept. Planted it along roadsides for soil erosion and it spread like wildfire. Now they'll pay you to spray for it. http://www.missouriplants.com/Whitealt/Lespedeza_cuneata_page.html


 That's what you want for goat food!

My grandpa was telling me years ago when he had a different herd of goats, he planted kudzu in his field for them.

They eventually ate the kudzu down to the ground and dug up the roots and ate those too!


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## Guest (Dec 3, 2007)

As a personal note; I used to have pretty much unlimited resources in doing research for deer and turkey management and had the land to do it on......I planted about whatever is out there in search of growing bigger deer with bigger antlers......wild peas, clovers, lespedeza's, wheat , rye , sorghum, millets, and you name it. I found one thing that brings interest to me, and that is in the wild, most of these plant are only eaten seasonally for the most part by deer. I find a lot of the same with goats when given the chance......My goats don't like sweetgum leaves except for now, when they are turning reds and yellows, and falling off the trees. Deer really hit my clover fields in the fall, but didn't seem to care for it in the spring. I have some bamboo that grows in my pasture , and the goats love it , but will only eat it in early fall. 

I think you will find similar eating habits with goats on most perennial plants. I'm not at all sure how long a feeding period that goats would have when it comes to lespedeza, but I almost becha it would be late summer to fall. 
Just keep in mind with a bunch of these perennial plantings, that it can take several months to get them established....like with perennial clovers, it can take up to a year before you could really describe it as a substantial food source.


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## Ashley (Oct 25, 2007)

whimmididdle said:


> As a personal note; I used to have pretty much unlimited resources in doing research for deer and turkey management and had the land to do it on......I planted about whatever is out there in search of growing bigger deer with bigger antlers......wild peas, clovers, lespedeza's, wheat , rye , sorghum, millets, and you name it. I found one thing that brings interest to me, and that is in the wild, most of these plant are only eaten seasonally for the most part by deer. I find a lot of the same with goats when given the chance......My goats don't like sweetgum leaves except for now, when they are turning reds and yellows, and falling off the trees. Deer really hit my clover fields in the fall, but didn't seem to care for it in the spring. I have some bamboo that grows in my pasture , and the goats love it , but will only eat it in early fall.
> 
> I think you will find similar eating habits with goats on most perennial plants. I'm not at all sure how long a feeding period that goats would have when it comes to lespedeza, but I almost becha it would be late summer to fall.
> Just keep in mind with a bunch of these perennial plantings, that it can take several months to get them established....like with perennial clovers, it can take up to a year before you could really describe it as a substantial food source.


Yes, I know what you mean. My goats never touched the ferns growing in the woods until just recently. Sometimes like like cedar, sometimes not.

There is some kind of mint weed growing on our property that I hate. It gets really big, like 4 ft tall if left alone and gets real thick strong stems, crowds out grass, etc. The horses never touched it until about October and they ate it all.


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## Qvrfullmidwife (Oct 25, 2007)

Whim asked what was my fiorst thought...was the worm burden lower because of WHAT They were eating but WHERE they were eating, ie up highter ...


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## Guest (Dec 4, 2007)

I don't want something that is invasive as serecia is. It will take over if your not careful and kill out your native species. Multiflower rose is the same way USCS thought it would make good fence rows, and it probably would if you plowed your fields every year like in a row crop situation. But it will take over if not controlled, goats love it though. I know the QDMA guys don't like serecia anymore either don't know if it's because of it being invasive or because of the forage quality.


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## Bella Star (Oct 27, 2007)

I am not really worried about it taking over as we have Bahaya grass in the pasture next to us, the grass seed blows over,the goats dont really care for it and I wore out 4 sets of blades out on my mower this year.... ugh !! There is also a native tall,clump grass that the goats and chickens both wont eat ,so the sericea forage would be better as it would be ate here.

Thanks Kaye, For the site to order it from ,I also grew some johnson grass from seed I put in my pocket out on a hike and the goats loved it ,I hope to get some growing in my pasture, my goats like wild plums and blackberry vines also and I encourage them to grow. I would like to get a perennial deer mix also to try.


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## Sheryl (Oct 27, 2007)

*Re: forage to decrease the HC worm burdon Johnson grass*

Please don't feed your goats johnson grass. It will kill them!!!!!!! I killed two bucks overnight feeding them a bale of hay that someone had given me that was costal with a bunch, and I mean a bunch of johnson grass in it. I gave it to them at 10:30 at night, and at 7 am they were already dead!. The johnson grass at certain times during growth, when the stems turn red or have a red streak in them are poisonous. When baled in hay, they have a gas, kinda like the sudan has (except you can let the sudan cure for a week and the gas goes away) The johnson grass doesn't cure like that, and the poison stays in the stem. The goats eat it, it causes them to bloat and die. I learned the hard way. I lost two very nice bucks by one stupid mistake. I had been told before that goats couldn't eat johnson grass, but I didn't believe the person who told me. I'm a believer know.

Sheryl


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## Guest (Dec 6, 2007)

This is prussic acid poisoning. It happens in haygrazer, Johnsongrass, plants like this after a drought or a freeze. It will kill cattle too although goats may be more sensitive to it, I don't know. From what I understand though it is supposed to not effect hay unless it has not been cured properly. Did you feed this right after it was baled? It does effect ensilage. Farmers lose cattle every year putting cattle on a field that is in this condition. We ask a vet one time if you could test for it and he told us the only way he knew was to stick one cow in there for a day and if she wasn't dead the next you knew it was OK. That was 20 years ago though I imagine there is a way to test now. We used to plant haygrazer, hay it once or twice depending on the weather, then let the cattle in on it in the fall.


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## Guest (Dec 6, 2007)

That is also my understanding of johnson grass.....it appeared to me that it was somewhat like wilted cherry, plum, and peach leaves. Hi acid content in a certain stage. It is very hard to bale mixed grass hay around here without having some amounts of johnson grass in it......in other words, my goats get their share of it.

I have noticed over years of whitetail deer management, that deer just about won't touch johnson grass in any stage.......I can only assume that there is something in it that don't agree with them.


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## Sheryl (Oct 27, 2007)

I worked for the gentleman that baled the hay at the time. He had had it in his barn for a couple of months. There was one spot in his pasture that was a big patch of johnson gras. He pulled this bale out of the barn and was fixing to feed to his cutting horses and noticed one end was almost all johnson grass, the other end was costal. He didn't want to feed it to his horses, and he gave it to me, I brought it home from work. I remember him telling me about it having some johnson grass in it. I was tired, it was late, I busted the bale open, and threw it in the pen for the bucks. I remember later (after I found them dead the next am) that I felt a lot of johnson grass and no costal on the part that I chunked in the pen. Didn't think anything of it. Of course after I had killed the boys, my daughter who had taken an animal nutrition class and some other vet/animal type classes at college that year told me that her instructor said never to feed the johnson grass when it had the red streak in it, baled or fresh. Of course ever time I look at pieces of johnson grass in the field, I can always find some with the red streak. My goats won't eat it in the pasture, they walk around it and avoide it. I will never intentionally feed it again I don't care what form it's in. That was a very hard lesson. I lost a very nice Nubian buck that year, and the best Alpine buck I ever owned. Only have one of his daughters.

Sheryl


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## Bella Star (Oct 27, 2007)

well,I dont have any growing as yet in the pasture just some I planted in my flower bed for seeds but I can easily till it up, but all the goats I have eat all the wild plums they can get..the leaves and the fruit ,especially ripe fruit .... I have no more wild plum jam


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