The Chemical Composition and Nutritive Value of Welsh Hay Comparison With Other British Hays

Abstract

Hay has always occupied a pre-eminent position as a -winter food for British livestock and despite the ever-growing importance of silage and dried grass, it wHl probably continue to be an important constitutent of winter rations.Although a detailed account of the botanical and chemical composition of bog hay has been given by Evans (3) there has been no systematic attempt to study hay as fed to stock in Wales, and the paucity of information regarding its chemical composition is surprising. Moreover, there is an almost complete lack of data on the minor elements of British hays. The present investigation was undertaken with the object of making good these deficiencies, at least, to some extent.During the winter of 1948-49, fifty samples of hay were collected in Cardiganshire, and in 1949-50, fifty each from Cardiganshire and Breconshire, representing in all, 144 farms. All samples were collected by the writers and no attempt was made to select the farms visited which were, however, distributed fairly evenly over the counties and were mainly dairy farms. The individual samples were taken by picking numerous handfiils of the hay being fed at the time, e.g. from the surface of a rick or bay, or along a feeding passage. The composite sample was then sub-sampled for analysis. Since samples were taken over the December-April period, they represented hay fed during the greater part of the winter. It was considered that this method would jdeld reasonably representative results, whereas the sampling of an entire stack is very difficult and often impossible in practice.Although sampling was confined to two counties, it will be apparent that a wide range of conditions was covered, typical of many other areas in Wales. A combination of such natural factors as high rainfall, high altitudes and steep slopes has made fanning in Breconshire and Cardiganshire, as in many Welsh counties, distinctly pastoral in nature with great emphasis on livestock production.The area covered has an annual rainfall varying from just under 35-in. in the Llynfi Valley to aggregates of over 90-in. in the Brecon Beacons, while in Cardiganshire it varies from 40-in. along the coastal belt to 60-in. or more in the highland districts inland. Farms included in the survey were situated at elevations varjdng from sea level to over 1000 ft., overlying several geological formations. Breconshire is underlain almost entirely by Old Red Sandstone rocks with a belt of Carboniferous limestone along the southern boundary and hard and soft Silurian shales, mudstones and grits to the north of the Old Red Sandstone. Cardiganshire soils are derived mainly from Silurian rocks which extend into North Wales. The Plynlimon dome is formed of Ordovician rocks. • D. E. Morgan is now at the N.A.A.S. Sub-oentre, Bangor, North Wales. 161

The composition and nutritive value of hay grown in the east of Scotland and the influence of late applications of nitrogenous fertilizers

“…The results summarized in Table 1 show the protein contents of the untreated hays to be low and similar to the values obtained by Smith & Comrie (1948). Protein figures as low as 4-3 % have recently been reported for hay grown in Wales (Ashton & Morgan, 1952) but the average values for the Welsh hays were considerably higher, being 9-6 and 9-0 % for meadow hays and seeds-hays respectively. In the present work the average fibre content was slightly higher than the value obtained by Ashton & Morgan (1952) and appreciably higher than in the samples examined by Smith & Comrie (1948); this was associated with a lower content of nitrogen-free extractives.…”

“…Protein figures as low as 4-3 % have recently been reported for hay grown in Wales (Ashton & Morgan, 1952) but the average values for the Welsh hays were considerably higher, being 9-6 and 9-0 % for meadow hays and seeds-hays respectively. In the present work the average fibre content was slightly higher than the value obtained by Ashton & Morgan (1952) and appreciably higher than in the samples examined by Smith & Comrie (1948); this was associated with a lower content of nitrogen-free extractives. Although the seeds-hay from Humbie was the richest in protein, this was quite unlike the typical Lothians' seeds-hays, being the second year's growth of a mixture sown down for 5 years and containing a large number of species including ryegrass, timothy, cocksfoot, crested dogstail, and meadow grasses, as well as a good deal of white clover.…”