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Millet utilized for grazing or harvesting as a whole crop
Millet utilized for grazing or harvesting as a whole crop
Several millets can produce good forage yields, and are useful for emergency forage or a catch crop after hailed-out crops. As warm-season species, millets are sensitive to late spring frosts, so they should be seeded after soil temperatures are consistently above 65 degrees. For emergency forage during a drought, millets can out-yield sudangrass or sorghums.
Foxtail Millet
Foxtail Millet
Forage varieties can be over 40 inches in height, and can be cut 75 to 90 days after seeding. Foxtail millet stems are slender and leafy, and the heads are dense and bristly. Due to its shallow root system, foxtail millet is a poor pasture crop . Foxtail millet should be hayed or windrow-grazed. For optimum quality, foxtail millet should be cut for hay in the late boot to early bloom stage. Delayed harvest can result in lump jaw or eye injury of livestock from the bristly heads. Hay millet should be checked for nitrate accumulation prior to feeding livestock.
if the sole roughage source. foxtail millet can cause problems when a major part of a horse’s diet. Thus as hay it should not be sold as horse hay. Problems include a laxative effect, excessive urination (cystitis), and kidney and bone or joint problems. The chemical, glucoside setaria, is found in foxtail and proso millet and may cause illness and even death in horses. Over-mature foxtail millet hay can act as a diuretic to horses
Pearl Millet
Pearl Millet
Pearl millet can be used as forage, depending on the variety. Most varieties or hybrids mature require 120 days to maturity. In Colorado, forage types of Pearl millet can reach 8 to 10- foot heights. There are dwarf or semidwarf types that are leafier and have less stem than the taller types. Though taller types produce more dry matter than the dwarf types, the stems make hay making more difficult. Although still requiring a mower-conditioner to crush the stems to hasten drying, the newer and leafier pearl millets are far superior to the older tall-type pearl millets. Pearl millet does not contain glucoside setaria as does foxtail or proso millet and unlike sorghums does not have the potential to cause prussic-acid (HCN) poisoning in animals.
If raising pearl millet to feed horses, do not allow it to go to seed as a fungus can infect the seed and causes an accumulation of a toxic alkaloid (similar to alfatoxins in corn).
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