A winter pasture, full of annual forages such as small grains and annual ryegrass, benefits small farms with easy-to-grow, highly-nutritious forage while saving money, time and effort. It is no wonder that more and more farmers across the United States are adopting winter grazing habits for cattle, sheep, horses and goats. Planting a winter pasture also helps stretch your stockpiles of hay, requiring less to buy and less time in the field to harvest.

Ragan & Massey offers three different forage seed solutions for your small farm. Choose one, or a combination of all, to give your livestock a healthy diet throughout the winter.

Prine

Prine is a non-GMO commercial annual ryegrass variety, which is an essential component for forage-based livestock diets. This high-yield, cold tolerant, rust- and disease-resistant tetraploid variety is palatable, establishes quickly and produces a lot of forage in a short amount of time. Prine is a great forage choice for goats, sheep and cattle, although it’s recommended to add a high magnesium mineral to your cattle’s diet as well, similarly to all other winter forage varieties.

RAM™ Forage Oats

These oats were created just for mall grain forage. Forage oats are very cold tolerant, have proven yields, are rust resistant and establish quickly. RAM Forage Oats can be planted as early as September or October for great early fall forage through the winter, which can be extended by planting forage oats with Prine for cold-season forage that lasts till May. RAM Forage Oats were bred at LSU and selected for their outstanding forage characteristics. Yields of up to 12,000 pounds of quality forage dry matter have been found in trials throughout the South.

UF-Riata Forage Seed

This forage seed is a purebred diploid bahiagrass that features improved cold tolerance and a growing season that extends well into the spring and fall months when days are shorter and temperatures are lower. It also exhibits excellent stand establishment and seedling vigor. Bahiagrass is an easily seeded bunching grass that forms a thick, dense sod that can withstand the impact from cattle and horses. Our UF-Riata seed was researched and developed from the outstanding University of Florida breeding program.

Using these three guaranteed Ragan & Massey products will help produce profitable winter forage programs that will extend the grazing season throughout the winter. Find out where to buy these, and other Ragan & Massey products, near you.