Testing the oat hay for nitrates allows you to make informed decisions on how this forage might be used. You can adapt cattle to nitrates in forages if you do it slowly. Most problems seen when feeds with high nitrates are given, is that cattle get exposed to a bale high in nitrates and are hungry. Manage nitrates in forages by either slowly adapting the cattle or by mixing the high nitrate feed with a feed that is low in nitrates to dilute to a safe level. The oat hay you have is considered borderline and needs to be managed. If you are feeding it to growing and backgrounding calves, oat hay will make up maybe one-half to two-thirds of the diet. There will likely be some grain in the diet. In this situation, start with an inclusion rate of about one-half the diet. At these inclusion rates, nitrates are diluted to 700 to 940 ppm nitrate nitrogen. This will allow the rumen microbes to adapt to the nitrates. Grains will help in the metabolism of the nitrates. Allow pregnant beef cows to adapt to the oat hay, and this will allow the rumen microbes to adapt. You can do this by mixing it with another hay. If the oat hay is one-half to two-thirds of the diet, that dilutes the nitrate to less than 1,000 ppm nitrate nitrogen. Don't allow pregnant cows a full-feed of the oat hay.

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