Oats for forage

Forage is important in the sense of providing fiber to ruminants. Forages provide rumen buffering and improve the fermentation efficiency of starchy grains. Cereal silages are often the preferred forage for animals.

Oat (Avena sativa L.) is a cereal forage crop which belongs to poaceae family. Oats alone or in mixture with barley (Hordeum vulgare L.) are commonly grown as a silage or green feed crop. Oat is popular cereal forage in cool semiarid regions.

As forage, oat generally out-yields other cereal crops such as barley, wheat, triticale and rye. Oats rank around sixth in the world cereal production statistics following wheat, maize rice, barley and sorghum. Oat grain has always been an important form of livestock feed. It contains large amount of digestible crude protein, total digestible nutrients (TDN), vitamin B1, minerals and fat. It is favorite feed of animals and its straw is soft and superior to wheat and barley.

Oats consumed as feed in the US are becoming a specialty feed for race horses, hobby farmers and breeding stock. The leading exporters of oat grain are Canada, Finland, Sweden Australia, and Argentina.
Oats for forage