Hay Guinea Grass / Sorghum-Sudangrass as hay supplement

[Penadurahi]

Hello all,

First post and new to all of this. Was wondering if anyone has any experience feeding their piggies either guinea grass and/or Sorgum-Sudangrass brown mid rib (BMR) variety?

I live in Hawaii and have unlimited access to guinea grass, which is extremely invasive and found everywhere (think it was brought here to supplement cattle feed). Would be ironic if I could feed my guinea pigs some guinea grass lol.

I also grow a bunch of SS-BMR as a bio-accumulator and ground cover, which is generally
used as a cattle summer fodder crop in the Continental U.S.

Any help or recommendations would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

 

[bpatters]

I would say "maybe" on the guinea grass and "no" on the sudangrass.

Here's a reference to the sudangrass: https://www.sare.org/Learning-Cente...sion/Nonlegume-Cover-Crops/Sorghum-Sudangrass. And here's the thing that worries me:

Use care because these hybrids and other sorghums can produce prussic acid poisoning in livestock. Grazing poses the most risk to livestock when plants are young (up to 24 inches tall), drought stressed or killed by frost. Toxicity danger varies between cultivars.

The guinea grass is used for forage for livestock, and is grown for hay. But I can't find anything about the nutritional value of it. Some forages have too much calcium to be fed on a regular basis (think alfalfa here), and I don't know whether this is one of them or not.

But nearly every county in the U.S. has a county agent, sometimes called extension agent or agricultural agent. Their specialty is farming and agriculture, and the ones in your area should know how to find that information if they don't already know if. Click on "HI" in this list, and you'll find the ones in Hawaii: https://pickyourown.org/countyextensionagentoffices.htm