# Ideas for a crop with double use (bees and donkeys)



## Rusty Hills Farm (Mar 24, 2010)

My first thought was clover, but I have no idea when clover blooms in Portugal, so the timing may be wrong for what you need.

Rusty


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## brooksbeefarm (Apr 13, 2008)

If you have a garden and like radishes put out enough to eat and let the rest go to seed, bees love there blooms.


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

I have horses and bees and I planted:
a horse pasture grass mixture that has:
Bluegrass
Timothy
A cool season grass (don't remember the name but it wasn't Brome)
Alfalfa

Then I planted:
yellow sweet clover
white sweet clover
white dutch clover
birdsfoot trefoil
chickory

In addition I planted some wildflowers:
goldenrod
joe pye weed
ironweed
asters

I also collect danelion seed from yards that let it go to seed and plant that every chance I get.

The chickory tends to be late and blooms for a long time even in a drought.


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## pedrocr (Jun 5, 2012)

Thanks for all the ideas. I'll have to go through them and figure out what is feasible for our weather and particularly what is feasible for the donkeys.



Michael Bush said:


> I have horses and bees and I planted:
> a horse pasture grass mixture that has:
> Bluegrass
> Timothy
> ...


Michael, do you happen to know if any of these are particularly rich in calories/protein? Donkies are desert animals and can only handle poorer feeds compared to horses. I'd like to be able to leave the donkeys out to pasture as much as possible, so ideally I'd like to have things that actually dry up after flowering. In a grass pasture I have to give them dry feed in the morning and only then set them loose on the pasture for a limited time, and I have to be careful in the spring because all the grasses have grown very fast and are highly caloric. I assume you don't have that issue with the horses.


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## Bizzybee (Jan 29, 2006)

Don't know a thing about donkeys but I do know that everybody in GA that has pasture for anything has at least one donkey for the coyotes. I'm sure few of them have the elaborate array of plants that Michael has but they are heavy in grasses and dutch clover and some sweet clover. Their donkeys are always in the pastures.


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

>Michael, do you happen to know if any of these are particularly rich in calories/protein? Donkies are desert animals and can only handle poorer feeds compared to horses. 

Pretty much all the legumes as well as the chicory... maybe you should stick with just the chicory if you're concerned about too much protein and you want a late bloomer than can handle drought...


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