Is Bermuda Grass a Good Forage for Cattle?

Bermudagrass is one of the most widely used warm-season forages for cattle across the southern United States and other subtropical regions, and for good reason: it tolerates heat, drought, and poor soils while producing high yields when managed well. Whether it qualifies as “good” forage, though, depends almost entirely on how you manage it. The same species can range from excellent feed that supports strong daily weight gains to low-quality roughage that barely meets a cow’s maintenance needs. Cultivar choice, harvest timing, fertilization, and grazing strategy all shift bermudagrass quality dramatically, so the honest answer is less about the grass itself and more about the decisions you make around it.

How Maturity Changes Everything

The single biggest factor determining bermudagrass forage quality is plant maturity at the time of grazing or harvest. As bermudagrass grows, crude protein drops while fiber and lignin climb. Research tracking bermudagrass nutritive value over the growing season found that crude protein concentration had a negative, curvilinear relationship with day of year, while fiber and lignin concentrations rose in the opposite pattern.¹ In practical terms, a bermudagrass pasture grazed at three to four weeks of regrowth can deliver solid nutrition. Let it grow to seven or eight weeks and you are looking at a very different feed, with lower digestibility and protein that may not meet the needs of growing or lactating animals without supplementation.

This pattern holds for hay as well. Longer intervals between harvests increase fiber and lignin while reducing dry matter and fiber digestibility.² The same principle applies to stockpiled bermudagrass held for fall and winter grazing. In studies of stockpiled bermudagrass, fiber components generally increased across harvest dates while digestibility declined over time.³ If you are making hay or stockpiling for winter, time your cutting or grazing initiation to catch the grass before quality drops off a cliff.

Cultivar Selection Makes a Real Difference

Not all bermudagrass is created equal. Coastal bermudagrass was the standard hybrid for decades, and it remains productive. But newer cultivars, especially Tifton 85, have changed what cattlemen can expect from the species. In head-to-head comparisons, Tifton 85 produced roughly a third more dry matter than Coastal, with nearly 48% more digestible dry matter and substantially higher fiber digestibility, despite actually having higher overall fiber concentrations.⁴ The key difference is lignin: Coastal carries more lignin and less digestible fiber, which means cattle extract less energy from the same amount of forage.

Steers fed Tifton 85 hay consistently showed higher digestion of dry matter, organic matter, and fiber fractions compared to steers fed Coastal hay. The recommended harvest window for either cultivar is three to five weeks of regrowth, but the advantage of Tifton 85 persists across harvest ages. In broader comparisons including the older Tifton 44 hybrid, Tifton 44 showed little consistent advantage over Coastal, while Tifton 85 offered greater digestible fiber and potentially greater digestible intake.⁵ Tifton 85 hays have consistently shown higher in vitro and in vivo digestibility than Coastal or Tifton 78, even when fiber content in the Tifton 85 hay exceeded 70%.⁶

If you are establishing new bermudagrass pasture or hayfields and your climate supports it, the cultivar decision is one of the most impactful choices you will make. Tifton 85 does require vegetative planting (sprigs, not seed), which raises establishment cost, but the payoff in forage quality and animal performance is well documented.

What Kind of Weight Gains Can You Expect?

Stocker cattle on well-managed bermudagrass pasture can gain at rates that make the system viable, though gains tend to be moderate compared to cool-season grasses or high-quality legume pastures. In a study across grazing seasons using Angus steers averaging about 212 kg, cattle on bermudagrass at a moderate forage mass gained around 0.88 kg per day, while cattle pushed harder on lower forage mass gained about 0.67 kg per day.⁷ That tradeoff is typical: increasing stocking density cuts individual gains but boosts total gain per hectare because more animals are on the land.

Individual performance also depends on the animal. Research on stocker cattle grazing bermudagrass has developed models estimating daily gains based on the animal’s age and body condition at the start of the grazing period, reflecting the reality that younger, thinner cattle tend to compensate with faster initial gains.⁸ You should not expect bermudagrass alone to finish cattle to slaughter weight; it is typically a backgrounding or growing forage, putting frame and condition on animals before they move to a finishing diet.

Nitrogen Fertilization and Protein Content

Bermudagrass is a hungry grass. Without nitrogen, it produces modest yields with low protein. Adding nitrogen changes the equation substantially. Classic research on Coastal bermudagrass showed that increasing nitrogen application boosted hay yield, protein percentage, and protein yield per acre.⁹ More recent work on irrigated bermudagrass confirmed this pattern: increasing nitrogen rates up to high levels raised both biomass yield and protein content while also improving feed quality.¹⁰

Nitrogen also played a role in stockpiled bermudagrass quality. Applying nitrogen at the start of the stockpiling period generally reduced fiber components and increased crude protein in the forage held for winter grazing.³ The challenge is cost: nitrogen fertilizer is one of the biggest line items in bermudagrass production, and at high rates the law of diminishing returns kicks in. Producers have to balance the quality gains against fertilizer expense, which is one reason alternative strategies like interseeding legumes have attracted attention.

Extending the Grazing Season With Cool-Season Overseeding

Bermudagrass goes dormant in winter, which leaves a gap of several months when pastures are not producing new growth. One of the most effective strategies to deal with this is overseeding bermudagrass pastures with cool-season annual forages. Planting small grains, annual ryegrass, or clovers into bermudagrass sod extends the active grazing period and provides the highest nutritive value of any forage class used in southeastern cow-calf operations.¹¹

Long-term studies comparing bermudagrass overseeded with arrowleaf clover or annual ryegrass showed that calves gained significantly more weight per day on the cool-season forages from February to mid-June than on bermudagrass from mid-June through September.¹² Cow gains also favored the spring cool-season period. This approach essentially turns bermudagrass pasture into a year-round grazing system rather than a warm-season-only resource. Mixing bermudagrass with alfalfa is another option that has shown promise: Tifton 85 mixed with alfalfa produced forage with greater crude protein and total digestible nutrients than bermudagrass alone, potentially reducing or eliminating the need for supplemental feed to meet a lactating beef cow’s requirements.¹³

When Supplementation Becomes Necessary

For many cattle classes, bermudagrass alone does not quite cover all nutritional needs, especially as forage quality declines in late summer or during the winter stockpiling period. Beef cows grazing stockpiled bermudagrass after the first killing frost did not respond to supplementation during the initial 30 days but benefited from it later in winter as the forage quality continued to deteriorate.¹⁴ This suggests that freshly stockpiled bermudagrass holds its quality reasonably well at first but degrades enough over weeks that cows need help.

For cattle on bermudagrass hay, energy supplementation can make a meaningful difference. Research on heifers and steers consuming Tifton 85 hay found that increasing supplementation with a molasses-glycerol mixture linearly increased daily weight gains, likely by stimulating microbial activity in the rumen and improving fiber digestion.¹⁵ In rotational grazing systems with replacement dairy heifers on Tifton 85, a higher supplementation rate improved daily gains in one of two study years, while shorter rest periods between grazing rotations produced forage with better crude protein and digestibility.¹⁶

Bermudagrass for Dairy Cattle

Bermudagrass has traditionally been viewed as a beef forage, but research has shown it can work for dairy cows too, particularly when the right cultivar is used. In feeding trials with high-producing lactating Holstein cows, Tifton 85 bermudagrass haylage replaced alfalfa hay without reducing dry matter intake or milk yield when diets were properly balanced for fiber.¹⁷ That is a significant finding, because alfalfa is the gold standard dairy forage and anything that can substitute for it without cutting milk production gives dairy producers in bermudagrass-growing regions a local forage option.

Earlier work evaluating diets with increasing bermudagrass fiber content concluded that high-quality bermudagrass hybrids could serve as a forage alternative for lactating dairy cows, with good digestion characteristics and relatively small effects on intake despite the high fiber levels.¹⁸ Dairy heifers on bermudagrass pasture also performed adequately, with average daily gains around half a kilogram regardless of whether rotational or continuous stocking methods were used.¹⁹ The stand itself may benefit from rotational grazing over the long run, even if short-term animal performance is similar.

How Bermudagrass Compares as a Standing Forage

When pitted against other warm-season grasses, bermudagrass holds up well for stockpiling forage into fall and winter. In comparisons with bahiagrass and kikuyugrass as standing hay crops, bermudagrass was rated the most suitable species for stockpiling. Bahiagrass cultivars generally had higher crude protein but also had consistently higher acid detergent fiber, a measure closely linked to lower digestibility. Fiber in all species increased with time, with the sharpest monthly jump usually coming after December.²⁰ So while bermudagrass does not win on raw protein, its overall suitability for deferred grazing is a real advantage in regions where all three species grow.

Bermudagrass also earns points for resilience. As a warm-season grass with aggressive stolon and rhizome growth, it tolerates drought, saline conditions, and nutrient-poor soils better than many alternatives.²¹ In a changing climate with more frequent dry spells across the southern US, that stress tolerance is a practical buffer for cow-calf operations that cannot afford to lose their forage base in a bad year.

Bermuda Grass Staggers and Toxicity Risk

There is one health risk specific to bermudagrass that producers should know about. Cattle grazing bermudagrass pastures occasionally develop tremors, sometimes called “bermuda grass staggers.” For years the cause was not well understood, but research identified the culprit: indole-diterpene mycotoxins produced by the fungus Claviceps cynodontis, which infects bermudagrass seedheads. During an outbreak that caused staggers in cattle in South Africa, paspalitrems and paspaline-like compounds were found in infected seedheads, directly linking the tremor syndrome to specific mycotoxins.²²

The risk is highest when bermudagrass is producing seedheads and conditions favor fungal infection. Most cases are self-limiting once cattle are moved off the affected pasture. Keeping pastures clipped or grazed short enough to prevent heavy seedhead formation is the best prevention. The condition is uncommon enough that it should not dissuade anyone from using bermudagrass, but it is worth knowing about so you recognize the signs and respond quickly if it happens.

The Bermudagrass Stem Maggot Problem

A more recent and widespread concern is the bermudagrass stem maggot, an invasive fly that has become a persistent pest throughout southeastern bermudagrass pastures and hayfields. The maggot damages stems, causing the top leaves to die and turn brown, which reduces both yield and quality. Research estimated that for every one-percent increase in damaged stems, yield drops by roughly 10 kg per hectare.²³ Stem maggot damage also had a negative effect on crude protein and digestible nutrients, though those quality effects explained only a small portion of the variability.

Fine-stemmed bermudagrass varieties are more susceptible to damage than lines with thicker stems.²⁴ Strategically timed pyrethroid sprays reduce adult fly populations and limit yield loss, but integrated management using cultural practices and attention to harvest timing is the long-term approach. Producers who see mysterious browning in bermudagrass fields during late summer should suspect the stem maggot, especially in the Southeast.

Economics of Bermudagrass Grazing Systems

Being a good forage biologically is one thing; being economically viable is another. The answer here is mixed and depends heavily on the management system. A study comparing conventional bermudagrass cow-calf systems against stockpiling and interseeding strategies found that the simplest conventional approach was slightly more profitable. Total costs for the conventional system ran about $722 per head, compared to $732 per head for a stockpile-plus-interseeding system and $895 per head for a system incorporating annual cereal cropland. The conventional system ended up about $5 per head more profitable than the stockpile-interseeding system because higher machinery, seed, and fertilization costs outweighed the savings from reduced hay feeding.²⁵

For stocker cattle, the picture shifts depending on whether legumes enter the equation. A study evaluating alternative bermudagrass-based stocker systems found that interseeding alfalfa with rotational grazing produced the best net return at $44 per hectare, while conventional bermudagrass systems with nitrogen fertilizer and supplemental feed had low net returns because those input costs ate into margins.²⁶ The takeaway for producers: straight bermudagrass with heavy nitrogen and supplementation is expensive. Incorporating legumes to offset some of that nitrogen cost and boost forage quality can flip the economics from marginal to positive.

Methane and Environmental Considerations

Cattle on bermudagrass produce methane like cattle on any forage, and the environmental footprint of forage-based systems is an increasingly relevant question. Research looking at diets blending bermudagrass hay with sericea lespedeza, a tannin-containing legume, found that total daily methane emissions did not change as the proportion of lespedeza in the diet increased.²⁷ That was somewhat disappointing from a mitigation standpoint, since tannins in other legumes have shown promise in reducing enteric methane. Still, the result confirms that bermudagrass-based diets do not appear to carry unusual methane penalties compared to other warm-season forages. The broader environmental story for bermudagrass is mostly positive: its perennial root system holds soil in place, its drought tolerance means it survives without irrigation in many areas, and well-managed bermudagrass pastures can build soil organic matter over time.