About a year and a half ago, we found a good deal on hay. We bought 4.5 tons for a decent price.
This was long before we had our cows, of course, but hay stored under cover does fine for a couple of years (meaning, it doesn't lose much of its nutritional value).
This hay fed our cows all through the winter, but we knew in advance it wouldn't be enough to get them through the lean early-spring time, so we've been keeping an eye out for another good deal.
We found it. A local farmer was selling "okay"-quality hay in 500-lb. round bales. Round bales aren't our first choice, but the price was right, so we bought three tons (12 bales).
The farmer was able to deliver them (which was nice, since we don't have the means to transport a lot of hay), and Don was able to offload the bales from the man's flatbed and place them next to the driveway for the night.
The next day, Don moved the bales. He used tines attached to front of the tractor bucket...
...to stab a bail and hoist it up.
One by one, he transported the bales up the lower driveway to the barn area.
He stacked them neatly in an area heavy with gravel (meaning, good drainage). We anchored one side with a railroad tie to keep the bales from rolling.
The other side has cinder blocks to accomplish this task.
Then, since rain was threatening, we fetched a large tarp and got it over the hay and anchored.
This hay has some discolored spots, but it's not moldy. We can discard any parts that aren't good and feed the cows with the rest.
We didn't store the hay in the barn because, at the moment, we don't have room. Not only do we still have some bales left from our first batch, but the barn was messy and disorganized after a winter of shoving things "temporarily" under cover and then leaving them there. (The totes of Christmas items were still on the floor instead of up in the loft, for example.)
For the last couple days, Don has been cleaning the barn with a vengeance, and it's looking vastly improved. He still has a lot of anonymous totes and crates that even now, four years after moving here, hasn't been sorted. He suspects most of it is junk and will get discarded, but of course he needs to go through them all to confirm.
At any rate, this hay will last us well into the warm months when the grass in our pasture will be tall enough to let the cows graze without supplementing.
In all our years of rural living, raising and baling our own hay is one thing we've never been able to do. We've never had the acreage, the equipment, or the money. We accept this limitation and know that purchasing hay is just one of the things we'll have to do each year.
Additionally, this is one of the few planned purchases we had in mind following my job loss and our subsequent financial "tightening of the belt." Under no circumstances would we ever allow our animals to suffer.
Good job!
ReplyDeleteThat is a lot of hay!
ReplyDeleteWe pretty much have to feed hay year round. Our soil is sandy and our weather is dry, plus the requirement for AG exemption is high. We have a total of 11 acres for the cattle. At least 3, if not 4'acres are wooded and very little grass grows there. We have to keep 3500 pounds of cattle on the place for six months out of the year. But what we have would not support a cow and calf. And where else will we put them for six months?
ReplyDeleteHowever, though I doubt we really save money, we do know what our beef ate and how they were treated. And that's enough.
Haying is not for the faint of heart - we did it for a few years. My husband was working nights, I was working days, and we had young children. Hay is ready to be cut before it totally blooms and the stems get tough, after which you lose your shot at much of a second cutting. You need good weather. Once cut, you pray that it does NOT get rained on, especially after 12-24 hours and it gets bailed too wet, or it will mold and may spontaneously combust. A Bigger problem! You need good weather. If it lays on the ground too long, it gets cooked on one side, loses nutrients, and may need more raking. Higher input cost and more leaf loss. You need good weather. If it is ready to bale but gets too hot during the day it will be too dry to bale as the leaves will shatter and fall off, taking nutrients along the way - especially with an alfalfa mix. So, you wait for dew to have slight moisture - usually between midnight and about 7 am. You also pray for no summer popup thunderstorms as your conditions are approaching 'just right'. You need good weather. Lastly, with small square bales - affectionately known as "idiot cubes" after the advent of the round baler - you MUST get them off the field immediately as a small amount of rain will destroy the quality and all of your work in short order. The stress is incredible. And people wonder why farmers always talk about the weather and are up at all kinds of strange hours. It isn't a job; it is a lifestyle.
ReplyDeleteWe still get 100 - 150 of the IC's each year as nothing beats them for correct portions (feeding by weight) and there is very little waste compared to large bales when properly stored. Getting 'bale throwing and stacking' labor is darn near impossible to find and extremely expensive. You have to be ready to do it yourself. Natodakn
I get the small square bales for rabbits (and for the chickens' tractors in winter). They're not nearly as available as large round bales. FWIW, I see a lot of farmers around me who mow their fields, bale their hay in large round bales, then leave it to rot in the fields--sometimes for months or years. I haven't figured that out yet. It seems like a lot of effort for no return: maybe they just can't find a buyer. They can get several mowings in per year here.
ReplyDeleteI consider it a "grocery" purchase. It helps provide me with meat, dairy, and fertilizer for they garden.
ReplyDelete