Cutting Hay

Non drinker, so it would be a day trip for me...unless i am doing hay, then i would not be coming. Gotta make while the suns shining, and weekends are off days from job. Cut /ted weekday late afternoon/ evenings, windrow/bale saturdays & sunday. if weather is good try to start late may, and get done by mid june first cuttings.

All depends on weather.

Yep, that's my situation. Not only my own, but I help out 3 other guys & God knows what & when the weather co-operates.

One word: Silage

We learned a long time ago that hay just is not worth it. It takes too long to dry and you are always chasing rain drops. With the cost of string, wrappers, net...whatever you use, it just pays to buy some plastic, dump the silage in a big pile, pack it down and cover it with tires. Done!

I said I actually tried to kill Glue Stick (my pony) but I was just kidding. What actually happened was, we do not put up any hay so I fed the Pony silage figuring that his single stomach could not handle it, but that was not the case at all, he actually gained weight! The thing is the sheep nutritionist says to feed 60% hay silage and 40% corn silage, so he was fed the same ration as the sheep and thus had a pretty high grain diet gong on there. I finally found a 9 year old girl that wanted a pony and so she took him.

This is my daughters first Tractor Ride at age 18 months.

Oh yeah, usually 3rd cuttin gets chopped & wagon fed in the fall. Each farm is milking around 30 head & the round bales seem to work out best economically & efficiently. Now, the big farms local, all sleeve their silage & it's worth it. If you're makin it somewhat, ya don't mind spendin it somewhat. As you well know, that equipment is far from cheap.

Nope, that equipment is not cheap that is for sure though we do not sleeve it. We got a big hot top pad that the feed is dumped on, then is pushed over and packed down with a tractor, then plastic is rolled out and it is weighted down with tires. I do the same thing at my farm, but rather then put up a pile of feed here, I have it trucked over from the dairy farm since the bigger the pile is, the better the quality. I pack it down with my tractors, cover it and weight it down then feed it out over the course of a month. After that and it is time for another truckful. It sucks moving it around a lot, but the price is right.

There was a weird bartering system going on here this fall and as it ended up, I am feeding out round bales of hay because of a three way trade. I like how my sheep look as they do better on hay then silage, but the waste factor is huge. I went out and built a hay rack to cut down on the waste, but I am not sure it is down to acceptable levels. I know that it is free, but waste is waste to me. I have to do something as right now the waste is hoovering around 50%. That is a lot!

NoSmoke wrote:There was a weird bartering system going on here this fall and as it ended up, I am feeding out round bales of hay because of a three way trade. I like how my sheep look as they do better on hay then silage, but the waste factor is huge. I went out and built a hay rack to cut down on the waste, but I am not sure it is down to acceptable levels. I know that it is free, but waste is waste to me. I have to do something as right now the waste is hoovering around 50%. That is a lot!

I've noticed that the cows pull the hay from the big bales in the hay racks and if they have more than a mouth full the just toss it around and it falls to the ground and stomped on then they use it for bedding and lay on it,and if you don't feed them hay till it's all eaten up, they just go to the meadow and eat grass.Some how you need to pull it apart and fluff it up some so they don't get too much at a time,witch is more added work.

That must just be them, thar Pottstown cows Dennis. The cows up here & in NS's country are very prim & proper as far as their eating habits.

freetown fred wrote:That must just be them, thar Pottstown cows Dennis. The cows up here & in NS's country are very prim & proper as far as their eating habits.

Yea,and I bet their shi t don't stink also

You cow guys don't know how lucky you are. In dressage horse land we are now managing to attract trainers to our farm who used to go to Florida for the winter and now can't afford it,(yeh by being low bidder). These very expensive horses (not mine) only will eat second cutting and even then they are fussy. The last load was $10 a bale (about 70# on average).Came from the finger lakes and looked so great I am thinking of making a salad with it, a little ranch dressing and it will taste great. Times are tough!

NoSmoke wrote:We got a big hot top pad that the feed is dumped on, then is pushed over and packed down with a tractor, then plastic is rolled out and it is weighted down with tires. I do the same thing at my farm, but rather then put up a pile of feed here, I have it trucked over from the dairy farm since the bigger the pile is, the better the quality. I pack it down with my tractors, cover it and weight it down

My brother girlfreinds farm tore down the old silo's and made silage pits.They have teenagers and didn't want the kids up in the silos getting hurt or killed.So much easier than blowing everything up the silo,just unload the wagon and pack it down and cover.No climbing up the silo's when the unloader jambs or gets stuck,just pull the plastic back and dig into it.

coalnewbie wrote:You cow guys don't know how lucky you are. In dressage horse land we are now managing to attract trainers to our farm who used to go to Florida for the winter and now can't afford it,(yeh by being low bidder). These very expensive horses (not mine) only will eat second cutting and even then they are fussy. The last load was $10 a bale (about 70# on average).Came from the finger lakes and looked so great I am thinking of making a salad with it, a little ranch dressing and it will taste great. Times are tough!

The only thing I like about horse's is the girls that ride them

The only thing I like about horse's is the girls that ride them[/quote]

Come down our way and I will show you what to do with those old silos.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NOqqXrFI8vw

I grew up stomping down those old upright silos.

We would blow haylage or corn silage up into them, and then us kids would run around barefoot stomping down the feed. All the while we had corn cobs beating us on the head and pelting us, and yet no one ever gave a thought that we could actually die doing it. My mother hated it because the green feed stained our feet for a week, but such is life on the farm. Myself, I do not think we did much good. How much packing down could a couple of 50 pound kids really do in an afternoon?

In the mid 1990's one of our 65 foot concrete stave silos fell over when we were putting up silage in it. I blew too much on one side and the weight collapsed it. Now the Soil and Water Conservation District just pays for concrete or hot top pads and does "horizontal silos". That works much better except we still have kids packing down the silage, but they are doing it with tractors and at least with modern tractors they would most likely survive the roll-over.

Dennis wrote:

NoSmoke wrote:We got a big hot top pad that the feed is dumped on, then is pushed over and packed down with a tractor, then plastic is rolled out and it is weighted down with tires. I do the same thing at my farm, but rather then put up a pile of feed here, I have it trucked over from the dairy farm since the bigger the pile is, the better the quality. I pack it down with my tractors, cover it and weight it down

My brother girlfreinds farm tore down the old silo's and made silage pits.They have teenagers and didn't want the kids up in the silos getting hurt or killed.So much easier than blowing everything up the silo,just unload the wagon and pack it down and cover.No climbing up the silo's when the unloader jambs or gets stuck,just pull the plastic back and dig into it.

Our cows have not tasted hay in years. I think it has been 9-10 years since we put up hay, and we no longer even have a baler so we could not do it if we wanted too! But then again they do not see pasture either. They stand and look out the window and wonder what the heck that green stuff is. But don't feel sad for them; everything they could ever want is 400 feet away. That is the ideal distance between the milking parlor and their beds and feed. This is what the cow behaviorist's say is ideal for a cow. Keep in mind they actually bed down on pillows; a comfortable cow makes more milk after all, and these cows are catered to well.

My sheep are pretty fussy as well, as they do not like stemmy feed and just refuse to eat it. They have smaller mouths and can actually separate the grain from the stalks, so they are quite well adapted to eating and sorting only what they want, that is why I have so much waste. A lot of the fields around here are timothy grass and that means a lot of stems.

After trying to stuff hay into their new feeder this afternoon, I can honestly say I think I am going back to feeding silage. I have to feed that out more often, but it is a whole lot easier!

Dennis wrote:

NoSmoke wrote:There was a weird bartering system going on here this fall and as it ended up, I am feeding out round bales of hay because of a three way trade. I like how my sheep look as they do better on hay then silage, but the waste factor is huge. I went out and built a hay rack to cut down on the waste, but I am not sure it is down to acceptable levels. I know that it is free, but waste is waste to me. I have to do something as right now the waste is hoovering around 50%. That is a lot!

I've noticed that the cows pull the hay from the big bales in the hay racks and if they have more than a mouth full the just toss it around and it falls to the ground and stomped on then they use it for bedding and lay on it,and if you don't feed them hay till it's all eaten up, they just go to the meadow and eat grass.Some how you need to pull it apart and fluff it up some so they don't get too much at a time,witch is more added work.