With a stretch of hot, dry weather, we’ve started our haying in earnest. Yesterday we put up more than 100 bales in the loft of our storage building and this morning, Will and our friend, Eric, put up another 100 bales. Will cuts, and I rake and help on the wagon or bale hay as Will stacks the load while the bales come right from the baler onto the wagon. We still have a few rounds of raked hay on the field and while I work on the computer today, Will and Eric are going over to bale that up.
Haying depends so much on the weather; we check our weather radio several times a day to make sure no rain is sneaking in to ruin our hay after it’s been cut. We want perfect hay with no mold, dust or hay that is over-mature. As we only put up about 1,000 bales in a year, we can afford to be picky for our animals’ sake.
Haying is sort of like canning; it’s exciting to see each and every bale come out of the baler and then go up the elevator, into the barn. We know that our stock will be well-fed this winter because of our work.
Wondering how many bales per acre you get, and if you’ve noticed a difference this year?
Farmers around here are getting alot less per acre, the hay is ‘thinner’ due to the weather. We put up only 300-400 bales for our goat herd and try to keep them on pasture during the warm months, but lately they’ve been eating the pasture down to burnt, then we move them to another pasture and in 3 days its down and burnt. So they get moved into their winter pen while we let the pastures come back and in the meantime they are already eating the new hay we’ve stored…thats supposed to be for next year!
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