Winter Hay Buying

Found a local producer (Don Hoover) for pretty good hay late in the season (January).  He delivered an unloaded 2 semi loads (76 bales) each bale weighing 1385 lbs.  (Still have my 100 bales or so of warm season grasses stored in the barn.  Hope i don’t need them – depends on the season.)

Sadly, I’ve already fed them all out (the 76 delivered bales), but back on decent (cow quality) winter stockpile grazing for a few weeks now.

The extended extra cold is really sapping the energy out of the cows although with good feed, they and their calves really don’t notice the cold – thankfully, it has not been rainy and wet – it’s really tough to keep cows and 8 month old calves in condition then.

Supposed to warm up to just above freezing tomorrow, then a few days clear up into the 40’s and maybe 50’s.   Happy camper here!

Cheers!

tauna

Unrolling Hay

Bitterly cold today and with ground frozen hard, the best job for today is to unroll hay for grazing.  The plan is to strip graze it for the remainder of the winter.  This will add considerable organic matter to the soil. When the cattle and sheep have cleaned up the hay and pooped all over the paddock, I’ll broadcast legumes and grass seeds over the area.  Hopefully, i’ll have a chance to unroll more hay over the top for grazing, but our weather is so unpredictable that that is not a certainly.  I may just walk the cattle around on the area to encourage seed to soil contact, then graze it occasionally as the original grasses grow.  Once the new grasses take hold and grow (all depends on the weather), then the livestock will not have access for about 60 days for full growth.  Sure hope it all works.

Looking back to load and unload.

Controls for the Hydra Bed

Two hay bales loaded for moving. Each weighing about 1700 lbs.

Unloading.

Slicing through the net wrap with a box knife.

Pulling off the net wrap in preparation for unrolling.

Threw the wraps for 32 bales in the front so they wouldn’t get in the way of hauling hay.

Downtown Linneus, Missouri

Should have left just a little bit earlier. No problems, though, just locked into four wheel drive and kept to about 40 mph. About a 25-30 minute drive home.

My office view today!