And The New Year Begins..

[Jassy]

Trailing some of the spring cows towards home on New Years Eve Day.


End of December, warm temps and NO Snow!!!


Hubby rigged up this contraption to put liquid feed on the not so good hay.


Sticky stuff, but it works pretty good.


Nebraska Sunrise


Wishing you all the best in 2012 from our outfit to yours...

[WVGenetics]

Really nice pictures! That sunset is beautiful and that looks to be an uncanny piece of engineering on that liquid feed dispenser. Thanks for sharing and happy new year from the east!

[R A]

Nice pictures! Thanks for sharing! ...beautiful sky and windmill photo!
I'm envious in every way of the first photo!

[LazyWP]

Awesome pictures as usual. Thanks!!

[Clarencen]

The first two pictures. This was the year for the Blue Stem. Awesome

[JF Ranch]

Interesting liquid feed sprayer. Hubby is pretty handy. How does he plan on using it without cows abusing his boom? I've tried liquid feed by injecting the bales, but the results weren't all that great. This looks to be a better method. I like your picture card.

[loomixguy]

There are many ways to get liquid feed into or onto hay. Most are very messy and not too much fun to deal with. I have bucketed it onto bales, and I refuse to do that again, after doing it for 15 years I guess I've finally learned my lesson. One of the best ways I found was when folks were grinding hay. I would go out with the agreed upon pounds loaded onto the truck. I then made up a 2" hose with about a 3 ft. piece of 1 or 1 1/4 inch pipe which I had threaded and coupled to the end of the 2" hose, which was about 20 ft. long. The end of the pipe had been smashed down with a sledge so the opening wasn't very big. When the grinder began grinding, I'd wait til 10 or so bales were ground, fire up the Honda at a very low idle, and spray the pile of ground hay, like a fireman with a water hose at a fire. As long as you were spraying with the wind, it wasn't too bad. The hardest part was trying to make the liquid run out about the same time as the hay. As long as you had the scale ticket, you KNEW how much had been put on. Some grinders are equipped with a tank, hose, and nozzles to shoot onto the hay as it exits the elevator.

We (LOOMIX) have a custom liquid product called TNT Hay Treat made per our specs. It's 50% protein but still has the vitamin and trace mineral package our range products have. It's very competitively priced but you need to have enough to do to justify getting half a semi load in at a time. (12.5 tons)

There are some folks who can be quite creative or dangerous when 2 or 300 gallon tanks, hose, pumps and motors, and steel are handy.

The one thing you NEVER want to do is grind bales that have already been treated. It will gum up the hammermill, elevator, and tub and there's a good chance your grinder man will not return!

[Big Muddy rancher]

Used to be an outfit in this country that injected bales. Had a truck mounted boom that had big disks with probes that squeezed into the bale injected a set # of lbs then moved onto the next. I guess if a person was desperate but it seemed costly. If they will eat the hay after it's been through the bale processor just feed the liquid in the tanks if they need it.

[loomixguy]

[gcreekrch]

Bale wrapper and them you don't have poor or moldy hay.

[Justin]

[Soapweed]

Thanks for the nice pictures, Jassy. Everything looks good and is in ship-shape condition. That's a very pretty sunrise photo.