• If you are having problems logging in please use the Contact Us in the lower right hand corner of the forum page for assistance.

Hay Making

Help Support Ranchers.net:

Finally done with baling and have all the hay home, next on the list is getting it wrapped. I'm slap wore out.
 
Hay is all in the yard here. Feels good to be done for another year.
 
Thank God I've only got to cover these rough swamps once!

Is that average quitting time for you Silver or are you early? We are at the same point we usually are in late Sept with about 3 days cutting left. 1/2 a day in late Sept for our oats. New for us.
 
Its a touch late but not much. If weather favours us we are often wrapped up by the Aug 10th or so. Also depends on when we are able to get the green feed seeded. We were lucky to get planted in decent time this year before it started raining. Some guys were finishing seeding in July.
If it wasn't so dry I'd start plowing up some used up hay land but I doubt the plow would stay in the ground.
 
I would love to see a pic of September oats. Our oats have to be baled in April early may if you want them in milk. They are combined in may and June and typically has beans or cotton plamredbin the stubble. I sprayed my hay patches yesterday to kill the bahaia. Hoping for rain this week so I can get fertilizer out and cut again in 4 weeks.
 
I picked up the buggy with fert yesterday. Thinking we would get rain today. well no such luck it was raining by 1pm and When I got home at 5 we already had an inch. I got it spread in the light rain . had issues with bridging in the buggy from moisture but got it out. we got a few more tenths overnight so it should really take off. the forecast has generous amounts of rain the next 2 weeks so the 4th cutting is looking like it will happen if the temps hold above 70 at night
 
Fixing to start cutting 80acres of rank grass this morning. The guy wants field cleaned up. About 50 acres is decent the other is trashy. But I should make a few bucks peddling it .
 
m5farm said:
Fixing to start cutting 80acres of rank grass this morning. The guy wants field cleaned up. About 50 acres is decent the other is trashy. But I should make a few bucks peddling it .
Click to expand...
Did you get it rolled up yet?? How did it turn out??
 
Got 1/2 rolled yesterday, blew a oring on hyd line on tractor. I'm rolling right now . it's decent hay . looks about like 1.5 bales to acre. After I had cut 50 acres he told me not to cut pond bottom. It had alot of maiden cane but it really wasn't worth cutting
 
Always best to test your hay. Then you know what you have and if you need to supplement. 10% protein hay in the north is fine for a range cow, as long as they get plenty of it. Sometimes the ranker hay is harder to digest, so if they have more, they can go through it and get the best (you can't fool an old cow) and then work on the remainder in the afternoon. That's what we did and it worked well. Lots of 10% protein hay and we didn't supplement it except with mineral.
 
10% hay here is premium , most is 5 to 6% weather hurts getting it put up at peak. This hay won't be fed to my cows. I won't have much in it and I will sell it cheap. I have not drawn up a deal yet but a handshake deal was made that It's mine until he dies. Cleaning it up gives me a head start next year. I do test my hay that I feed tho.
 
Faster horses said:
We have tested a lot of hay, one thing we found is that rained on hay still had the protein, but lacked vitamins and minerals. When the hay bleaches out from the rain, so do those.
Click to expand...

That's an easy fix. :D
 
Well it's been 4 weeks and the cool nights have slowed it down , we got a small chance of rain tomorrow. If it rains I will let it go one more week. If it doesn't I'll start cutting Sunday.
 

Latest posts

Top