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Hay?

T

the_jersey_lilly_2000

Well-known member
Joined
Feb 16, 2005
Messages
11,308
Location
South East Texas
We are hurtin for hay, in a real bad way. This is only our second cuttin...and it's mighty thin. But hoping it'll come on and make one more cuttin. Won't be enuff to get us thru....but we'll cross that bridge when we get there.

First rattle outta the box, three teeth got knocked off the new cutter bar...so the cutter's skippin a line of about 6 inches in ever pass.
2009-08-31-047.jpg


Oh well...nothin we can do about it now....so go with it.
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Ok lets back up a lil bit here.....say to around July 10th...back when it was 110 degrees daily...no rain in site....My FIL decided he wanted to plant coastal sprigs...??? :shock: :o "have you lost yer ever lovin mind?" I wanted to ask!
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I felt so sorry for these guys...even tho they were makin some money....it was super hot that day.
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Ok...spring forward to yesterday.....roughly 7 weeks later.
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There's a few weeds....but hey...this ground has been disked up since early in the spring. No diskin what so ever for a couple months prior to plantin the sprigs.
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Looks awesome!!!!!! Some of it's knee deep. I've spent this whole time crossin my fingers and toes, prayin for rain. We've gotten a few lil showers here and there. Nothin substantial on this pasture at all....2/10s here.....3/10s there. Neighbor across the fence planted his that mornin.......he disked his before they slung em, we didn't. He has NONE UP!!!! Another neighbor had his done the evening before, he disked his again before slingin em......he's irrigated...he has NONE UP!!!! I'm guessin my prayers were answered on this deal :D

Ok.....and one lil blue flower. LOL
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Hay is way too cheap here and lots for sale. You can buy test hay, dairy quality, 56 TDN plus , for $100 a ton. Last year it was well over $220 a ton. These prices are at the ranch.

Jeff
 
At $100 a ton I'd sell the hay and the cows. At $220 I'd sell the hay and give the cows away!
 
Never underestimate the power of prayer!!!

You could not get hay for $200.00 a ton here two years ago and every one was giving horses away.

Now you can buy good riding horses for about $20.00 to $50.00 any where and you can buy last years hay for $20.00 a ton and new second cutting hay for about $50.00 a ton.

Wish I could pack it tight enough to make it affordable to ship that far.
 
LOL I could buy hay at those prices...but like ya said, shippin would kill the deal.

One way or the other it'll all work out in the end.

And...we are fencin off another small pasture to plant next year.
 
Same situation over here Jersey. Put out $320 worth of fertilizer before a "for sure" rain and that rain ended up going around my place. Got a stand of hay but it only produced 6 round bales. Fertilizer cost plus the cost of repairing a rear tractor tire - $116 - and repairing a broken baler belt and fuel, put my cost per bale up around $80 and that's not including labor and amoritized equipment cost.

Round bales out this way are costing people about $70 and that's for trash hay. A low grade tropical weather system might be able to get us enough rain to produce a third cutting but even that doesn't look real promising right now.
 
Jersey, your second cutting looks heavier than many of the first and only cuttings around here! I've got to ask what's the seeding operation about? does the machine spread seed hay on the land to reseed it? If so how on earth do the seeds establish when it's that hot? Mighty strange looking operation :???:
 
It's sprigs. There were cut and baled the night before planting. After they are "slung" as I call it. You come back in and disk it, then roll it. It makes roots from each joint on the grass stem. Then puts out runners.

Normally folks don't do it when it's this hot and dry. That's why I was thinkin, "he'd lost his mind". Somehow or another we managed to get a good stand even with those temps. We are thinkin the only savin grace was that we didn't disk it up again, before slingin that day like the others did. Apparently what moisture we did have in the ground stayed in ours, and the others lost it between the time they disked and planted, disked it in and rolled it.
 
Liveoak said:
Same situation over here Jersey. Put out $320 worth of fertilizer before a "for sure" rain and that rain ended up going around my place. Got a stand of hay but it only produced 6 round bales. Fertilizer cost plus the cost of repairing a rear tractor tire - $116 - and repairing a broken baler belt and fuel, put my cost per bale up around $80 and that's not including labor and amoritized equipment cost.

Round bales out this way are costing people about $70 and that's for trash hay. A low grade tropical weather system might be able to get us enough rain to produce a third cutting but even that doesn't look real promising right now.
Click to expand...

Liveoak....where are you at?

Our first cuttin of hay we only made 11 bales. So that's what we are sittin here lookin at. A measly 11 bales LOL This cuttin might make 5 more. Might..... :roll: On a normal year, this lil hay field would make anywhere from 17 to 25 bales per cuttin, and we usually get at least 3 sometimes 4 cuttins.

No idea how many we can get off this newly planted field...but I"m so scared to cut it for fear that it'll dry up and die after bein cut. We were discussin it yesterday, and I said, ok why not raise the cutter up some and not cut it short. Maybe that'll help prevent that. We did have 1/2 inch rain out there Friday. So it should come on and grow back some fairly quick.
 
Jersey - my hay is down in Wharton County (TX). After that miserable last cutting I got 2 inches of rain over 8 days. The field is looking better vertically but I don't know yet if the moisture is enough to get the runners going sideways to thicken things up. Cross my fingers!

That's a pretty good idea you have about raising the cutter bar. If we have a mild winter it won't matter too much but if not then it helps to allow the grass recovery time and therefore nutrient storage going into Winter. If mine comes back strong I'll probably raise the cutter bar too. Some folks allow their cattle to graze the hay after the first killing frost and spread the manure later before hay season to get a little more mileage out of the field.
 
Not much comfort, but that is 4 and a core more than you had.

I know, humor gets a bit dry.

Oh I'm just full of it. Sorry. Our haying situation isn't much better. Maybe, their is next year?
 

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