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Swamp hay

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Silver

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When there's little hay in the fields you gotta head into the swamps. I quit when the water starts coming up and the haybine wheels cut through the sod. I couldn't get much of what is in the pictures but should end up with 70 or 80 5x6 bales. The cows will pick through it this winter and can bed in what they won't eat.


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Drought has been going for years in my area . ive done ditches and slews that I dont think have ever been done because previously to wet. This year there really is nothing. All dried up. Don't really have hardly any cows left and I'm going to have to buy feed for them I'm holding off buying hay because harvest is still going on. Haha imthinking it would be terrible to pay 350 a ton Canadian and then have a fire take it.
Hopefully horse people will get their stuff bought and hay prices will come down. No pastures.
Haha my farm produces grasshopper's, gophers and dirty dishes
 
Evans said:
Drought has been going for years in my area . ive done ditches and slews that I dont think have ever been done because previously to wet. This year there really is nothing. All dried up. Don't really have hardly any cows left and I'm going to have to buy feed for them I'm holding off buying hay because harvest is still going on. Haha imthinking it would be terrible to pay 350 a ton Canadian and then have a fire take it.
Hopefully horse people will get their stuff bought and hay prices will come down. No pastures.
Haha my farm produces grasshopper's, gophers and dirty dishes
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That's heartbreaking. Where abouts are you located?
 
Silver said:
That's heartbreaking. Where abouts are you located?
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L.A.
Lower Alberta
About two hours north of Montana.

I suspect there won't be any straw either. I see guys doing wheat straw up in small square's because not enough there for big round baler. A lot of hay was drone in small square's as well for same reason and I see them advertised for ten to twenty dollars. I'm to old to old to mess with smalls and no way I would pay that much for them.
It is what it is.
I have more time to do other stuff( grin)
 
Silver said:
That's awful. I hear Montana is chalk full of hay.
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Trucking rates are through the roof. $5 a kilometer or fifty dollars a short ton. Then MT super b loads have to be lighter again because of their weight laws. Then exchange on dollar.
Facebook is just full of scammers.
Feels like everybody is in a panic. I guess this years of drought is different because nobody has any pasture.
Its kind of ridiculous. I lost tract but I might of have received four inches of water this year. Crazy hot temps that started way early in the spring. And the grasshopper's.
Last evening we were supposed to get rain. It food in town but at my place wind just blew like crazy and clouds of dust. Haha blew a round bale away that I had opened for horses. Its actually so beyond its kind of funny.
I see people baling barley crop in round bales for cows. Ive approached farmers about doing the same but nobody seemed interested. I'm not sure why some guys money is somehow different than mine?
On a brighter note I'm getting equipment and my old trucks fixed up nice. My hay gear is in great shape.
 
I live in the Nebraska panhandle. (About 20 miles from the Wyoming border). Since cinco de mayo (5/5) I have measured 18.2 inches of moisture. Thus, we have had a good amount of hay harvested (and for sale). But, it has been difficult to put up due to the frequent rains. Hail reduced some meadow yields considerably. Feed lots will soon be filling up with cattle so we will see how the hay market responds. Prayers and best wishes to all. Regards.
 
Hay prices here have dropped a lot. B told me that he got real good 2nd cutting alfalfa delivered to the lot in Baker for $155 a ton. Last year this time it would have been $300 at the stack. I know another guy who bought last years hay out of the Columbia Basin for $150. A lot of hay left over from last year. I heard that the exporters put a deposit on a lot of hay and then walked away from it. And then locally a lot of the first got rained on. Not a terrible amount of rain but enough take if out of the export or dairy market and to turn it into cow hay.
 
Some first cutting laid in the field for 3 weeks before being baled. Grinders wont even take it.. lots of grass rolled up tho. Forecast of another tough winter might help prices. We will see. In the 40's this am. Summer will soon be gone.
 

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