hay

[cowman]

It seems like we get a little shower practically every evening. Not really enough to do much good but it sure has guys trying to put up hay pulling their hair out!
Everyday they go out and flip it...so it can get washed on the other side! Some of it is getting fairly "black looking"!
Actually if you can resist the urge to flip it, hay can sit in the swath for quite a while and still come out not bad?
I wonder what hay prices will be like this year? Seems like there is still a lot of hay sitting around from last year? We got 2/3 of our hay put up with no rain, in small square bales, for the horse trade and rolled up the other third in big rounds...it had one rain on it. The guy who bales, stacks and markets our hay to the horse market is asking $3/bale. He gets $1 from each bale and he charges hauling to the buyer on top of that.
It was a fairly decent crop, right around that 3 ton/acre. We cut it and raked it once so figure about $15/acre plus $42/acre worth of fertilizer! Excellent regrowth and we might go for a second cut if it looks promising or maybe we'll put the cows on it after a good hard frost.

[blackjack]

...darn it any way...after 02 told the wife I'd never complain if rained to much again...well guess what the hay is close to being ready to go...but it is suppose to shower tonight...

[plowjockey]

Anyone using a tedder? I heard you can cut the curing time?

[grassfarmer]

I've been a little surprised at some of the haying methods used in Alberta which has a notoriously fickle climate. In the UK where we are used to even more unpredictable weather the guys that make hay often cut with a straight discbine and no conditioner. When I say discbine it's just a disc cutter bar with no header. Many of them can lay a swath nearly as wide as their cut width rather than put it up in a high narrow row. This kind of swath really will stand some rain as it just runs through it and of course the crop is spread thinner and kills quicker. After a few days drying (often close to a week in early season and heavy crops) it's ready to turn with a tedder. I hate tedders though especially the rotor ones as they fairly smash the hay up and make it waste if you do get rain later. Ideally of course you get a dry spell and a mower conditioner works fine and really cuts down the drying time. Another factor that maybe makes the use of a conditioner popular here is the alfalfa - I don't suppose you would have any leaves left if you tedded it after a week lying in a swath.

[grassfarmer]

I still think the biggest development ever made in hay production was when they learnt to make silage!

[plowjockey]

We do make silage bales but it is nice to have some dry bales too. ...But yes the silage bales for us are the best quality once again this year.

[grassfarmer]

Silage bales are OK but this country is to big to be hauling silage bales about individually in my opinion. Hire in a self propelled crew and get a pit up in a day!
A local producer in my area runs about 300 cows and moved away from custom made pit silage a few years ago. First he bought a new CASE round baler and tube line wrapper now he has bought a big square baler instead. When they start into a quarter section and their bale truck can only haul 10 bales at a time you realise it's an endless job!
They could be the poster boys of CASE corporation though driving around with 1/2 million dollars of shiny new machinery. I guess they like playing with toys rather than making money - each to their own.

[grassfarmer]

In my area pit silage is the norm, however there is still a lot more hay put up in round bales than silage. A couple of reasons for that, one being the manpower requirements for silage particularly if hauling a significant distance to the pit from the fields, the other being that many producers in this area put up more hay than they need so they can sell hay much easier than selling silage !

Great crops around but the rain is playing heck with quality.

[blackjack]

...the little loss in quality is nothing compared to the cost of the machinery and labor to put it the pit...since I use the hay to feed to my own herd...don't have to worry about perfect hay...even though we think our cows might need it that way...