I wanted to post a few pictures of the views from our house this morning. Fall color is coming on strong and soon the woods will be bare. This is both fun and depressing for me. I am very fond of all seasons except for winter. I love fall and the colors and cool air and cookouts, but, I know in the back of my mind that winter is coming on soon and we will soon be battling snow and cold.
So, I try to enjoy every moment of the three great seasons we have here while they last. The picture above is of the sun rising behind the maple in the neighbors lawn. This is the view from the kitchen table. The sun is so far south now. In late spring it comes up the same distance to the left of the big maple on the left of the picture!
The picture below is what we see when we look out the north side of the house. There are many different types of trees in the tree line and in our woods across the road.
The picture below is the view to the south from the living room and the back patio. If we go for a nature walk again this morning I will get a few pictures from the top of the hill!
Now, I would like to introduce you to our two new momma cows. They are Maine Anjou and each have had one calf. I got them from a great guy I work with that raises show cattle. No, I am not trying to get into the show cattle business. He does all A.I. (Artificial Insemination) and they didn't take so he offered them to me as I have a very good bull here on the farm. We have decided to name them Maine and Anjou!
Here they are looking at the pigs in the shed trying to figure out what the heck they are looking at!
I turned them loose in the pasture and they quickly set out to see what all they had for accommodations. As soon as they headed out of the barn Mario, our mini donkey, trotted after them to see who they were and what they were doing there. They didn't care for that so for about ten minutes they trotted around the pasture with Mario close behind.
Apparently, after a seeing what they had to work with they decided to chase the donkey. So for another ten minutes I got to watch them chase him around the pasture. By this time everyone esle realized they were getting any new treats and they decided to come see what all the fuss was about. Below you can see one of the two new cows saying hello to our visiting heifer. Good thing people don't say hello the way animals do!!!
After finishing their greetings everyone decided to go get some dinner and headed back to the barn!
Here is one of them sampling the food.
Here is a picture of Legacy next to one of the new cows. He was patiently waiting on me to hand him some hay from the feeder.
He is much smaller than he should be because of not getting all the mothers milk but he is looking pretty good and will catch up later on. He is finally starting to grow again after stalling out for most of the summer. He is able to get into the feeder although not when there are others in it which has led him to asking for treats over the fence. I am always happy to give him some and he is becoming my friend once again for it!
Now, due to the high demand for hay, a high demand for income, and a rodent problem in the barn, I decided to list my hay for sale early on this year. Everything I had available sold in the first 24 hours that I had it listed. If I sold only hay I could have sold every bale that I have as I had requests for quantities that required tractor trailers to haul away. Below is my best hay that I make here on the farm. I have a pure stand of orchard grass that I bale for sale as Alpaca hay. Alpacas only have three teeth and require soft quality orchard grass for proper nutrition to eat as they cannot chew, only gum their food. I normally would have enough of this hay to fill my barn twice. However, due to the drought this year I didn't even have enough to fill it once. Furthermore, due to the rodents and a hole in my plastic on the floor of the barn due to the rodents, I lost quite a lot of bales from the bottom layer. The cows absolutely loved that as they get all the stuff I will not sell due to quality control! As soon as they heard the doors on the barn open they came running and stayed at the feeder for two days till I was done loading and cleaning the barn.
Steven was only home for one day and he and I spent two hours of that one day loading up the trailer to get it weighed. I had 7.04 tons and a total of 303 bales. I would normally have this much from second cutting from one field, this year this was all three cuttings from that same field. I delivered the rest of my lower quality hay to one of my other customers who has horses that she keeps as pets and for pleasure riding. I only had 175 of those bales. Very very disappointing!
Here is the load ready to roll down the road. This tarp was work every penny I spent on it as it will cover the entire load leaving only a small portion at the bottom exposed.
I can't wait to get my new bed for the truck. However, due to financial reasons it will have to wait a little longer!
Now, I haven't posted any educational posts for a while and due to the drought and increasing hay prices I would like to post some good information to educate anyone out there looking to buy hay. Here is one of several links I found that has some really good information,
http://www.ag.ndsu.edu/pubs/ansci/range/as1190w.htm.
First of all most of the hay I produce here is in the form of round bales. I found a diagram online that shows you the percentage of hay in various parts of a round bale. Most people who feed them think that all they need to do is plop them out in the pasture and through a ring over them and they are good to go. However, they are wasting enormous amounts of hay by doing this. Another misconception is that unless you are making silage hay you do not need to store or wrap round bales. Now, if you look closely at the diagram below you will notice that the first four inches of the bale contains 1/4 of the hay in the bale. If you do not store or wrap dry bales you will normally lose 2-4 inches of hay around the outside of the bale due to weathering and spoilage. If wrapped in plastic or stored in a barn you will have no loss do to spoilage.
SO, if you are purchasing round bales be aware that if the outside few inches is no good then up to 25% of the hay you are buying is probably compost!
Furthermore, research has consistently shown that you will lose up to 35% of every bale fed in a bale ring. There are many different types of feeders and wagons that you can purchase to feed in that, while expensive upfront, will pay for themselves in hay savings in the first year of service! My current feeder has under ten percent loss. Klene Pipe Structures is where I got mine and they have models for any animal you want to feed and they have feeders that have less than 3% feed loss!
Next I would like to talk about square bales. While round bales from today's balers are pretty darn consistent square bales are not. A square bale will vary in weight due to several factors. Large windrows force more hay into each slice of every bale. This will form a much heavier bale because for the same size bale there is way more hay shoved into it. Now, as your windrow size decreases each slice has less hay per stoke causing the bale to take longer to form and that also gives it more time to expand in the bale chamber before being tied. This creates a lighter fluffier bale. Your earlier cuttings will normally have much more hay and thus form heavier bales.
Another factor affecting bale weight is moisture at time of baling. To make good dry hay you need to have moisture levels lower than 18%. You can go a little higher but you have to add chemicals (or salt) to the hay to keep it from spoiling which I refuse to do. OPTIMUM moisture content is 15%-17% as the moisture level is high enough to prevent leaf shatter and other losses due to hay being crunchy. If you bale hay below 12% you will effectively pulverize it and lose most of it before it even gets to the wagon.
Now, you may be wondering how this affects bale weight. Well, as moisture increases the springiness of the hay decreases and it packs better. So, for example, if I start baling hay in the afternoon under full sun at 15% moisture the bales will be a little fluffier and maybe 40-50lbs average. However, if I continue to bale past sunset the hay will draw dampness from the air on the surface. This may only increase the moisture content to 17% but the bales pack much much tighter and under same baler pressure setting will go from the 40-50# range to 60-80# range depending on how damp it is.
Moisture on the surface and moisture in the stem are quite different. If you have moisture in the stem some of the plant cells are still alive and respiring. That is what causes heat in the bales after baling. Moisture on the surface will allow for baling of dry hay without shattering but the plant cells will be dead so that moisture is quickly lost after baling and will not cause heating unless there are high amounts of it.
Here are some tips to tell whether the hay you would like to purchase was baled properly. Hay baled before moisture levels were below 18% will look good on the outside. However, if you open the bale and fluff the hay you will see mold dust and it will have a "tuff" smell to it. If the hay was baled too dry it will be very crumbly and, if a stemmy plant like alfalfa or clover, will be missing the majority of the leaves. If you have a bale that is heavy but looks great and has a normal hay smell it was probably made at or after dusk and should be a great bale. If it is light and fluffy it was probably made on a sunny dry day with smaller windrows.
This year I had some water get through the vapor barrier on the barn floor. This cause spoilage on the edge of the bale. These were heavy bales and upon first glance one may think they were baled wet. However, there is a way to determine if the hay was baled wet or got wet during storage. Hay that gets wet during storage will normally only have spoilage on the edges. Upon further inspection the molded/spoiled hay will only go a couple of inches into the bale and the majority of the bale will be fine. If you want to know for sure, cut a couple of bales open and check. If you look at a slice from the middle of the bale and you only see mold on one edge and only a few inches, it got wet during storage. If the spoilage is on the edge and continues throughout the entire bale then it was baled too wet and will not be good for feeding unless you have hungry beef cows!
Lastly I want to touch briefly on purchasing hay. There are two ways to do this, by the bale, or by the ton. If you absorbed what I listed above you will find there is only one fair way to buy and sell hay. This is by weight. Bales will vary in weight, there is no way to change that. If you pay by the bale you have to keep in mind that you can vary quite a lot in weight depending on how it was baled. This can be unfair to the person selling and the person buying depending on whether they are heavy or light bales!
If you buy by the weight you may be concerned about paying for higher moisture content. If you buy shortly after the hay is made you will be paying for a moisture content up to 16%. That means for every 100# of hay you are getting 16# of water. Once the hay has cured the moisture content will drop to between 8%-12%. This will vary a little due to climate but not enough to really make a difference. So, if you buy hay after it has cured you will most likely be paying for 8-12# of water per 100# of hay. Unless you are purchasing very large amounts of hay that small variance in moisture content is not worth the risk of paying the same price for a 40# bale that you paid for an 80# bale. So, whenever possible, purchase by the weight. The bales in the load pictured above varied from as low as 38# to as high as 67# for the bales we pulled and weighed. If they had been sold by the bale they would be the same price. However, since I weighed the load and sold it by the ton I was only paid for the pounds of feed, not the number of units!
I really hope this helps anyone who reads it. Knowledge is power! The more you have the more you can grow!
If you have any questions or would like to know more you can search the web, try to get your information from good resources such as university websites whenever possible. If you leave me a message or email me I will respond to help however I can!
Thanks and have a great Sunday!!
Kenny
