27 August 2007
Bringing in the Hay
Posted by Richard under: Hay; Smallholding .
It was touch and go for a while yesterday, with the sun refusing to come out and temperatures staying low. The hay was bobbed once in the morning after some light overnight drizzle, and then again late afternoon - after which Hedley decided it was ready and shouldn’t wait any longer. He returned with the baler within thirty minutes and started work.
The question was how much hay were we going to get off our acre of unimproved pasture?
The estimate varied from seventy bales up to about hundred (one year, Hedley said he took two-hundred bales off the field - but it had been fallow since January that year, this time we had only started in April).
Sixty bales was the final count, at £1 a bale - a slightly smaller number than we had guessed - but they are top quality hay, dry green sweet grass, not a sign of thistle. Buying those sort of bales locally would have cost £4 each, so its been worth it.
We had them all in the barn by nine.
However, with only sixty bales in, we don’t have any choice but to have a crack at haying the neighbours field. It has quite a bit of thistle, but has been fallow all year, so a further eighty bales may be possible…….its going to depend on the weather.
However, I am fully living up to the title of ‘not a proper farmer’ today - we only brought in 60 bales and I am aching like we did six hundred.
4 Comments so far...
David Says:
27 August 2007 at 11:51 am.
60 bales sounds like hard work to me as a soft-handed pen-pushing small-scale sheep and cattle keeper. How much land produced 60 bales?
Richard Says:
27 August 2007 at 4:11 pm.
The bottom field is about an acre of unimproved flood meadow, and has been ungrazed since April - we could have got more hay if it had been ungrazed since January and the summer had been a bit better. Because it’s a bit damp, it will never produce masses of sward - but damn its good hay.
What cattle do you have? How many? and whats the deal with winter feeding?
David Says:
27 August 2007 at 10:10 pm.
We’ve had two dexters (a steer and a heifer) since May and, after listening to advice from our local (commercial) farming friends, we were beginning to think that they’d go for slaughter in the autumn. The vendor of these beasts, however, has steadied our resolve to keep them to the end of summer 2008, grass-fed, to produce good, dark, beef. I have to say that they’re looking good, the heifer slightly better than the steer, having grazed with the sheep for a couple of months. They’ve now got an acre or so of good well-drained pasture that’ll keep them going until the winter and we may well be onto a bit of hay then - which we’ll have to buy in. Whilst we’ve got five acres in total there are constraints, like fruit trees, a big veg patch and a large pool, that effectively take a couple of acres out of grazing action.
See our pics: http://www.flickr.com/photos/davidt2006/sets/72157594538007838
farmingfriends Says:
29 August 2007 at 4:44 pm.
Congratualtions on getting your sixty bales into your barn. I glad to hear it’s great hay. Sara from farmingfriends