Making hay

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We have 665 small square bales of hay made and carted.  That should be about 16 tonnes of feed - or a full semi trailer load of hay (as I usually buy it).

I would not normally make hay - because I have limited land and purchasing hay helps me increase the effective carrying capacity of my farm.    However, this year we have so much feed that, even were I to keep my entire herd at home, they could not eat there way through the accumulated feed before next spring.  So we decided to make from 2 paddocks totaling 7.7 acres into hay.

The plan was to make it in mid-December, but the very wet weather and the contractor's other obligations put paid to that.  In the end we cut the two paddocks with more Phalaris in the pasture mix - as they were a bit greener and less 'over the top' than the paddocks that were predominantly Perennial Ryegrass.

The first photo shows Simon cutting through some of the heaviest pasture on our farm - it's up to the top of his back tractor wheel for heaven's sake!  Actually, though it's tall, there is still lots to do to improve the thickness of sward - so I'm not getting carried away.

Simon cut the hay on Monday night.  After a bit of 'umming and ahhing', he raked it Wednesday early afternoon and went almost straight onto baling.

The second photo shows Simon raking paddock 44.

I organised my sons David and Neil and two of their friends to help me cart the hay and stack it in my hayshed.  We started at about 5 pm.  By soon after 9 pm we had the the 437 bales from paddock 42 stacked in the shed.  By 11 am yesterday morning we had the 228 bales from paddock 44 stacked neatly in a corner of the yard.

We have so much hay, there wasn't room in the shed for it all.  I'll have to organise a cover for the yard stack.

The final photo shows the last load from 42 coming in just after 9 pm.  Carting hay is hard work, but having 5 of us made it a lot easier.

I've saved half the 2010 compost and chicken manure to spread over one of the hay paddocks.  That needs to be done over the next few days.
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