It's been awhile since I wrote a blog post but it's been a busy year so far, especially since things have started growing! The weather this year has made for perfect growing conditions for everything on the farm, specifically hay!
The history of haying on the farm goes back to when the first fields were cleared and the hay was cut by hand and hauled in by animal power. Luckily, the work is more mechanical now with tools like tedders, rakes, and balers to dry and pack the hay into manageable forms to handle.
On the farm now, we keep a small cattle herd with a maximum of 9 cow stalls so we make more hay than we actually use. Each cow eats a bale of hay a day for about 180 days when they are in the barn over the winter so we use about 1620 bales of hay but make up about 3000 square bales and about 40 round rolls from a neighbour's fields.
As we have reduced the cattle herd to a more manageable number, we have taken more time to invest in better hay yields and better equipment to make the hay. This year we purchased a new hay baler and drum mower and in the last two years, we got a larger tedder and a wheel rake. These new pieces of equipment work very well and allow us to make hay when the sun shines so to speak :)
The first step in making hay is cutting it. This year this has been particularly hard since the wet weather has slowed us down. Once we see 3 or 4 days in a row of sunny weather, I'll get the drum mower on the tractor and mow 1-3 fields
Once cut, the hay needs to fully dry, so once baled, it doesn't go moldy and doesn't spontaneously combust in the field. You can read more about this here. Drying is done using a tedder which for us is a 4 basket tedder that spins metal teeth in the hay to fluff it up and flip it. This is done 3 or 4 times over 2 or 3 days and once dry we move to raking.
Raking hay means raking up the dry hay into windrows so the baler can pick up the hay easier. This past year we moved to using a new wheel rake which has been a great farm implement since it works well and has only 4 moving parts so less chance of anything breaking down. Once the hay is raked up, I switch over to baling.
This is done using a square baler for us. Many farms have now moved to larger round bales which are probably most familiar to anyone who has driven by a farm and seen the big round hay bales, stacked in a row. For the farm here, square bales are easier to handle when in the barn and we see much less wasted hay since the hay is stored inside right away compared to round rolls which are often stored outside or at least stay outside longer.
Once the hay is baled, we usually hire one or two other people to help put it in then we repeat the process next time we get good weather.
We have always been the kind of people who enjoy activities doing things for a purpose to recharge. This means on hot sunny days we enjoy working around the farm making hay more than going to the beach. Thankfully this is the case since making hay in nice sunny weather is critical so it's nice to be able to do this and enjoy it in the summer months.
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