Latestarter's ramblings/musings/gripes and grumbles.

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RollingAcres

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Latestarter

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Thanks RA. Did a little Googling myself and found the lowest at ~$80 w/free shipping. A bit more palatable, but still pretty steep for a pair of ankle high rubber boots... Can't cost more than $10-20 to manufacture. Probably less if made in China (or India)...
 

greybeard

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I tend to take a long and wide view of all things.
Dry feet are worth a lot of $$ to me...especially in winter.
Like everything else farm related, average the cost out over the life of the object being used. If they last 3 years, that's just $2.2/month (or 7¢/day) to have warm dry feet.
 

Bruce

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Thanks RA. Did a little Googling myself and found the lowest at ~$80 w/free shipping. A bit more palatable, but still pretty steep for a pair of ankle high rubber boots... Can't cost more than $10-20 to manufacture. Probably less if made in China (or India)...
How much does it cost to continually replace your current type of non water loving footwear?
And yeah, dry feet are worth a lot. Cold wet feet, not so much.
 

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Present foot wear costs between $10 & $15 depending on how much they're priced at when I need them. Average life span is maybe 3-5 months, depending on what abuse they're put through. So maybe 3-4 pair a year. The last pair must have been defective cause they lasted less than 2 months. Did a lot of hunting up in New England when I was younger (& lived there)... Still remember cold wet feet all too well. Mostly it was because my feet sweat, making them wet... They generally didn't get cold until they were wet.

So my hay guy didn't have what I wanted exactly... no small bales of the mix :( but did have 3x3x8' bales of mixed priced at $150. Said the weight was ~800 pounds and one he weighed was 790. He did have small bales of alfalfa bundled (21 bales/bundle) @$14/bale, but then realized he was short what he thought he had (9) and the ones left (6) were already sold to be delivered this afternoon. :( He had some large squares (~100 lbs) @$24/bale, but they looked "old" to me, and to match weight would have cost almost $200. So... I went with the 3x3x8. He loaded in my bed with his tractor and I backed up to my outbldg, opened both doors, cut the 4 strands and broke it all down and moved it in. The stack is larger than the bales typically are, but then it's all loose and nowhere near as neat. o_O Oh well, gotta do what I gotta do and the goats need to eat.

Just finished and will be heading out to start evening chores here directly. They won't get any of the new stuff till tomorrow as the last of what was left was enough for their dinner tonight. I have to say that quality wise, I'm not impressed with what I bought. The bale I got was one that had been sitting on the ground so the bottom was mud smeared. It also felt kinda "damp" and didn't have that good "hay smell" when I was breaking it down. I'm a little concerned, now that it's not packed tightly and there's air, that any dampness might cause it to heat up or get moldy... Sure hope not. So unless forced, I don't think I'll go this route next time. I did do a search on the internet before I left to see what else might be available, and there was nothing close. If I was a bigger operation, had more money, had an accessible place for storage of large quantities, and needed same, & had a tractor to handle it, I'd buy a tractor trailer load myself and sell any extra. Seems there's nobody here in Mount Pleasant that has small bales of high/horse quality hay for sale. There must be other folks around me that would be interested. :idunno

Well, today was the last nice day for a while... temp was supposed to hit 56° but when I left it seemed closer to 60ish to me. It's 56 right now & tonight will be in the low 30s then only 50 and upper 40's for the rest of the week with rain moving in & cloudy right through Sunday. Well, sun's past the horizon... chores are calling.
 

Mini Horses

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I've used those big bales....now there is a "flake" to challenge you! Like all hay, quality is up & down. I got some awesome orchard/alfalfa mix last yr. This year, nope...dealer hasn't been able to get it. :( Overall, hay as been expensive and mostly not near the quality of last year. Weather has been a killer for most hay farms.

I'm going to look at some about 35 miles from me tomorrow. Got some from him 2017, then he sold out. Hoping it's decent this year. He has square & rounds, plus, no chemicals. Private farmer, decent prices.

I swear all animal feeds are skyrocketing.

Congrats on your "fast food" control :clap
 

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About had it with turkey so took out a rib eye for dinner tonight. Realized I haven't got the grill back to working right yet and with today's work, wasn't able to get it done today. So, I heated up the fry pan really hot with butter and some bacon grease and pan fried it. That was one of the best steaks I've had in quite a while. Was like Butta! :drool:clap

There will be zero extra $$ expenditures from now till the end of 2019 Fred. In fact I will be pretty much in max conserve mode. The credit card is way too high and when it gets to the point that the interest is "eating" as much as the debt buy down each month, it's time to cut back.

Another little obstacle dawned on me while feeding the gals their hay tonight... The feeder is in the boy's pen and set up so I can lift a bale in, cut the strings, and they're good to go. :barnie So when the next refill comes for them, I'm going to have to figure out how to get hay loaded in the feeder while keeping them from exiting the pen and keeping the others from trying to get in and eat their hay while I'm loading it from the wheel barrow. o_O

@Goat Whisperer I've been putting out the sweetlix and I've seen the buck; RJ and several of the does eating it. but not everyone yet. Late today I found the buck's mineral bowl flipped upside down and stomped into the liquefied poo-mud. :he:sick I couldn't see/find any spilled but all around where it was (inside the feeder on the shelf) is a mess... If they dumped it out there on the ground, I'd never be able to tell. When I refilled it tonight while bringing them their pellets, RJ did go eat some before going for his pellets. I found some dumped out on the ground by the girl's bowl, but nowhere near what I had put in there. They could have dumped it while fighting to see who could get the most of their head in the bowl... What one does, the rest have to do more of. Guess I'll just keep watching.
 

Goat Whisperer

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It’s a shame the hay quality isn’t great. We feed the big squares, small squares are so pricey so we generally feed them at shows. We were spending almost twice $ for the same amount of hay.

I love the big bales though, thankfully our hay guy gets some good ones. Last week they had nice orchard and really nice orchard/alfalfa.
We wanted one of each, we would normally tie off to a big tree and drop the bale on a few 4x4s. Since everything is mud, we cut open the bale and stacked it on pallets in one of the buildings. With two people it's pretty easy, gotta be difficult with only one person!

Right now we are using a 15 passenger van to transport hay, which is nice because we can get hay rain or shine. Right now the orchard bale is still sitting in the van, but it stays dry :cool: I like using a truck though, with the big bales. If you have somewhere to drop it, you can usually just push it off. It slides nicely.

Does your county extension have a hay directory? Our county extension agent told us of our hay guy. We've been using then since!

ETA: glad they are eating it (or appearing to LOL). It's a great mineral, I just don't know why ours wont touch it!
 
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