rachels.haven's Journal

[Ridgetop]

he decided he was going to "grapple" the bales away from the loft door with a bungee cord he spirited out of somewhere (no, no, no, but if I take it what will he find next?), but he has ZERO fear or sense of heights and seems to find swinging on the pulley towards the open door exhilarating so it may have taken longer to do yesterday's twenty something bales in the end with all the hauling him back in the loft door and such. Not sure I'm going to book him for help in the future for another year or two (this is my kid, he magically climbs walls to get into everything including up high, tries to play in the washer, and I'm afraid every time he goes near a second+ story open window...someday may he grow a little fear without having a disaster first). This kid makes me feel crazy.

Maybe he will end up a lineman for the power company. No indoctrinating liberal college and a 6 figure income. Win Win!

 

[rachels.haven]

Only 16 bales left in the garage. Yeah, I may have gotten 187 bales in the loft last year. That seemed like so much, but my loft is barely half full right now. I guess I'll be getting more and pulling more up. Topping up for that lack of good hay season will make me feel a lot more happy and prepared.

 

[Baymule]

Nothing like the wealth of stored hay for the winter!

 

[farmerjan]

As long as you don't have any leaky roof spots, hay doesn't go "bad", like so many other stored things. It will dry out a bit more and lose a little of the protein content over time, but having extra hay to carryover is money in the bank. You can rotate it out so that you are not piling new hay and burying the left over.
We have hay in the one barn that is probably 3-4 years old. Not musty or anything. It makes fine feed if you are running short and you can supplement with a little grain if the quality has lessened. We were glad to have some of those sq bales left over a couple years ago when we were running short to supply some of our regular customers and others were calling begging for hay. At that time, any hay was easy to sell as the animals need a certain amount of bulk and there wasn't any around.
We like to carry over at least 100-200 rolls and 1,000 sq bales into the next season as you never know what the year will bring. Granted we are on a much larger scale than anyone else.... but you ought to try to have enough on hand for 2 years, and then replenish and rotate out every year to stay ahead. We don't have 2 years ahead, but at least have an extra 1-2 months.... Since in the worst of the winter we will feed 150 rolls a month, it doesn't take long to use it up. Years ago when all hay was made loose and then in small sq bales, people fed what an animal could clean up in a couple hours and they kept their animals in decent flesh and working condition. Today, with everything getting bigger and "more" we waste alot of hay with putting out several rolls at a time to be able to get to more places. There is something to be said about limit feeding. Especially ruminants.... because they will "rework" the hay a couple times before it passes through. Horses are different in that their hay goes right through... so a little, more often, is better for them.

 

[rachels.haven]

Heheheheheh. I have more tribble chickens now. I will count tomorrow.

 

[farmerjan]

Sorry, this dense transplanted Yankee to the south cannot figure out what "tribble chickens" is... not in NE Yankee talk or in "southern language"....?????

 

[Baymule]

Yeah, what is a tribble chicken? A terrible dribbler (bad basketball player?)

 

[rachels.haven]

Must...photograph... tribble...chickens...
I'll get better pics later today of the chicks, but here are some of the juvies from last hatch. Mr. Teddy babies are proving hard to sex out.

 

[Senile_Texas_Aggie]

I was expecting something like this (from here):

 

[rachels.haven]

...I guess those are more gold comet/sex link colored, aren't they....aw well. I can't get everything right.