This is very true in May and September, they work until nightfall, always trying to predict the weather!
Why make hay? It is what cows eat when the grass is not growing in the winter or in extreme heat or cold. Cows graze on grass every season except winter. They eat lots of hay, the average cow eats 30 pounds of grass and they eat for 8 hrs a day! So you must always have plenty for them to eat and it always depends on the weather. It must be cut at its peak for good nutrition and maximum protein. The grass at Lowfields is particularly good as it has a great mixture of grasses which help avoid different diseases. In our fields we have fescue, clover, timothy, orchard and pearl millet, just to name a few. We also cut on several neighboring farms.
The process goes like this:
First, you tend to your hay all year round – seeding, fertilizing and digging up pesky weeds. Then at hay time, you cut, tedder, rake, bale and store. The equipment needed includes tractors, disc bine, tedderer, rake, baler, and plenty of barns to keep it in.
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| Cutting the Hay |
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| Raking the Hay |
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| Baling the Hay |
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| Hay Bales once done |
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| Hay Storage |
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| Hay Storage |
We recently had Morton build us 2 new barns for hay storage in addition to our original Hay Barn.
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| New Hay Barns being built! |
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| New Hay Barn on the right |
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