Hay

How goes your hay sales this year? What kind of quality hay did you get to put up?

I grow mostly timothy-mixed grass hay and sell it to local horse people. Best hay like that around here should be done by July 4 - finished up the 3rd weekend in August.Most horse people around here just want dry and no mold. They don't buy it for the nutrition so baling late isn't a big deal for sales. Kills any chance for a 2nd cutting. I got about the same yield as years.It sure seems like its getting harder and harder to find weather for good hay.

Just did another 5.5 big rounds Sunday and have them sold or think I do but till the money is in my pocket will not say it is sold. Did close to 200 small squares the week before and have them in the barn. The early hay was pretty good and got my normal of around 40-50 rounds. I still have one filed to cut and bale and the guy who wants the 5 wants up to 10 so may have that all sold. 2nd cutting is not real good it is thin. To much rain in early Aug then drought the next 4 weeks after made things grow poorly. Yep funny to say flood in Aug but by the first week of Sept in a drought again but true.

We had lots of rain and so a lot of my hay got rained on and quality went low so I round baled tons more then I wanted to. I won't have enough square bale to fill all of my orders. Next week looks like it is opening up and I can finish my last cuts. On the plus side yields have been good and prices have been at an all time high. This is the first time in my life that hay has been a sellers market and I am opportunistic that I will be able to sell some rounds this winter.

Well as far as yield goes my hay has been great, but the early rain kept me from getting it baled early and that just killed my food value, but as hay goes its still good, the protein is 12% but it got stemmy..

Worst year I ever had with hay. Threw out and gave away 3/4 of my first cut due to mold...got 5 days of rain on it.
The second cut was starved for water and was puny, like last year. I'm in the market for about 150 sm squares right now.

Pretty much ran into everything, never had a year like this.

Still have 2 acres of first cutting grass hay to do in the swamp, and looking at trying a 4th cutting of alfalfa on the accidental alfalfa field. Was way too wet and cold early, and way too dry of late, not got .6 of rain and a cool speed.

The hay doesn't know what to do.

My accidental alfalfa field - it was very dry early on this late winter and there was a whole lot of winterkill in the area, I had a couple acres of plow down alfalfa/clover, thought well mow a cutting off it and then plant corn, might need the hay. So planted up to it, but then it was so cool it didnt grow fast. Then the rains came, and this was low ground, so sat and waited, rain after rain.

Plans changed as time went by, mow a cutting off it and plant beans?

Well, the rains turned to endless small showers, I got my beans planted, it was so cool and dampish couldn't mow any hay....

Plans changed to just leave the weedy mess with some alfalfa as a poor alfalfa field for the year, chalk up another learning experience in farming.......

Paul

Ya here in Missouri this spring/summer has been a very odd weather year. To wet and cool early then hot and dry then flood then drought. Now in the last 2 days we have gotten around 1.5 inches of much needed rain. Much of my garden did not do well due to the fact it was to cool and to wet or to hot and to dry. Shoot if is Sept. and my sweet pepper plants are just now setting fruit on

To bad your to far from me. I still have one field to cut and bale and from the looks of it, that field will produce pretty good but till I cut it I can only guess since I have not tried walking it and the seed ticks are super bad right now so no way I am going to walk it

I can point you in the right direction down here if you are having trouble finding hay up there larry

I did really well on grass and alfalfa. Using the latest in apps for weather and rain radar I was able to get my first cut in earlier than anyone else around by a week. And no rain They waited and got rain. Then it was deja vue for the second cut. Mine was up and gone neighbors later and got rained on. And they have been farmin 60 years, I'm the new guy been doing it 10 years. But I use all the latest tech aids, they do it hoe their fathers did it.

Where you at Ben?

Been real tough for dry hay here this year. Had absolutely gorgeous Timothy and Orchard grass stands that I just couldn't touch because of constant rain. I'm still working on 1st cut. The good news is that the weather is better, the quality of the hay sis pretty fair. Bad news is quantity isn't what I'd like. We feed mostly rounds and try to put in 1k-1200 of squares. I'm hoping I can get 2nd cut for my squares.

The weather has been compounded by breakdowns and the fact I'm a one man show with old, small and slow equipment. But, my overhead is pretty low too, so it works out.

about ten miles south of I-80 and about ten miles west of I-39. we have a few round bales left, grass with a little red clover and the guys down the road have hay and straw of all types and sizes for sale. hell I may have a few more items you and your corn pickin buddies may be interested in.

Hasn't this just been the year from He11? I am still fighting this pneumonia, they said it could be many months before I am back to normal...compound that with all the weather swings this year and it turns into a real b!tch..

Yep tired of this roller coaster weather. Cool and wet then hot and dry then back to cool and wet. Just hope this winter is not a bear

(quoted from post at 08:02:30 09/20/13) Hasn't this just been the year from He11? I am still fighting this pneumonia, they said it could be many months before I am back to normal...compound that with all the weather swings this year and it turns into a real b!tch..

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Animal
You have my condolences. I had pneumonia in the Spring of my junior year of high school. I was in & out of bed similar to a roller coaster. I thought I never would get over the junk. In my golden olden years I take a pneumonia nnalert and I hope it wards it off!!

Yields are about average. Like everyone else, been the devil to get up in good shape with the weather. Plus blew an engine first day rolling in May and even with a CNH repower was down a month. Plus lost my 2 best employees, one to a better job and one got bad sick. First time in my life I took a first and 4th cutting the same day. Finished the last of first cutting grass hay on some leases August 30 in the morning and started my 4th cutting alfalfa in the afternoon.

Price is fully steady from last year. I'm not planning on coming down and so far its holding though this month has been very slow. I've bought a lot less than last year but put up more. Last year in rounds rolled 2200 and bought 4000. This year rolled 3378 as of last Friday out of my good baler and 450 out of the spare with about 200 more to go. Plus bought 1500 5x5's to feed. So far sold about a third. Squares cant catch a break. Bale wagon puked 2 bearings and 2 chains, of course on different days. Baler did perfect for 2500 square bales this year and the wrist pin assembly came apart. Spent all day Friday getting the plunger out of my spare baler, replacing a broken needle, chains, and retiming it. We shall see. I'd like to get another 7500 squares this fall but I'm thinking I'll run out of weather before I run out of hay.

I've been lucky being late this year, wind July 23 took out my largest round bale storage barn. 60 mph straight line wind out of the east. Just like that lost 500 rolls of capacity. 900 foot debris field. Managed to get it rebuilt and adding another 500 rolls with 5000 squares above of storage while the builders are here.

It has been a tough year here in s.w. Pa to get two or three days in a row without rain. I've spent more time watching weather forecasts than baling hay. Got about 11,000 small squares baled and under roof, already sold 2000. Only rolled about 100, sold 24. Two more big fields of first cut bluegrass to go. Two more fields of third cut to go and 10 or 12 more fields of second waiting for me and the weather. Last couple fields of second were double windrows with 8-ft rake and low-gear baling with baler spitting out 6 to 8 bales a minute. Dread raking as rake wants to drag; tempted to hang weights to it, but that's asking for gear-box trouble.