More rain on the hay...

John S-B

Well-known Member
Well I took a chance and cut an acre behind the house on Sunday. It was really thick and getting tough. But the JD 1209 I bought used worked great.
Then it rained pretty good Monday morning. It was starting to dry, and I raked it late Monday, and then yesterday I raked off the tops of the thick windrows so it could dry better. I don't have a tedder, which would've been better of course.
But now it's raining again, and is supposed to rain into tomorrow.
Oh well. So much for this crop. I'm just going to let it dry completely, then bale it, and try to sell it to a construction or landscaping company for erosion control, because I don't think it would be suitable for feed. Maybe I'll get a buck or two per bale. Straw is about $6-8 a bale.
 
I wish I had cut a little more Monday. I cut some Monday and chopped it Tuesday and put it in the bunker silo to stretch the corn silage out. They were saying rain yesterday,so I only cut what I wanted to chop. I'm in dire need of some bales to feed in the feedlot. It turned off decent yesterday and if I'd have cut more,I think I could have baled it. Oh well,I got the glyphosate sprayed yesterday on the corn that went in early. I've still got some silage corn to plant yet. It's raining now and the radar looks like it'll be here most of the day.
 
NOAA weatherman on the radio this morning said it's projected to be wet and cool in Ohio into July... When did we turn into Seattle???
 

We had rain monday, cut 44 acres of hay tuesday, tedded it wednesday, baled it today, going to move it off of the fields tomorrow, they're calling for more rain tomorrow night and thru the weekend.
Since January it's rained 20 of the past 23 weekends.
 
Six years ago,I finished planting silage corn on June 23rd. I think I'm gonna be counting myself lucky if I'm done by that date this year. I couldn't tell you now what year it was,but probably in the early 90s I'm thinking,I baled the first field of first cutting on the 4th of July.
 
I thought I was going to have a problem with getting the crop up this spring but as it turned out a "window of opportunity" developed, I took the bait and won. Had that not happened, I was going to brush hog the mess and disc it into the soil for humus in my clay soil. Worth lots more to me like that than giving it away.
 
I think maybe I'll try to set a record for how many times I can rake a field without ever baling it...
 
Seen it one year on the dairy when we were chopping second crop while guys were still trying bale first crop that was blacker than well it was black
 
john i have used my 1209 for over 20 years.. good little cutter.. I removed my windrow wings and drop the plate unders shoot and let it fly wide.. for me dries faster spread out.. i dont rake until dry and ready to bale..

This year its going to be interesting.. thoughts of a tedder come to mind years like this is starting out to be..
 
Cannot believe ever trying to get early hay cured without having a tedder....course in the early years I never heard of one nor saw one in use and I never enrolled in Farming 101 professionally....just seat of the pants try this and if it doesn't work, try that.
 
I'd love to have a tedder, but I just bought equipment to start back up, and it just wasn't in the budget. Especially since I'm only doing around 5 acres.
 
I cut all my hay with a sickle bar mower and it dries fine,been doing it that way for 60 years cut my first field of hay when I was 7 years old with an Allis Chalmers CA
and AC 7T mower.I do have a NH 404 hay conditioner if I need it,use it every couple years.Going to be in the mid to high 90's this week so hay will be curing fast.
 
Well, the knotters on the baler I bought aren't tying, so I ended up pushing all that hay into a compost pile in the garden. Working on the knotters now, hopefully it's just because they were dirty and hadn't been used for a couple of years. They seem to have little wear and don't appear damaged...
 

You'd be surprised what cows will eat.
One time I took a weeks vacation to get first cutting in, mowed Friday afternoon and Saturday, was raking some Monday when the rain started, rained the rest of the week
The next Saturday we rolled up that burnt up black junk to get it off the fields and dumped it into a ditch for erosion control.
Later that year we turned the cows into the pasture where that junk hay was at, plenty of green grass for them but they went over to the ditch and cleaned up all of that hay.
Go Figure.
Baled some native grass a couple years ago that got rained on a few times, cows wouldn't touch the stuff.
 
Agree with 450's comment. My patch will make it after all. However, had it not, and gone to the mildew/stink stage, my plan was to run the bush hog over the WWs and chop them up good then plow it in for humus. Black clay can always use more humus.
 

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