As the summer heat begins in earnest we are all struggling to get hay in - get it made and under cover to feed our animals through the long winter. Making hay while the sunshines is not just an old saying - it is grounded in stark reality. Making hay involves a lot of work and back and forth across the fields. It is critical that the sun shine during the process.
Making hay is a challenging and unsung task. The grass must be long enough to provide good food - but not too long. The tops should be slightly open, but it should not have "gone to seed" yet. If the grass has started to re-seed there is a loss of protein - Protein is key for animals. The hay must then be cut - usually with a tractor. When it is lying on the ground, it must begin to dry on one side - the sun is critical here. If it rains after the hay is cut and before it is fully dry then it is ruined for animals and becomes mulch hay. This year has seen a mix of sun and rain that has been great for vegetable gardners but very frustrating for haying. Farmers usually look for a string of at least three and preferable four to five days of sunshine to be able to cut, dry bale and store a cutting of hay. Many times this year four days of sunshine have been predicted only to be interrupted by a strong rainstorm late in the afternoon.
After the hay dries on one side (usually about 24 hours of no rain) it is raked turned over lying in the field to dry on the other side. Then it is teddered into rows - a machine attached to the tractor acts like a big rake and pulls the hay into long rows - again it is critical that there is no rain while this is going on. Finally the baler - either the square baler or a larger round baler machine rolls the hay up and ties it with the string automatically. The bales must then be moved into the barn or stored under cover. Some farmers use bale wrapping machines which place a large roll of white plastic around the round bales in order to be able to store them outside. This looks like giant marshmellows lining the side of a field. The plastic adds $3 to $5 to the cost of each round bale and the machine itself (the bale wrapper) is about $20,000 new - making it prohibitive for many farmers.
A cutting refers to how many times a field can be cut in a year. In New England, almost everyone gets at least two cuts per year - one in June and one in late August or early September. A really good year will provide three cuttings - mid June, mid August and late September. Large fields might provide a thousand bales (small square ones) in a cutting and sell them for $4 a bale in the winter - providing a big part of their income. It also reduces the feed costs for livestock producers to make their own hay. Yesterday, we were coming home from Goshen and noticed a group of five men who had just cut a very large field. They were getting ready to rake the hay into rows when the downpour came. There is nothing more frustrating than being about to bale and realizing that the field work had just ended for the day.
Our frend and hay supplier Bernie Gaudreau is a former dairy farmer who now makes a living selling hay. He makes both square and round bales on his 265 acre farm in New Braintree. In a good year he fills barns and has many customers (like us) who pickup directly from the field. This has been a very frustrating year - Bernie began cutting in mid June and quickly had a field of beautiful hay - just as quickly the rains came and the 800 square bales became mulch. Last week he was able to cut 60 round bales and get them tied, but we were unable to get them moved under cover before the rain. Because they are tightly wrapped, we will still use them for feed for our beef cattle this winter.
I hope you enjoyed learning a bit about making hay.
