The Hay Man Delivered

The early freezes put the hurt on the pasture.  There's not much out there for the girls to eat on. Although we have 100 square bales tucked away in the hay loft in the barn, we ration that until later. We purchase the square bales from a neighbor down the road that grows it.  It is the good hay.  In fact, people who own race horses travel from far away to buy it.  We'll start feeding it to the girls during milking time at the start of December so that it will last throughout the winter until the Spring grass comes in.

We generally buy 24 or so round bales of hay from another friend that lives down the road.  He delivers it to us, 6 bales at a time.  I just call him and tell him that we're ready and he arrives.  I emailed him and asked him if he could reserve at least 24 round bales for us this year and asked him to please deliver the first batch of 6 bales.  He said, "Sure." The only problem was that he works offshore on a 14/14 hitch and was in the middle of the Gulf of Mexico until Thanksgiving.

No problem.  We started feeding the square bales early for about a week until he showed up.  The cows were getting impatient and hungry.  We put them in the sacrifice pasture and they devoured every blade of grass that remained.  The day after Thanksgiving the hay arrived!

The Hay Arrived!

Our hay man loads up a 16 foot trailer with round bales and pulls it with his tractor that has a receiver hitch with a ball on it.  He never has to get off of the tractor. Once he gets here, he drops the trailer, drives around and stabs each bale with a spear, carrying it to a location near the pasture where we store it until the cows are ready for it.

Unloading the bales

When we had five of the six bales in place, he asked if we'd like the final one put in the pasture. That would save us some time and work, so we said, "Yes!"  

The hay stockpile

I put a pallet down on the ground first.  Then the hay bale is placed on top of the pallet.  I'm trying this experiment this year to keep the hay off of the ground, hoping that this would keep us from losing the bottom of the bale to moisture and mud.  Then I quickly put the hay ring around it.  The cows were eyeing the trailer full of hay when my friend drove up.  They were ready to eat!  If I don't put the hay ring around the bale, the cows would waste as much as they eat.  They are horribly wasteful.

Hay in the Hay Ring

Daisy, Rosie, and Amy circled the bale, taking big bites of hay and if cows, smile, I think I saw them smiling.

Gather round, everybody.  It's time to eat.

The hens even climbed on top of the bale to add to the pastoral scene, showing that everyone likes when the hay gets delivered.

A nice barnyard scene

Oh, one more animal was glad to see the hay - Annie the Nubian Goat.  The goats are small enough to fit inside the hay ring, and they cause lots of mischief and mayhem.  As a matter of fact, tomorrow I'll pull out the blue tarp and cover the top of the bale.  I learned from experience that if you don't, the goats will climb up on top of the round bales and proceed to poo and pee onto the bale.  That's some pretty bad table manners, right there.

Trouble maker extraordinaire

We've found that a round bale will last about 6 days before it's time to put a fresh round bale out there for the animals to enjoy.  Round bales are out in the pasture for the animals to eat at will, unlike the square bales that we control access to.  If the animals could talk, they would tell you that today was a good day because the hay bales arrived.