And the Cows Came 'a Runnin'

It hasn't rained in a month.  Even though it is not as hot as it was, it is very dry. There is a chance of rain toward the weekend and as far as I'm concerned, it can't come soon enough.  The grass in the pasture is parched, withered and dying in patches.  The cows are sad!

To supplement the diminishing pasture, we rolled out the final round bale of hay that we had left. The cows turned up their nose at that hay until the pasture withered and now they have eaten most of it.

Dried out Grass

While we have 100 square bales of Alicia Bermuda grass put up in the hay loft, we try not to start feeding that until it gets cold and frost has killed the grass.  The gentleman that provides our round bales works offshore 14 days at a time, so I emailed him to go ahead and deliver 6 or 8 bales of hay to the house.  He was offshore when I contacted him and put in my order.  Today he was able to deliver seven bales of hay to the house.  He unloaded them with a tractor and stacked them along the property line.  Tomorrow I'll cover the hay with a big tarp to protect it from the weather.

The Hay Man Delivered

The hay was freshly baled and smelled great.  Due to a very wet spring and a very dry summer, he told me that he's only going to get two cuttings this year, down from the normal 3 and sometimes 4 cuttings.  He asked how many bales we would need to make it through the winter.  I told him between 24 and 28 bales, and he said he'd put them aside for me.

The seven bales he delivered cost $175 in total and are 4 x 5 in dimension and weigh approximately 880 pounds.  In total that is over six thousand pounds of hay imported to Our Maker's Acres Family Farm.  Most of that hay will go through the cows and come out the other end, fertilizing the pasture and adding organic matter and microbes to the soil.  The remainder will be used as mulch in the garden. Nothing goes to waste!  I think this is a good deal - good for the cows, good for our soil.  A win-win scenario.

Round Bales

The cows were way in the front paddock eating what little grass was left.  When they saw the tractor and heard the noise, they were curious.  When they saw the hay being unloaded and one of the bales moved into the pasture, they came running! Daisy, the lighter colored Jersey on the right is fat, fat, fat.  She'll be calving in late October or early November.  She's eating for two.  Actually Rosie is too, since she's still making milk for Clarabelle.  All three of the girls high-tailed it for the fresh bale and tore into it like there was no tomorrow!

"Thanks for the hay!"

I watched the cows eat and eat and eat.  Cows don't really smile, but I could tell that they were content.

Hay.  It's what's for dinner

I talked to the gentleman who delivered the hay about different techniques of planting rye grass.  I'm going to try to get some broadcast on the front pasture in anticipation of the rain and then mow on top of it to scatter the seed and get it in contact with the ground.  He told me an interesting way that the "old-timers" used to plant rye grass.  He said their technique involved allowing sheep to plant it. They would feed the sheep sweet feed mixed with rye grass seed and then the sheep would walk around the pasture "planting" the seed along with fertilizer!  That's pretty smart!  Our Dairy Goat, Annie could have helped in that effort, but she's still at a neighbor's pasture down the road getting bred.

The cows are happy to have some good hay to eat on in the absence of good grass in the pasture.  I'll keep my eye on the round bale.  It will be interesting to see how fast three cows can make a bale of hay disappear.  I read that a Jersey cow can eat 2 to 2.5 pounds of hay per day for every 100 pounds of body weight.