First Round Bale of the Year

Normally, we start feeding hay around Thanksgiving, but not this year.  Somehow, the pasture has held up and allowed the cows and goats to continue feeding on the grass.  I think the rains coupled with moderate temperatures (no freezes as of yet) helped the pasture grass provide some forage for the livestock.  Perhaps the hay lasting longer was The Good Lord allowing things to last longer than it ordinarily does.  It wouldn't be the first time:

Your clothing did not wear out on you, nor did your foot swell these forty years. So you are to know in your heart that the Lord your God was disciplining you just as a man disciplines his son. Therefore, you shall keep the commandments of the Lord your God, to walk in His ways and to fear Him. For the Lord your God is bringing you into a good land, a land of streams of water, of fountains and springs, flowing out in valleys and hills; a land of wheat and barley, of vines, fig trees, and pomegranates, a land of olive oil and honey; a land where you will eat food without shortage, in which you will not lack anything; a land whose stones are iron, and out of whose hills you can dig copper. When you have eaten and are satisfied, you shall bless the Lord your God for the good land which He has given you. Be careful that you do not forget the Lord your God by failing to keep His commandments, His ordinances, and His statutes which I am commanding you today; Deuteronomy 8:4-11

The Providential grass ended toward the latter part of last week.  All the animals' heads were down, and they were finding things to eat, but they were looking for more.  Sort of like I do when I eat a meal, but am looking around for a little something sweet like pie or ice cream once the main course is gone.

January 1st seemed as good a day as any to roll out the first round bale for them to eat.  These are bales that I purchased back on March 29, 2024.  It is good quality hay, but cost me $40 per bale delivered.  I think that is a very fair price.  We kept it covered by tarpaulins, so it is still in very good shape.

A couple of things to notice in the photo above.  LuLu is in the barn being milked so she hasn't seen the bale yet.  Rosie and Elsie are eating a little sweet feed.  You can see their rear ends at the barn.  They didn't hear me as I stealthily pushed the bale out.  The goats are in the corral and the bull is in a separate pasture.  It would be only a few short minutes after this photo was taken that all the livestock discovered their New Year's bounty.  

Cows and especially goats waste a lot of hay.  I'm going to experiment with something this year to mitigate that.  If you look to the right of the barn in the background, you'll see a cattle panel.  I'm going to allow the animals to eat the hay in the morning, but in the evenings, I'll run the animals out of the hay area and close the cattle panel behind them.  If you leave them all day, they begin "playing with their food," stepping on, and pooping on the good hay.  We'll see if that works.

Last year it took the animals 6 days to eat one round bale.  I have 9 round bales in inventory.  Those 9 should get me through the coldest of the weather.  I still have about 70 square bales of hay up in the hay loft to feed them and I have lots of turnips planted.  I feed them the roots as I'm not a big fan of turnip roots.  I do like turnip greens, however.  The cows will have to fight me for those!

Waiting For the Pasture to Come In

It is always at this time of year that we wait for the pasture grass to really start coming in strong.  Right now with the cows, goats, and chickens on the pasture, it seems that just as soon as the tender grass begins to grow, one of the farm critters munch it down to ground level.  I've begun to install the temporary electric fencing to partition the pasture into paddocks to better manage the rotation of the animals through the land, but it is only 100% effective on the cows, about 30% effective on the goats, and 0% on the chickens.

While we wait, we rotated the cows twice through the yard and they quickly obliterated the clover.  Trouble is, they have a penchant for eating the leaves off the citrus and blueberries and shrubs, so I have to be real careful and cognizant of where and how I place the fencing.

We're also still supplementing with stockpiles of hay - both square bales and round bales.  The cows and goats like to spend some time around the round bales - as do the chickens.

I always use this analogy, but cows treat a round bale of hay like I do a cinnamon roll.  I like to eat the center first.  That's where all the cinnamon and sweetness is concentrated.  For some reason, the cows do the same.  You can see in the photo below, they've completely eaten the center out and you can see through and through the bale.  Chickens love this hole as it is a perfect hiding place to set and lay eggs.  I have to remind my egg collector (Benjamin) to check for eggs there.

There is yet another thing we do while we wait for the bahai/bermuda grass in the pasture to grow with vigor.  There is a spot of land directly south of our land behind our pasture fence .  It isn't ours, but the owners never mow it.  The tall grass is a habitat for mosquitoes, rats, snakes, possums and other such unwelcome quests.  Chinese tallow trees, privet, China ball trees, and briars threaten to overtake the land each year. 

We call this the sacrifice pasture.  Several times a year, we put up the electric fence and allow the cows to eat as much of the grasses down as they wish.

It is a smorgasbord or all you can eat buffet line for cows.  They roam around and "cherry-pick" the weeds/grasses that they like the best.  Once all the best stuff is eaten, they start grazing on their second favorite items. 

They'll eat and eat and eat.  I keep my eyes on them, though, because there is nothing other than a thin, electrically charged line to keep the cows from roaming onto the road.  After a while, they'll let me know they are done by sitting down.

I just let the three cows out that are in milk.  No sense in letting the 3 bull calves out.  We'll keep doing what we're doing with the hay and sacrifice pasture.  We'll exhaust our stockpile of hay in about a month, but that's okay.  Pretty soon, with rain and sunshine, the cows won't be able to keep up with the grass in the little pasture.  I'll rotate them daily through the different paddocks.

Another Delivery of Hay

The hard freeze last put an end to any remnants of green grass left in the pasture.  What's left is brown.  There are a few small patches of clover, but the chickens, goats and cows clip it down just as fast as it grows.  From now until Spring, the animals will depend upon food that we give them in the form of hen scratch and laying pellets for the chickens and dairy ration for the cows in milk.  Everyone else will make it on hay.

We keep a round bale in the pasture always so they can eat it as they are hungry.  In late December, we'll start supplementing their feed with square bales of choice bermuda hay, but we really ration that to get us through the winter.  Sometimes, they'll spend all day around the round hay bale eating and eating.  Right now it takes them about 6 days to devour a round bale.  I have to keep my eyes on them and our hay inventory so I never run out.  The person that I purchase hay from works offshore and is gone for 14 days at a time.  I always call him when I have 3 bales left to deliver some as soon as he comes back to the beach.

He has a trailer that can hold 8 large round bales and he'll bring them to the house and unload the trailer with his tractor with hayforks.  He stacks them on our property boundary line and I promptly cover the hay with a big tarp (actually a billboard).  That keeps the hay from getting rained on.  I do have to weigh the tarp down with cinder blocks and blocks of wood to keep the wind from blowing it off during rain storms.  Another bad thing about rainstorms is that if the ground is wet, fire ants will build their nests in the hay, and when you try to roll the bale out in the pasture, they will bite you.  Not fun!

There is a chain around the exterior gate that I open to roll the bales in the pasture.  The cows can hear that chain tinkling when I open the gate.  They equate that sound with FOOD!  They can be far out in the pasture, but when they hear that noise, they all come running.  And those darned goats!  What is it about hay bales that make them want to get on top of the bales?  I guess I can't complain.  I remember as a kid out at the farm, I liked to climb on top of the bales and jump from bale to bale.  The neighbor kids come and do the same on our bales here at the house.  King of the Mountain!

I wish we didn't have to rely on just hay, but the hay gets them through our winters just fine.  We've tried year after year to grow rye grass on our property to help feed them some grass during the winter, but we've never had any luck.  I am planning on putting down 3 tons of lime on the pasture in a couple of weeks and maybe that will be the trick that unlocks nutrients so that we can grow rye grass next year.  For now, though, hay is the main entree until the spring time grasses begin popping up.

Hay - Time to Roll Another Bale Out

On October 20th I rolled out a round bale of fresh baled hay that I purchased from a neighbor.  He had delivered seven 4 x 5 round bales to our house.  After rolling one out and putting the hay ring around it, the cows came running and started eating on it.  The round bales of hay weigh approximately 880 pounds each.

I looked up some information and learned that a basic rule of thumb for hay consumption is this:

A cow will eat roughly 2.5 pounds of hay per day for each 100 pounds of body weight.

Interesting.  Let's see how this works out.  The bale behind Rosie and Daisy below was given to them on October 20th.

The Hay Buffet

I would assume Daisy weighs 900 pounds, Rosie weighs 800 pounds, and Amy weighs 700 pounds, a total of 2,400 pounds.
2,400 pounds divided by 100 equals 24 (hundred pounds of body weight).
24 x 2.5 = 60 pounds of hay theoretically consumed per day. (according to the rule of thumb)

On the evening of October 26th, I pulled the hay ring off of what remained around the round bale.  Cows are notoriously wasteful.  If you don't have a hay ring around it, they will waste a big portion of the bale.  If you leave the hay ring around the bale to the end, they can't reach the middle and "clean it up."  Once the hay ring was gone, they got busy cleaning it up!

Rosie and Amy finishing up the bale

Rosie and Amy took advantage of the fact that Daisy was busy taking care of her new baby calf, Luna, and they gleefully ate what was remaining of the round bale. They mostly kept their heads down eating, but paused from time to time to chew.

Almost done

Finally on the evening of October 27th, the cows were done.  The round bale was officially gone. The minimal amount of hay laying on the ground would either rot into the soil or I'd rake it up and use it as mulch in the garden.

Mooooo-ve over and bring us another bale!!!

So let's see if the rule of thumb worked out.  

It didn't.  According to our calculations based on the cow's weight, they should have eaten roughly 60 pounds per day.  The bale was gone in 7 days.  At 7 days they should have eaten a total of 420 pounds of hay, or approximately half the bale.  But the bale was gone.  Our cows must have big appetites or the weight of the round bales is off.  Rule of thumb aside, the girls actually ate 5.23 pounds of hay per day for each hundred pounds of body weight.  That is interesting information to know in order to gauge our hay inventory.