Doc,
I can see your point. I don't think the folks I have talked to went to a lot of trouble. Most of them are into minimal dollar input, so very little lime and fert was likely used.
Maybe next year I will try a small patch of alfalfa and see for myself. Thanks for the info.
Fred
We're in the process of re-establishing an approximately 80 acre hayfield that has been nutrient depleted for many years. Soil samples yielded an average pH of 5.0 to 5.3 so next week it gets 2 tons of lime per acre. We should end up between 6.2 and 6.4 pH. We'll start fertiliztation in early spring. It's been cut for "cow hay" the last ten years and the previous farmer leasing it did virtually nothing for the soil allowing weeds to become established by poor timing on the cuttings. We've owned it for one year to see the results. He's history. Our neighbor will cut/bale the hay now. Means I'll have to build a hay barn to store it for sale since we'll only use a couple hundred bales per year ourselves. Unless my wife grows the herd. The field's a mix of coastal bermuda and bahai grass. We'll probably get rid of the bahai in the next 2 - years. Alfalfa brings better prices but requires more constant water. May need irrigation here. I'll be looking into that next year.
It's not minimum input of time and money for sure. I'm doing a field right now and it is probably going to cost me $200 an acre to get it going for next year. $26 acre/spraying, $50/acre for lime, $25/acre for fertilizer and a minimum of about $100/acre for seed.
I'll be in almost the same boat in about two years. I'll have about 10 acres and a few animals. I wonder if anyone has considered loose hay for very small-scale operations? More to the point does anybody know anything about it? What did they do before balers? The word haystack is in our vocabulary, but does anyone still know how to make one that will provide useable hay in say February? I assume there’s more to it then just making a big pile.
I would like a cheap way to put up just enough hay for my use, and I wouldn't need to move it very far. I think the experience would be good for my son & me. By the way I'm in SE Michigan so I do have snow in winter.
They used horse drawn rakes to make windrows then a loader of sorts pulled by a horse that elevated the hay to a wagon where it was piled on loose.
I have a photo of my dad doing this on the farm, glad they came up with balers when I arrived [img]/forums/images/icons/grin.gif[/img]
You still need to cut and rake it into piles or swathes, so the added cost is the baler over the sickle bar mower and rake.
It would be a life enhancing experience for you and your son I am sure..
Carl
It would be a life enhancing experience for you and your son I am sure..
If nothing else you would be in the best shape of your life after you were done. It's an incredible amount of work to do hay that way.
Richard, as you told me, and I learned for myself....It's an incredible amount of work to do hay the modern way also!!![img]/forums/images/icons/laugh.gif[/img]
Rich
"What a long strange trip it's been."
that is true it sure is Rich. But the way he's talking about doing it would take at least 10 times as long, or longer, to do compared to baling it with a tractor and baler.
But think of all that great exercize and fresh air! [img]/forums/images/icons/wink.gif[/img]
-Frank
Old haying methods.
Sickle bar mower, dump rake or side delivery rake. With horses the windrows were raked into piles and then gathered with a sweep [ skids on the ground with long forks to pick up the hay] The sweep then went to the stacker were it was pulled up vertically by the horses and then dumped. As the pile got to high the stacker was moved forward. The hay was then loaded by hand onto a hayrack and used as required. This was the hardest part of the job but still much easier than the first baler operations.
Next came what is called a "Farmhand". Esentially a loader with long arms for height that had a long toothed 8/10 ft forks. It would pick up the hay and drop it into a portable pipe oblong container with one end open. Then a stackmover was used to transport the small haystacks to the feedlot area. For feeding a movable steel pipe gate could be used to regulate the amount of hay the cattle could access. Another method on larger lots had the entire stack loaded and pulled forward where a sickle bar and conveyor belt would dispense the hay to a trough or on the ground.
All these old methods involved less manual work than the small square or round bales. Only when the large bales came into exsitence did this change.
For 10 acres makeing hay with a small tractor and loader altered to accept long forks there should be no problem.
Forgot to mention a buckpole for making stacks and the horse operated grapple forks used to transfer hay to the barn loft.
Egon
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