Post by Lannie on Nov 19, 2009 11:14:08 GMT -5
We finally got the final word from our hay guy yesterday. He does NOT have any small squares of alfalfa for us this year. He had done the first and second cuttings in large rounds (1,500 pounds) and was going to do our small squares from the third cutting, so it would be nice and fluffy, however, the day after he cut it, we had a surprise snowstorm. He was hoping it would dry out, but it didn't look so good when it finally did, so he garbaged it. Then he said he'd unroll a couple of the large rounds and re-bale them into small squares, but yesterday when he called, he said that didn't work. The strip was too wide, and too tight, and all it did was jam up the baler and break the pins. So now his baler's broken and we have NO way to handle large rounds.
He did some calling around and found one of his neighbors had 5 small rounds (800 pounds each) that didn't fit on the semi when he was shipping it out, so he stuck them in a shed to use himself, but when Clint called, they agreed to trade some large rounds for the smaller ones. So Clint's bringing out 5 800-pound bales of alfalfa, probably this afternoon or tomorrow.
I don't have a problem with rounds as long as they're kept dry, and Clint says he can fit all 5 in our hay barn, in the space we had allotted for the alfalfa, so what else could we do? Now I'm trying to figure out how I'll be able to feed it. I'm only going to use it for milking time, so it doesn't need to be a specific measured amount, just an armload will do. Rich thinks he can cut through the bales with a saw sufficiently that I'll be able to pull off a hunk when I milk.
I remember reading about some of you that had round bales that you fed a portion at a time, and that you said you had to roll it back and forth to get the leaves off. There ain't NO way we have room to roll ANYTHING back and forth in there! LOL! It's going to be hard WALKING through the hay room after those round bales are in there. So do you think if we can somehow slice into them, that it might work?
I'm just beside myself right now...
On the bright side, I'm doing an experiment. I switched from evening to morning milking today, and I only milked just from one side, leaving the other side entirely for Seven. Between last night and this morning, I brought in just under 3 gallons, so a day's production for Bandit would be twice that (well, plus the cream she's holding back ), and I'm interested to see if her milk production goes up once she gets back on the alfalfa. Hopefully, it will do something, if even a little, to increase the amount of cream I do get now. It's still shy of what I was getting calf-sharing last year, but when she had alfalfa at milking time. So we'll see.
In the meantime, how the heck am I going to handle these round bales? We have NO equipment, just our muscles.
~Lannie
He did some calling around and found one of his neighbors had 5 small rounds (800 pounds each) that didn't fit on the semi when he was shipping it out, so he stuck them in a shed to use himself, but when Clint called, they agreed to trade some large rounds for the smaller ones. So Clint's bringing out 5 800-pound bales of alfalfa, probably this afternoon or tomorrow.
I don't have a problem with rounds as long as they're kept dry, and Clint says he can fit all 5 in our hay barn, in the space we had allotted for the alfalfa, so what else could we do? Now I'm trying to figure out how I'll be able to feed it. I'm only going to use it for milking time, so it doesn't need to be a specific measured amount, just an armload will do. Rich thinks he can cut through the bales with a saw sufficiently that I'll be able to pull off a hunk when I milk.
I remember reading about some of you that had round bales that you fed a portion at a time, and that you said you had to roll it back and forth to get the leaves off. There ain't NO way we have room to roll ANYTHING back and forth in there! LOL! It's going to be hard WALKING through the hay room after those round bales are in there. So do you think if we can somehow slice into them, that it might work?
I'm just beside myself right now...
On the bright side, I'm doing an experiment. I switched from evening to morning milking today, and I only milked just from one side, leaving the other side entirely for Seven. Between last night and this morning, I brought in just under 3 gallons, so a day's production for Bandit would be twice that (well, plus the cream she's holding back ), and I'm interested to see if her milk production goes up once she gets back on the alfalfa. Hopefully, it will do something, if even a little, to increase the amount of cream I do get now. It's still shy of what I was getting calf-sharing last year, but when she had alfalfa at milking time. So we'll see.
In the meantime, how the heck am I going to handle these round bales? We have NO equipment, just our muscles.
~Lannie