It’s January and we’ve finished building our hay stockpile.
We were a little reluctant to finish our annual hay-shopping until we got our cowherd settled in after the big switch from cow-calf to feeder calves.
With the calves all here, we figure we’ll be feeding about the same amount of hay as we did last year, around 100 bales. We managed to get about 1/3 of our hay from cuttings of our own fields, and it’s some pretty good stuff: 2nd crop Alfalfa, Oat hay (baled at dough stage), etc.
The balance of our hay is purchased at our friendly neighborhood hay auction. Last Saturday the auction prices were in the tank, so I bought all the rest of the hay we’ll need.
I couldn’t resist the urge to buy one lot of “weird” hay, big square bales of winter-rye baleage.
Verdict? The cows love it.
