Anyone else waiting to cut for Hay?

Yep, our is looking ready but we haven't had more than 2 consecutive dry days for ages and none forecast. If and when we do get a dry spell the contractor will no doubt be flat out with silaging and I will be down the bottom of the list. :( Latest we have had hay cut is September so not panicking just yet.
 
Still waiting to make silage,have to start soon, given up with idea of making a lot of hay as long as have enough for my two horses other grass might be silage but would like to make hay if weather allows.
 
MurphysMinder said:
Yep, our is looking ready but we haven't had more than 2 consecutive dry days for ages and none forecast. If and when we do get a dry spell the contractor will no doubt be flat out with silaging and I will be down the bottom of the list. :( Latest we have had hay cut is September so not panicking just yet.
Click to expand...

If it's ready now, wouldn't it be gone over by Sept??:eek:
 
Yep, managed to make some silage but no hay as yet. Grass is ready but the ground will take a week to dry out and the longer it takes the more rubbish there will be :(
 
We didn't haylage till late August, early Sept last year, best stuff for horses we have made for years, and lots of it.

It was poor in feed value therefore excellent for ad lib feeding. Rather this than top quality stuff for livestock.
 
We didnt get ours in til Aug last year, yield is lower then and so is nutritional value but it still fills bellies and they fall on it like savages compared with the dull stuff you can buy in.Ours is greenish and they think it is heaven. Lots of timothy (which is late maturing anyway) some clover and not much rye :-))))
 
we're in the south and after a warm if not humid day, we are baling now (literally, wrapping in the dark!!) having cut at the beginning of the week.
It was going to be hay but will now be haylage as it didn't have quite long enough but decided to go for it in view of the forcast, shame, would have been amazing hay :( if we had had proper sunshine
 
Not in a panic (quite) yet. In 2007 we had massive amounts of rain,but when the weather dried up it stayed dry and we made lovely hay, the only thing was that we were baling one day and out on the combine the next.

Some farmers don't consider cutting hay until July, but we would normally have it baled and in the barn by now - BUT it is always a bit rich for horses.

I am looking at how rapidly the barn is emptying though and thought I should put aside 20-30 bales now to tide me over until the new hay (when????) is ready to feed.
 
I feel that the type of hay farmer's want to make is not what we want for horses.
When we had horses on the farm, they got last years hay that the cattle didn't use. My grandfather said that you cannot feed this years hay to horses as it didn't do them any good.
This, having thought about it makes a lot of sense. The draught horses got as much old hay as they could eat and oats. That was about it. The horses were extremely healthy and fit.
 
We're still waiting, i'm more worried about the land being dry enough for the tractors and balers to get on tbh. I reckon we will need a good few dry days before we can even think of cutting so hoping for a very long dry spell! The only bonus is we have just sourced another field to cut so we will be completely self sufficient next winter with plenty left over!
 
Not personally but the farmer where we keep them would for his own use. The horses have a separate hay field, gets done in august/ sept weather depending. It's brilliant stuff for natives imo.
 
We had a cut from our forest field a couple of weeks ago.

We had 20 acres cut today, which means that we are going to be hauling hay in
+30C, there are severe heat alerts out for the next 5 days. Great for haying, awful for anyone who has to work in it. It is 8.15pm now and still 34C, going to be a hot night.
 
Enfys said:
We had a cut from our forest field a couple of weeks ago.

We had 20 acres cut today, which means that we are going to be hauling hay in
+30C, there are severe heat alerts out for the next 5 days. Great for haying, awful for anyone who has to work in it. It is 8.15pm now and still 34C, going to be a hot night.
Click to expand...

To be frank Enfys, to say I am envious is an understatement, whereabouts are you?
 
I've got 7.5 acres ready to cut but the ground is soaked and the rain and mist just keep making it wetter
 
What?? You mean hay is an actual crop and weather dependent and there is not an unlimited supply at £1 a bale from a factory somewhere? - well, that's what many horse owners in my area think anyway!!! Most seem to think farmers should subsidise their expensive hobby too!
 
Lol Maisie so true!!

Weve been waiting to make silage for ages, got one field cut last week and it's lying ruined in the field.

About another 300 acres still standing waiting.....don't think I'll get my hay this year, the horses are nowhere on the list of priorities so I think it'll all end up as silage at this rate!
Hopefully I'll be allowed to leave a bit out and get the spreader through it n get some haylage but time will tell! OH cannot understand why I don't just feed them (baled) silage :D

What with no silage getting cut and no shearing there's been lots of sulking going on here....
 
We didn't push our grass on, it's literally meadow hay with only the horses poo to fertilise it... think thats our saving grace, fingers crossed for some wall to wall sunshine for us haymakers in July!! XX
 
I have about 6 acres of very long thick grass waiting to be cut. I am not too worried about it being cut late as I have fatties so not too worried about the nutritional bit. A few years ago when it was wet it wasn't done til August and it was fine. I am expecting a bumper crop this year looking at it. My field floods easily and it had flooded patches Sunday morning, luckily it soaks away quickly.
 
Devonshire dumpling said:
If it's ready now, wouldn't it be gone over by Sept??:eek:
Click to expand...

Yes it won't be the best, but as I have one with Cushings, a geriatric donkey and 2 fatties that are retired it doesn't bother me too much. This is the reason why I can't take haylage, wouldn't be suitable for my lot. Ours isn't fertilised either, grazed over winter and then rested since March, so its never the earliest and this year I thought it was never going to grow when we had the dry spell but all this rain has really brought it on, now I need it to stop.
 
MurphysMinder said:
Yes it won't be the best, but as I have one with Cushings, a geriatric donkey and 2 fatties that are retired it doesn't bother me too much. This is the reason why I can't take haylage, wouldn't be suitable for my lot. Ours isn't fertilised either, grazed over winter and then rested since March, so its never the earliest and this year I thought it was never going to grow when we had the dry spell but all this rain has really brought it on, now I need it to stop.
Click to expand...

Ahhh yours is the same as ours then, ours was grazed all winter to within a mm lol, plenty of poo on it tho, which we harrowed in, we also thought it wasn't going to grow during the dry period, alot has gone to seed now, bloomin weather eh? XX
 
Dont think we will be making any hay this year. Here is a picture of the silage field I took on friday :eek: we were very lucky to get the grass out at all even though the fields got pretty messed up.

picture.php


The tracks left by the tractors have turned into little streams, While taking the pictures I managed to slip into one which went right over the top of my welly :eek: and this is supposed to be summer!.
 
Yikes Patsyr - that's just what my field looks like, although its water standing in poached areas rather than tyre tracks. I've given up the idea of cutting for hay. We've only got a couple of acres anyway which I was setting aside to try and save a bit of money on the cost of buying hay in. Local farmer offered us last years bales at £3 each. Its the same as we had off him last year and as we've got fatties, the fact its a year old wont matter. I've just taken delivery of 250 bales which will see us through the winter, so I'm sorted now. If the weather improves and I can bale my 2 acres, then I'll just sell it on.
 
Yep 5 acres ready and waiting for some ruddy sunshine! Ours is going to seed now, would rather have done it by now but hey ho! What can you do? We're weather dependant.

Might do haylage but never done it before and it costs quite a bit more to make I think?
 
Yep we are waiting as well. Ours is ready to cut but there isn't any chance unless we get a weeks dry weather. I'm not panicking yet but I am getting just a little worried.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top