Shabby_Chic
Member
Having nightmares about this situation atm. Friend of mine is a contract farm manager in East Norfolk and they've just taken the first cut of hay from a field which normally yields 150 big round bales and ...prepare yourselves..... it only yielded 20 this year!!!!!
Am thanking my lucky stars as lovely chappy i rent field space from has offered me the hay from the rest of his fields (probs about max 8 acres), he's only asking for the cost of the farmer cutting it (£2 per bale) then *whatever you want to pay me for the land use* Does mean I've spent time out there spraying all ragwort (not very much tbh), digging up every dead stem etc etc but it WILL be worth it when i have a barn with some hay in it rather than none! Crossing my tootsies that it will be enough (if I am mean with her) to last me the winter, otherwise I shall have to have a rethink then! Thankfully I've turned her from an 'in the box for 16hrs a day horse' to a 'turned out with free access to stable chocablock with bedmax 24hrs a day' horse. She seems happier for it and the paddock is holding out so all is working well atm.
We have goats & ponies at home and have resorted to chaff for them, actually works out cheaper to fill half plastic barrels with a bag a night than buy hay as we stand atm!
Not a scooby doo about straw, we've been buying the big (think they may be heston) bales of straw off local farmer for the goats @ £25 a pop, although he has now run out but let us clear out all the little bales & loose straw he had left in the shed for freebies - 2 trips later, it turned out to be quite a lot!
Am thanking my lucky stars as lovely chappy i rent field space from has offered me the hay from the rest of his fields (probs about max 8 acres), he's only asking for the cost of the farmer cutting it (£2 per bale) then *whatever you want to pay me for the land use* Does mean I've spent time out there spraying all ragwort (not very much tbh), digging up every dead stem etc etc but it WILL be worth it when i have a barn with some hay in it rather than none! Crossing my tootsies that it will be enough (if I am mean with her) to last me the winter, otherwise I shall have to have a rethink then! Thankfully I've turned her from an 'in the box for 16hrs a day horse' to a 'turned out with free access to stable chocablock with bedmax 24hrs a day' horse. She seems happier for it and the paddock is holding out so all is working well atm.
We have goats & ponies at home and have resorted to chaff for them, actually works out cheaper to fill half plastic barrels with a bag a night than buy hay as we stand atm!
Not a scooby doo about straw, we've been buying the big (think they may be heston) bales of straw off local farmer for the goats @ £25 a pop, although he has now run out but let us clear out all the little bales & loose straw he had left in the shed for freebies - 2 trips later, it turned out to be quite a lot!