No rain and no grass

Nudibranch

Nudibranch

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It's starting to become a worry.
This year I closed the lambing field at the beginning of Feb. Normally by end of April it's lush and long as it's the wettest field. This year there was JUST enough to cover 3 weeks of lambing and then I had to move them off. Horses are now on it and there's nothing. Absolutely bald and parched.
The other fields are on a south facing slope. Again, normally this time of year there's grass galore and at least 5 acres of standing hay for winter. The winter field is bald and the other field, rested for the last 2 months, has minimal growth.

I've started feeding limited haylege to my Dales. I'm sure she's still getting something from the bald lambing field as shes maintaining her condition but I want to make sure there's some long fibre going through. Never in my life have I had to feed forage this time of year.

Usually have my hay in by now but still haven't managed to buy any. Next door has only taken 1 cut of silage when usually they'd be on 3 by now at least.

I have no idea how the grass is going to recover in time for winter, let alone next year unless we get a wet summer and autumn. At the minute there's nothing in the forecast. If it continues I'm going to have to let some of my goats go, and some of the Herdwick flock I've built up from scratch. It's gutting. I can't remember having to worry about extreme weather until the last handful of years when we've had the opposite problem with endless rain. I guess it's climate change kicking in. It sucks.
 
It’s a worry for sure, we are in desperate need of rain…last year July and August were a washout but so far doesn’t feel like we will be getting a repeat
 
Luckily managed to get the same amount of hay as last year. I moved my boys onto their fields with plenty of grass a few weeks ago so I could rest the other fields for winter. We've had no rain, they are rapidly eating down the fields they are in, they are also having a bit of hay. The fields they moved off are looking brown. Very worrying.
 
I wasnt too worried until we went to Wales for a few days amd I saw green grass! Coming back here was a huge shock, I didn't really realise how bad things were. I don't need a huge amount of grass over summer but some would be nice, my big worry is winter. I usually have a field resting that by now looks pretty good. Now they are all scalped. :(
 
I’m worried about sourcing hay over winter so we’re going to let the farmer next door take a cut from our field which will hopefully mean there’s enough to go around.

I’m also having to start soaking hay nets in the bath because the tank’s nearly empty.

I’m pretending I live in the Mediterranean so therefore it’s meant to look like this and it’s fine. Nobody can convince me otherwise 😂.
 
I feel your pain. We’re normally down to one feed a day and strip grazing at this time of year. At the the moment they’re having two feeds a day and some bought in Haylage 😕
 
poiuytrewq said:
I wasnt too worried until we went to Wales for a few days amd I saw green grass! Coming back here was a huge shock, I didn't really realise how bad things were. I don't need a huge amount of grass over summer but some would be nice, my big worry is winter. I usually have a field resting that by now looks pretty good. Now they are all scalped. :(
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I went to Oxford on Wednesday and couldn't believe how dry everything was. We are spoilt with rain in Wales, that's for sure! Though as we got into Oxford, we'd brought the rain with us.
But it's usually too wet to make hay, it's all haylage around here. We're used to paying extortionate prices for hay, as it usually has to be brought in from somewhere else, Herefordshire is where my supplier gets it from, so goodness knows how much it'll cost this year.

.
 
gryff said:
We are spoilt with rain in Wales, that's for sure!

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Same here - we have no grass but our field has small lakes on it. The rain has been awful today, torrential and horizontal. I've been cold for most of June and all of this month so far, I've even dug out my winter coat.
Pretty much nothing other than silage gets made in the local area. We can get hay but it's all brought over from the Black Isle.
In emergencies we have to resort to pre-packed small bale haylage (from England) and it's eye-wateringly expensive in good years - so goodness knows what it's going to be like this year! It really is a worry.
 
Please send rain this way (near Oxford and drier than I’ve ever seen it). Normally I can rotate every 6 weeks between paddocks, at the moment they are dust baths after one week. I’ve had to let all the big boys onto the hay field (they are ecstatic). I’m hoping they graze the shorter green stuff and we can still cut it in a few weeks but doubtful.

I’m now hoping for a wet August, which does sometimes happen after a hot (extended) spring. I am buying hay in batches which is still £5 per bale as I think it’ll get more expensive this winter.

On the plus side, I have a really good UK tan.
 
Please send rain this way (near Oxford and drier than I’ve ever seen it). Normally I can rotate every 6 weeks between paddocks, at the moment they are dust baths after one week. I’ve had to let all the big boys onto the hay field (they are ecstatic). I’m hoping they graze the shorter green stuff and we can still cut it in a few weeks but doubtful.

I’m now hoping for a wet August, which does sometimes happen after a hot (extended) spring. I am buying hay in batches which is still £5 per bale as I think it’ll get more expensive this winter.

On the plus side, I have a really good UK tan.
 
I am actually starting to have dark thoughts about what to do with the horses if we don't get rain soon. My grass is so dry it's starting to come up by the roots and even if we reseeded nothing would grow without rain. And I'm told the hay cut is really poor this year. What if I can't get any hay? Maybe I could scrape through this year, but if this is an ongoing trend I dont see how I will be able to feed them in the future.

Plus I'm told by my farmer friend that the price of horse and human feed will go up (and availability down) because the cereal crops are also failing.
 
Hackback said:
I am actually starting to have dark thoughts about what to do with the horses if we don't get rain soon. My grass is so dry it's starting to come up by the roots and even if we reseeded nothing would grow without rain. And I'm told the hay cut is really poor this year. What if I can't get any hay? Maybe I could scrape through this year, but if this is an ongoing trend I dont see how I will be able to feed them in the future.

Plus I'm told by my farmer friend that the price of horse and human feed will go up (and availability down) because the cereal crops are also failing.
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This is the worry...I think we are in new territory now climate wise and it's not good. Lots of talk on the farm forums about people cutting back stock, etc, as its just so unreliable these days. Horse wise we would manage as I have natives who genuinely don't need decent grazing but the sheep need something.
 
We had a really dry Summer like this 7 years ago. The grass will recover, but what we do in the interim is a worry. I am being careful to save what I can and the haylage field looks good after it’s cut (normally does my winter grazing too) but I am supplementing with hay when I wouldn’t normally and in a month’s time I’ll be out of fresh grass too. Then what? I stupidly sold some of my surplus haylage crop last year so I only have 2 bales in reserve, and this year’s cut was 50% down in yield
 
We're desperate for rain. We've never had to hay at this time of year either and we have no grass on any of our fields. I'm having to buy in hay to feed now and to make up for the 50% less bales we got. Just hoping we get some rain and some grass at some point this year.
 
I’m lucky that I have got grass but I’m rotating the boys between three fields currently instead of the usual two as the others haven’t from back much yet. We have got a few showers of rain tonight so hopefully that will help. It will be interesting to see how much hay we get next week when it’s cut! On the plus side, my mare not getting overweight this year - I’m just giving her hay in the field and haven’t had to restrict her at all as there isn’t a lot growing.
 
Just recently heard from the Irish Marksway supplier that their haylage is lower yield this year and therefore more expensive - €13.74 per bale incl shipping.

Marksway should buy some Irish land to crop from, barely without enough water for the crop!
 
Been raining in Cheshire for the last few hours but even prior to today, we've had an abundance of grass and I know there's been no issue with getting hay off the fields. Ours are all fat as pigs and I've been hoping the grass growth would slow down.
 
Been raining in Cheshire for the last few hours but even prior to today, we've had an abundance of grass and I know there's been no issue with getting hay off the fields. Ours are all fat as pigs and I've been hoping the grass growth would slow down.
 
Drought is the absolute pits 😔 Victoria, in Aus (and South Australia) is in a shocking drought. We didn't have rain for 6 months, not a drop, on top of a dry winter and abysmal spring. Dams dried up, absolutely no Autumn growth, just dust. We got some rain a couple of weeks ago which has given everything a green tinge (a 'green' drought).winter is here though so no growth and absolutely no feed on the ground. Spring is looking like a disaster unless more rain comes. Hay is being trucked down from QLD and is $250-$300AUD for a roundbale 😵 and being sold by the truck load (68 bales mostly) can't get straw any where either! Bagged feeds are through the roof, too. We had over a years supply of rounds, but have churned through it due to the lack of feed in the paddocks. My advice, buy your hay and any other forage and stock up!
 
Woke early and decided to check the forecast for today. Very excited to see it says rain ending in 2 mins so stuck my hand out of the window. Nothing. Window ledge dry as a bone.
 
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