Haying equipment

Hi Donn,

Yes it is a nice fleet of equipment.

We run goats, cows and two equines. Equaling in total at our seasonal peak around 15 cow units.
We will be able to extend our grazing season a little but already push into late November and snows.

I don’t think we could pull off winter grazing with our snow loads – just get a longer season if the snows come late.

From the Kick the Hay Habit book we are thinking more in line with yearly stocking rates based on the winter stocking rate. For us this is a 5 cow average.

To deal with the spike in growth June to August we will graze our oxen more, run a few more seasonal meat animals and mow if we have to (brush hog and leave).

Some of these strategies will work right off like grazing the oxen. Running additional numbers seasonally will be a learning curve. Getting healthy animals at a good price, moving them on at the right times and off at the right times etc.

Bottom line was that with our scale of under 1000 bales running and maintain the equipment did not pan out on a dollar per bale price. The margins were so tight a $200.00 part could throw the season into a loss. We had good local help for free or cheap with mechanical problems, and honestly the equipment is basic and in good shape too. We probably could have ‘made’ it work but not really from a marginal reaction test of time and resources for the time of year.