Haying 2013

[j.l.holt]

Most people I know who make any amount of hay,2-3 ac,plus, try to have a tedder. Just the old ”make hay while the sun shines’ thing. When its ready you best get it in. About the only thing on a farm that I know of that needs done when its time. There rest of the plowen and planten
,and picken can wait a week.

[Ed Thayer]

I do not know anyone in our area that does not use a tedder of some sort.

Ed

[Eli]

Interesting I see horse drawn ones sitting around in the weeds. We use a lot of rotary rakes to dry hay. I always had a 2-300 acres of hay we cut with a mower conditioner or diskbine but if the weather didn’t cooperate we made it as haylege at 60% moisture. With all the cows around the hay making equipment is pretty large. I still round bale every thing because of my work schedule. The hotter it gets the more refrigeration work I do. So I do cooling work when the sun shines. Eli

[mitchmaine]

11 days of the last two weeks have been rain or showers. six inches or so by now. standing water so it will be a stretch before we can lay any down. even with a tedder, it takes three good days in june (maine) to make proper hay with dry ground under neath, so i try and keep enough hay in the barn to go through til 4th of july. i love june hay and so do the horses after their winter diet. if i can’t make any, i still knock some down and pitch it in green to them. by the third week in june i’m itching to get going. good luck out there this summer, its going to be the best one ever.
mitch

[gwpoky]

I am in western WI and it will be a few weeks before we start first crop. I normally cut with a 6′ sickle and have never tedded, but I would like to. I have an old IH tedder but I need to beef up the frame too much fles and the chain falls off. This year I hope to mow with a 9′ bar and the teamster 2000, but I am having a hard time finding a 9′ sickle mower around here, might need to road trip to ND, SD, or NE. Heavy Thunder storms are on the radar around here through tomorrow. We are planing to go to HP days so I do not want to be haying then. Good luck to you all

[Ed Thayer]

I took a walk in the front field and it is nice and dry on the high spot but wet around the edges. We will have to wait until better forecasts for mowing I guess. Still anxious to get going though.

Surprised you don’t have snow on the ground still Mitch 🙂

Ed

[Dale D]

I cut the pasture on Memorial Day, rained 7/10ths on it 2 hours after i got done, rained again Tuesday am, had a nice wind Tuesday and Wednesday, tedded Wednesday noon and baled wednesday evening. had some wet bales where the wind couldn’t get to it, fed them to the neighbors cows. isn’t hay making fun. now waiting on real dry weather to put up the alfalfa/ grass fields. have fun and enjoy.

Dale

[mitchmaine]

hey ed,
we are probably pretty close to east west of each other? and may have similar weather. we are on the 44th parallel. although i bet you are higher altitude. we are kinda coastal here, about thirty miles on a straight line off the water between the androscoggin and kennebec, at about 300 feet. in summer when the land heats up and the wind switches and comes off the water, they call it the one o’clock breeze and it can be helpful making hay but a devil when it comes` to raking. lots of hay devils. when you can hear the train whistle from here, it means you have about 24 hours tops to get your hay made and in before a good rain, but the trains are just about gone along with my haymakin’ abilities. weather settles by early july, and thats our best chance. good luck with it bud.
mitch

[dominiquer60]

We thought about mowing yesterday morning, but showers were a slight chance in the forecast. Looks like we should have but oh well, lots of other stuff to do like discing quackgrass and curing rye for straw so that we can plow and plant corn.

[Ed Thayer]

The weather for the next three days looks promising, but Friday is questionable. I guess it will give me a chance to work on other projects.

Mitch, you might be a tad farther North than us but we are surely at a higher elevation. About 1,500 feet here at the farm. I hope to make it up some time and visit you farm.

Ed

[mitchmaine]

hey ed,
grass looking good here. but the ground is still holding a lot of water, and if i went through the swales a couple times it would be a mud run.
we look due east of conway and maybe middlebury in vermont. if you get over this way stop in for sure. it’d be great to talk.

mitch

[Eli]

Dairy farmers are cutting hay like crazy relative feed value just under 200 I best wait a week or so that’s a little hot for horses. I’m usually ready about a week after the hay. Eli

[dominiquer60]

We just cut some sparse fields this morning, A) because they are not heavy and should dry well and B) We want to lime them while we are borrowing a spreader for other purposes, maybe a little Sul-Po-Mag too.

Sunday we baled 5 acres of beautiful clean rye straw. I am looking forward to the luxury of mulching just about everything after a couple cultivations, onions and broccoli will get it tomorrow.

[Ed Thayer]

Glad you had some weather to bale Erika, still wet forecast for the end of the week will prohibit us from getting going. Talk of possible frost tonight, I hope they are wrong.

Ed

[dominiquer60]

We are hoping that we can bale tomorrow, supposed to be a bit cloudy, but it may only amount to 100 bales but
we need it. Horses have be eating our better mulch hay along with limited time on pasture.

[Author]

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