Wednesday, April 21, 2021 We found more hay! It’s still not enough to get us through till hay is cut for this year, but it’s a step in the right direction. Nice small bales of grass and yes even I can lift these. Although Ed loaded most of them in the trailer. And hopefully in about a month it will warm up, the grass will grow and we’ll be able to let the alpacas eat the pastures. We are expecting more snow this morning so keeping the hay feeders fill is still important. Happy Wednesday! stay well~
Photo of the Day: I’m not sure which I like more, the cute old guy who loaded it all or the beautiful green grass hay. LOL
Lana Nickerson
Ahh, I totally understand! We had to get more hay this early Spring too. And all our hay supplier had was big round bales. We can only fit one at a time in barn. Alpacas liked it and it will help stretch the square bales until September. Always a challenge to find good mixed grass hay! Hoping for less drought this summer.
Linda
All we could find locally were the big 1000 pound square bales, but the last one we got turned out to be 95% alfalfa. So we widened our search and found these nice small bales. I was so happy! Do your animals also have pasture Lana?
Lana
Yes, we do have pasture, but like you, we have to wait a bit for the grass to be up enough and thick enough for them to graze. We get nasty black flies that bother them in May and June, which means they stay in the barn a lot during the day and graze at night. So we do feed hay then too. Last year we had such a droughty summer that they had to be supplemented with hay most of the time. Then the hay fields produced less too. Right now they are dying to get to the pasture, but we are holding them off so they don’t overgraze.
Linda
Makes perfect sense! I thought all farms in the east had enough rain that they could let their animals graze more often. I’m still learning. 🙂
Lana
We normally do well through July, but then if it gets hot the grass struggles. We are inland enough to get temps in the 90’s sometimes, which is hard on the grass. Our herd is getting smaller (20), so our pastures can handle things better. Overgrazing and weed encroachment are constant battles even with rotation. We have about 4 acres of pasture.
Jill Jackson
Love Ed’s sweatshirt, my husband Dan and my sister went to Davis!
Read your Blogs everyday, and can’t wait until you open…keep up the Great work Linda.
Linda
Thanks Jill! He loves that sweatshirt and wears it so often! Go Aggies! 🙂