Spring Buds

[CrealCritter]

I'm pretty sure he's thought it out. Often the best place for the hay is not best place to get to it's something every livestock farmer faces. Generally there's a "sacrifice" area to save the rest.

Yes and the hay ring and waterer will be moved as soon as it warms up some. Then the winter sacrifice area will get reseeded with a good pasture mix and gated off. I reseeded the finishing yard/winter sacrifice area last year and it worked out great.

I would like to overseed all the pastures and hay field, even though it still makes good hay. I will one of these years.

Jesus is Lord and Christ

 

[farmerjan]

if you are having to drive across wet and muddy pasture to set bales it's doing more damage to that field than you think (because it also means you have cattle on that same field doing the same sort of compaction).

you can probably get things set up to get the cattle to move to where the bales can be easily set and that would not mean driving acoss a wet and muddy pasture. i'm pretty sure that if you have a big round of hay and call the moomoos they'll come...

maybe then you would not need to put gravel over what used to grow green things that animals could eat because you no longer have to drive there? which pretty much means no longer reducing the capacity of your farm...

but i'm just spitballing here. perhaps it's a good idea to rethink it and see if you can do it a different way?

Until you have cattle and feeding in conditions that are difficult, it is not a good idea to make too many suggestions on setting things up differently. There are ways to do some rotational bale grazing with electric... but we have so much deer problems here, it just does not work. Every farmer that cares about his land, and pastures, is aware of damage they might be doing to the ground.

When it is raining and the ground is saturated, there are limited options. Easily set out bales will result in the ground around them getting knee deep in mud and muck, with excess rain that does not permeate down into the soil the same way it does when the ground is warm. Then you get into worse problems. Unless you are feeding on concrete pads, you have to drive out to areas that they can access without getting bogged down in the mud themselves. If you were to feed on concrete pads, then you have to deal with scraping manure, then added trips across the fields to spread it. If you feed the round bales out in the fields, then the manure is spread out more. Urine is not concentrated in one area either.
We either roll out rolls so that the manure is scattered out along the rolled out area... but the cattle will walk on it and some will get wasted. It does add organic matter/carbon back into the soil for the earthworms. But if the weather is going to get nasty, then there is more wasted hay because they cannot eat it fast enough and it will get rained on and spoiled. That is MONEY out of pocket that cannot be justified as good hay gets trampled down.
We also feed in rings... and at 2 places we feed in the same place and in the spring/summer, will scoop that up and spread all that across the pasture. But you have to drive in the fields to get to it. It does some damage... but the earthworms and such will work on that compaction. Once any areas are cleaned up, they are usually harrowed/disced over, and a pasture mixed broadcast.
We gravel areas that we drive on regularly, including a few drive lane areas... and gravel around the barn where you are driving regularly will tear up LESS stuff in the long run. Including not tearing up your equipment.. Especially as most livestock are fenced OUT of areas directly around the barn or they will be into the stored hay and make an even bigger mess and waste even more hay and money spent.

 

[flowerbug]

based upon what i see and have experienced, not every farmer does care - if i saw better or had better experiences i'd not have things to say...