The Old Folks Home

[CapricornFarm]

Here they are!

 

[perchie.girl]

With the kids gone....and currently truck-less

And

Weather here in Homer has been horrid... I have only seen one field get baled... (and of course I couldn't get any...see above )

1.5 weeks before I have strong kids home... 1.5 weeks before I have the truck back.....

There is worry that either hay will be baled now (and everyone that I could bribe to help me is working full tilt...it is summer in Alaska..)

Or that hay will not get baled at all this year...weather just hasn't been cooperating..

So...



I looked at what it would cost me to buy non-local hay.

All frigging what hoozits!!

A jump from about $7 a bale to $16!!!!

Sixteen for ONE square bale of timothy or brome!

Oh mann... How about giving Alfalfa pellets a go... Beat pellets as well are a good buffer feed though I feed them as a wet mush.... because they expand but ruminants can handle that better than horses.

deb

 

[getaclue]

Here they are!View attachment 1075085

Awwwww!

 

[perchie.girl]

I regularly pay seventeen dollars a bale in summer and up to nineteen dollars a bale in winter....

Its all trucked in... either from the Imperial valley or from as far as Oregon. OUr bales are three strand and run about 120 to 135 pounds a bale.

Remember we are on the border of Mexico... The only hay grown here on the occasional basis is Oat hay. But since the drought I am not seeing any fields seeded with Oat hay.

Also that different regions have different growing seasons Baling methods and sizes differ as well. I have never seen a round bale in person.

Our (Imperial Valley) growing season never ends Imperial valley is irrigated and they get between 6-7 cuttings a year... They also rotate fields...

deb

 

[perchie.girl]

Interesting read about alfalfa by University of California Davis...

http://alfalfa.ucdavis.edu/IrrigatedAlfalfa/pdfs/UCAlfalfa8299HarvestStrategies_free.pdf

 

[Wickedchicken6]

Wicked your ducklings are so cute!
Diva you are the sweetest thing! Scg is right.
Alaskan wonders never cease.

Thank you! Although I had no part in their cuteness.
They just came like that...lol.

Like Wicked said..frizzle them..keep on a frizzlin...here are two of my favorite frizzled chickens from the past.
View attachment 1074491
Used this last one as a welcome post. She was still just a baby. View attachment 1074492

Thank you!

 

[Wickedchicken6]

View attachment 1074450

Yep.

 

[Wickedchicken6]

Our new neighbors are from North Dakota. I haven't seen them throwing their belongings in vans and trailers and heading back north yet but then it's still pretty early in the season. Hasn't hit 100 yet.

5 years ago when we went on grid we were putting our wiring in when the temps were hanging around 107. We were up in the attic at 6 AM when it was only broiling hot instead of blazing. We would dig the trench to the pole using the mid soil buster and the tractor and then go to work with shovels. At 10 AM we were sitting in our shop with the generator going full tilt and a fan blowing air on us. We were so glad for the 8 inch deep concrete floor in the shop.

The first thing we turned on when they threw the switch for us was the AC. God bless whoever invented air conditioning.

I don't think your neighbors will want to come up here. It's been a scorcher until yesterday and today. It's really nice today...it's only 64 right now. It's suppose to be back to 98 by Friday and hot for the next week. We had 89% humidity last night. Hopefully it goes down before the hot weather.

 

[Wickedchicken6]

Here they are!View attachment 1075085

Nice! It looks like you have a nice color variety!

 

[Kusanar]

Oh mann... How about giving Alfalfa pellets a go... Beat pellets as well are a good buffer feed though I feed them as a wet mush.... because they expand but ruminants can handle that better than horses.

deb

Standlee Forage also makes an orchard/Timmothy pellet too if you don't want to go with alfalfa. I don't know if you can get it up in Alaska or not... I feed beet pulp to one of mine in the winter, he has a hard time with hay and getting enough fiber out of it to stay warm, so he gets a couple of cups of beet pulp pellets (expands to about a gallon) soaked, right now he's getting some dry due to just feeding the last of it to get it gone so it doesn't go bad before winter comes around again.

I regularly pay seventeen dollars a bale in summer and up to nineteen dollars a bale in winter....

Its all trucked in... either from the Imperial valley or from as far as Oregon. OUr bales are three strand and run about 120 to 135 pounds a bale.

Remember we are on the border of Mexico... The only hay grown here on the occasional basis is Oat hay. But since the drought I am not seeing any fields seeded with Oat hay.

Also that different regions have different growing seasons Baling methods and sizes differ as well. I have never seen a round bale in person.

Our (Imperial Valley) growing season never ends Imperial valley is irrigated and they get between 6-7 cuttings a year... They also rotate fields...

deb

Here we have to try to get cuttings in between thunderstorms, if it's hot enough to bale, it's likely storming every other day... We get 2-3 cuttings a year, 4 if we're REALLY lucky...
Most cattle people use round bales, they come in 4x5, 5x5, and 6x6 (first is height in feet, 2nd is length from flat end to flat end in feet), we round bale for our horses but keep it in the barn and treat it like squares. Our baler is a 4x5 and a bale will last 2-3 horses about a week.

The squares around here are generally 2 string bales that weigh around 50-70 pounds (or if my dad is baling sometimes close to 100), but there are some HUGE square bales around here that are about 6 feet long, 2 feet high, and 2 feet wide, you have to move them with a tractor, they hold about as much hay as one of our round bales but they stack tighter and take up less room in the barn. You have to have a BIG tractor to bale those though and special equipment to move them (can't just spear them like a round).