Haying

Hay season is about here and it looks like the first cutting will be good, but not as good as last year’s. Fertilizer price is hurting everyone and allot of producer are not fertilizing as heavy as they have in the past. Cool nights have not been that good for Bermuda growth, hopefully are weather will get closer to normal soon.
Price of diesel and twine and other costs have caused baling rates to go up. I am hearing 22.50 to 25 dollars a bale for 5.5 X 5 bales and 1.75 to 2.00 for square bales. I remember not too long ago buying hay for 1.50 a bale, never see those prices again.
I am anxious to get started baling, seems the most problems I have is the first few days of cutting and baling hay so want to get those over with. Everything seems ready to go, but I know there will be something break before the first 100 rolls are out.
Best of luck t everyone and hope your hay is good this year

Spring Time Calving time and price of diesel

Have you noticed sometimes a cow will start fighting other cows right before she calve. Have seen this several times and never understood why. Cows get along just fine but a week or 2 before they calve they sometimes have knock down fights with other cows. Once they clave they seem to be ok. You sure do not want to get to close to them when they do this. Lucky my cow calved a couple days later and now seems to be back to normal with other cows.
Feeding hay is slowing down some, rye and clover is coming on good. Hopefully hay feeding is about over with. I should have almost of enough hay for next year left over, sure feels good going into spring and summer not having to worry to much about hay for next winter.
With the price of fuel no telling what custom rates are going to be for hay baling. I was charging 20 a bale last year, looks like 22.50 to 25 is going to be the rate this year. With road diesel hitting close to 4.00 dollars and still going up, we could see 4.00 a gallon for dyed diesel before long. Sure wish I had filled my tanks back at first of year or last year. Not only will this effect running of tractor but also things like twine for baling will be going up. 2008 may be a trying year for hay balers and cattle people as prices for cattle are coming down due to increase cost of corn. Best of luck to everyone

Feeding time/winter time

Feeding hay now, they started out eating pretty heavy. I had blocked them off half the pasture since first of November. Ryegrass and clover are growing in pasture, did not look like allot out there, but turned cows out first of January and hay consumption has dropped over half.
Calving will start around February 21. I will bring cows up close so consumption will go up then, but hopefully pastures will start to grow pretty good about that time.
Working on equipment, trying to get everything in good shape for next year. Also been enjoying some time off from the rush of hay baling and other chores. Been creating databases for cattle and equipment, hopefully this will help in better record keeping. Really trying to get a cost per hour/per bale etc to run. I hope this will help.

Calving time

I use to calve all year round, but in last few years I have started to control my breeding. I just started pulling bulls out of service so I would not have calves between Thanksgiving and Valentine’s Day.
After a few years I got my calving down to about 6 weeks with most of it in 3 weeks. Allot of people ask me so why is this better. Well for me, I know when to watch the cows and check them about twice a day if I can. All my claves are pretty close to same age and size. When I vaccinate I do not have to worry about if this one too young, they all can get their shots at one time. When I haul calves off they are all the same age and about the same weight. Also it is easier to decide which heifers to keep since they will be the same age as well. I guess I like to only have to worry about calving for a few weeks and during the later half of February and first of March there is not allot to be done. I hate to be out baling hay and having to check in on cows calving.
Another reason is it works in good for my grass/hay etc. I usually feed the best hay towards the end of the season and also clover and cool season grasses start to come on about then too.
I know my system will not work for everyone, but for me I will not go back to all year calving.
Let me hear you thoughts and ideas on this.

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Feeding hay

Starting feeding hay on 11/25/07. Right feeding old corn stalk, old Milo stalks and old grass hay bales. Should be out of the old hay by Dec 15 to 20 time frame. Cows still have a good bit of grass to eat on, but with colder and wet weather decided to start haying them.
The corn and Milo bales are not that good, but fed allot of it last year and cows came through looking good. I sometimes wonder if we worry too much about quality of hay. I have found that cows seem to do about the same with no matter what type of hay I run. I usually do have some rye and clover in my pastures so this may help out. I do try to feed the better hay when it gets real bad or cold for an extended period. But I have not cubed, caked or give cows any supplements. I use to give them allot, but I never could see it penciling out. I know others says it pays, what are your experiences?
I like to keep some of my better hay for the late winter early spring as I start calving in late Feb. Usually calving is completed by first of May, but because of a too young bull I had bought back in 2006 allot and very hot dry summer in 2006 my cows calved out till July. I hope to get them back on schedule, it may take a couple years to do that.

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Got both round baler and square baler cleaned up and put in the shed for winter. I usually wash the balers and wax them every other year. Make notes on what is wrong and needs to be fixed before next season. Then grease everything, and lube the chains, then back them into the shed. Seems to have less problems next year.

I will say that it is a dirty slow job, but rather spend the time now then with a break down next season or not having everything ready to go when need to be baling. Any other tips you may have?

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Extra hay and what to do with it

There has been a lot of hay made this year in North East Texas.

What to do with the extra hay?

1: Save hay for next year, if you got a good storage area this may be a good option if we have shortage next year.

2: You run extra cows during the winter and sell in the spring, couple things to think is what will cattle market do in the next few months? With oil going up, will that effect the corn futures, if corn price rise then cattle prices may drop. Also how is all the meat recalls in the last few months affecting the consumer’s confidence of meat products?

3: Try to sell some hay, the east part of the US is in need of hay, but trucking cost will be a major factor as diesel prices increase to ever closer to $4.00 a gallon.

This is a lot better problem having too much hay than last year scrambling to find hay at very high prices and very low quality.

If you have any other ideas about what to do with extra hay let us hear about it.

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