Well, I am from north Alabama, and have heard these comments all my life. That said, my dad and I have been trying to establish a sufficient winter grazing program for years without enough success to drop hay completely. When you go between the flooding and the droughts, it becomes next to impossible to ever keep a solid stand year after year.
So with all of that said...we started putting up our own hay years ago. Our main reasoning, one that never seems to get mentioned in these discussions, is that when you are having someone custom bale for you, you are at the mercy of their schedule, not yours. We went year after year watching our great stands fall over and lose almost all value while waiting for "our hayman" to work us into his schedule. Then there is also the fact that all of this waiting knocks out any potential of third and dare I dream fourth cuttings.
This year was the perfect example for putting up one's own hay, it was so wet that custom cutters weren't finishing their first cuttings until July, when we were getting our second cutting.
These are just of few of what I believe are lots of benefits to putting up your own hay, that I believe are always overlooked in haymaking discussions.
Also, we use reliable but older equipment (10-15 yrs old, 25+ for tractors) for all of our work as well.
This post was edited by robersw at 10:59:21 12/16/09.
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Today's Featured Article - The Day Mom Drove the 8N - by Brian Browning. My Dad was wanting to put in a garden but couldn't operate the 8N and handle the old horse drawn plow he had found and rigged up to use with the tractor. Well, he decided to go get Mom out of the house and have her drive the tractor while he walked behind the plow. You got to understand that while my Mom is a hard worker who will always help whenever she can... she had never operated farm machinery before that day. Dad got her out there, explained how the clutch was the same as in our o
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