…which is German for Hello World! Why German, you ask? Well, we’ve purchased a new (to us) piece of equipment for the farm that I hope will expand our farming operation from a few small acres of vegetables to acres in the double digits. The new equipment is a hay baler made by a company based in Germany called Welger, now owned by the American company Lely. We got such a deal on this baler that we couldn’t pass it up, much to the dismay of farmer Sunshine. As some of you know, the farm we lease has a hay operation on 13 contiguous acres, but what many of you don’t know is that the hay operation is another lease, one we aim to take over in order to provide livestock hay in North Florida. But there is a lot more to haying than just mowing and bailing so we have a lot of work to do.
For starters, we need more equipment. We’ll need a special mower, fertilizer spreader, tedder, and a rake. To grow the very best type of hay, it must be fertilized which not only helps it grow, but reduces weeds that may be harmful to the stomachs of some livestock. Other than that, there isn’t much upkeep for hay, but then comes the harvest. To harvest hay you first have to use a special mower. The most popular kinds are disc or sickle mowers that look like this. Then you need to let it dry for a few days and the best way to make sure it dries evenly, you need to use a “hay tedder” which is a funky device that fluffs the grass and lays it out in a uniform manner. Finally, a hay rake is used to gather the hay in neat rows so the baler can drive over them, lift up the grass, rolled into tight rolls, and plopped out the back. Job done, right? Well no, not exactly. Then you need to move these heavy bales and for that we use the least expensive tool in this venture, the hay spear. I’ll put some pictures below from the internet so you can see what I’m talking about.
So is all hay created equal? If you’ve read up to this point, you know the answer is “no”. Some hay has more weeds in it than others and there are different grasses and plants that contain different nutrients. For instance, Bahia grass and peanut hay are very different. Even Bahia varieties can be different. In the field we aim to take over, the variety growing is Argentine Bahia. It has a denser and wider leaf growth than the more common Pensacola.
Without letting this post get too long, I will post another blog talking about hay quality and the different cultivars available for livestock hay in North Florida/South Georgia. I hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I like talking about. If you did, give us a like on Facebook or leave us a review on Google>.
