[dlskidmore]

We only ever milk our sheep if something happens to a lamb. If they get overly full we milk them out to reduce risk of mastitis, so stripping them completely is essential. Bumping and massaging definitely help. Look at how the lamb bumps his mother before he feeds. Do calves do the same?

[dlskidmore]

I’ve scheduled oxen lessons, the move from full time to part time, and have put out feelers for local Brown Swiss calves in the spring…

[dlskidmore]

Could one make silage in barrels? I run a pretty small operation, would be feeding out small quantities, even a wrapped bale would go bad between breaking the seal and feeding it all out.

[dlskidmore]

What species of browse do you use? That would be an excellent use of land I can’t hay. I’ve been considering getting into willow coppice as well…

[dlskidmore]

We could do stockpiled forage for a month or two after dormancy, but the snow gets too deep rather rapidly. My sheep could have walked out over the fence on top of the snow if they’d wanted to last year, but they had the sense to stay in the barn. They’d wander about 3 feet from the door, eat the snowbank, and go back in…

[dlskidmore]

I’m happy with the Omega 3/Omega 6 balance produced by a grain/soy free diet, but “Grass Fed” is a magical marketing word, if I could go to all pasture and hay I’d be able to market better.

[dlskidmore]

I’m also working on the beets and squashes angle. The squashes start suffering from freeze/thaw around Christmas, so I feed those out first. I ran out of beets before they started going bad. Trying to increase our production of those.

[dlskidmore]

You can have hay that is too good. The critters know if they’ve had enough protein. But if some of your hay is poor, good to have nice stuff to blend in or alternate.

[dlskidmore]

When I put up loose all done by hand, it’s about 1/4 acre in a batch.

[dlskidmore]

Seems like 100 years ago without heavy equipment and accurate forecasts there wasn’t “first cutting” and “second cutting” as uniform cuts done all at once, but rather “make hay while the sun shines” and some is cut early, some gets a bit of rain on it, some gets cut later, and you end up with a lot more variability in the hay. The commercial baler wants to do it all at once, so he’s going to wait until the whole field is ready and not start at the easiest areas and work his way around as the season goes on… It may be that my wettest areas will only get one cutting for the foreseeable future, but I could get better quality off of smaller areas that are dry earlier.

[dlskidmore]

I see so many teams for sale on All Things Oxen. Tempted by a 2 year old Swiss team trained to drive with lines from behind… But I really want to do things right, and I won’t have the time to exercise them more than once a week this winter. I’ve already talked to the boss about going part time in March, and I’ve signed up for ox lessons after that…

[dlskidmore]

If you do it all by hand, almost any land is hayable. Saw a video where a group re-enacts an old tradition of haying a marsh near them. They cut with scythes, cut it high, dry the grasses resting up on the stubble out of the wet, and have platforms built out there to stack the hay on, and haul it out after the marsh freezes in winter. I could maybe do 1-2 acres that way, but probably not the whole thing. I’d probably be better off getting a minimum wage job on someone else’s farm and buy in my hay…

If I was going to hay 1-2 acres with the scythe and hand rake, trimming my fence line and doing the steep sections that the big guys never get to seems more worthwhile.

Experiences with electronet seem to vary widely. Some people love it, others hate it. My mentor that has the same breed as I won’t use it because of entanglement issues. They’re so heavily wooled, the uncharged net would probably be just as effective… I’ve been saying I don’t want to try that until I’m home all day to keep an eye on it, but haying is also waiting until I have more time, so it could go either way.

Perimeter fence may work against me in the long run in this area, as the adjoining field may become rent-able hay land, and we’ll want to be moving hay equipment back and forth over that border.

[dlskidmore]

What kind of fencing do you use for temporary grazing of a hay field with sheep? Letting my sheep do first cutting would definitely help with the issue, but I don’t trust sheep behind any easily movable electronet or electric wire fence.

[dlskidmore]

This is a poor drainage issue, not a recent rainfall issue. It looks pretty dry, and you might not notice it’s wet walking across, but you run something heavy over it and it sinks in a few inches. Spin the wheels down in that hole and you can dig yourself in good. Lost a truck down there for a few weeks until I could find someone with heavy equipment to haul it out. “I’ll come back with my biggest tractor”

I’ve been considering doing loose hay. If I do only an acre or two at a time, I think I can manage all the forking. How much would it really matter if we leave hoof prints behind? Good point though about the wagon getting too hard to pull if it’s sinking in.

[dlskidmore]

Charcoal: I’ve sincerely considered making charcoal. A logger left a mess on the back of my hay field, so I have a ton of waste wood to work with, but getting back there in winter when we have time to do anything is a chore. Maybe this year I’ll get the skis remade…

I’m still working through Teamster’s Guide, but so far Family Cow has been a more basic bovine care book. Either cows are way easier to train than dogs, or there are a lot of steps being left out of Teamster’s Guide.

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