Growing and Harvesting Your Own Hay

From AAOA:
http://airheadarabiansandotheraliens.blogspot.com/2008/03/you-need-hay-right.html

I'm blogging about how to get hay. It's not going to be the fancy, high-priced T&A we all want to feed our darlings, but it will be good, basic mixed grass hay that you can use for your stock.

For the record, you can google a LOT of this information, and more, off organic farming sites. I'm just compiling it, giving you my own experience, and what I know works. Also, I'll try to give you the best recommendations for seeding for next year.

First, you need some room. Half an acre doesn't sound like much, but it's a start. Clear out any brush, dead trees, tangles of vines- they will get caught in your mower later. Now you need two more things- soil and water. Soil is the easy part- I'm going to assume you have horses. Maybe your neighbor has cows. You have soil. This is how you get THAT soil where you need it.

Get a pick-up truck, call all your friends with teenagers, and bribe them with a barbecue/bonfire/all night swimming party- whatever you can trade (or offer to help them do the same thing at their place) in return for muscle. Climb into your oldest, most ragged clothing (because you will be throwing it out later) and beg, borrow and steal every rake and shovel you can find. Now you go to the nearest manure pile, and start loading your truck.

The real trick to this enterprise is first loading, then unloading and spreading the manure. you need to get a good, even layer of this black gold going. This is where all that young muscle comes in. A half-acre scrub lot will take several loads of manure to get a decent layer (it doesn't have to be thick, just even coverage) over it. The whole reason you are putting this layer down is to provide vigorous growth- the grass will need the nutrient-rich base.

Now that you have your soil, you have a choice. If you already have some grass on this lot- it will go a bit wild. If you don't, you need to throw out seed. What type of seed is going to be the fun part. I'm in N. Florida- I've put out a mix of bermuda or bahia and (don't laugh) red clover. The clover grows fast, and will green up and get tall, giving some base for the slower-growing pasture grasses. You can throw out just about any horse-safe seed for this- the goal is just a good mixed grass hay for basic feeding needs, not the best hay on the planet. I DON'T recommend fescue, ever. If you google around, you can find people who sell good pasture mixes for your area. Alternatively- you can wait and see what pops up. There are large amounts of undigested grass seed in horse manure especially.

Okay- we have soil, seed, now we need water. You have two choices- use a couple of sprinklers and keep an eye on the weather report to know when you can leave them off for a few days, or go outside, strip down naked, paint yourself in chicken blood, and do the rain dance. If you take option 2, please let me know in advance so I can videotape it!

You have soil, seed, water. The last ingredient is time. It will take between a month to three months (depending on what you have growing) before you can cut the first time. I try to cut between six inches and eight inches, because I don't have a commercial mower. I just have a little Z-turn that I rent for the afternoon. Yes- you can use a lawnmower. You can use a sling blade too, but I've discovered that A) few people know what they are B) even fewer know how to use them anymore. You mow this like any other patch of grass- try to keep it in nice even lines. Do your absolute best to make sure you will have a few days of dry, sunny weather on either side of the cutting.

Now you need all that muscle again. Grab a wide fan rake and rake all this lovely cut grass into loose rows, keeping the grass fairly spread out to promote drying. The sunnier the spot, the better. Leave it spread out in the sun for a day or two, then go out with your trusty manure fork and flip the rows over after the dew has dried off. Spread it out a little more if you notice that it isn't drying well. You may, depending on hot hot and dry it is, have to flip it twice more over the next few days. During the raking and flipping is the time to remove any trash you find.

Once the grass has dried out, you need to bring out your pick-up truck again. Using your trusty fan rake and manure fork, rake your hay into small stacks and fork it into the truck bed. (make sure it's a clean bed, hmmm?) Off a six-inch high cutting on a half acre lot, you should get between half and 3/4 of a truckload. This seems like a lot of work for that little, doesn't it? Realistically, that 1/2-3/4 truckload will give you two decent feedings a day for your horse for about a week. The longer you let the grass grow, the thicker and heavier it will be, which means it will last longer. The first cutting encourages more growth. After that, you can go a bit longer between cuttings, but be realistic. You can't expect to feed your horses continuously off a first year cutting on a half-acre lot (or any other year for that matter). This is a supplement for you, to help ease your hay budget. Also, this hay is a short cut, loose-stack hay. Meaning it needs to be cut, cured, and then stacked somewhere for storage. If you have an empty stall, you can put it there, but it needs to be under cover and out of the damp.

The more acreage you have to devote to somethign like this, the more return you will get. The important things to do to keep a continuous supply:

1. keep adding back. Whether you get a pull-behind manure spreader and continuously spread more organic material or whether you only do the first step outlined here in the spring, PUT SOMETHING BACK. Some people leave the last, dred out and brittle stalks of the year lying to decompose until spring, when they go through and re-seed and re-fertilize.

2. realize that this is a stretcher technique. It takes enormous work to make something like this cover your herd for a whole year. This is to help you make your budget expand a little further. It isn't the best hay, but it should be GOOD hay if you do it properly.

3. water, sun, and soil are what will make the grass grow. Harvesting it takes time, muscle, blisters, sweat, and tears. nothing is free, and if that's what you want, I can't help you.

4. educate yourself- talk to your local agriculture department. Talk to local hay growers, or call non-locals. Find out what the best producing seed is, who you can buy the best seed from, and ask them about how often they harvest their crop. If you have friends who want to do the same, see if you can all hire someone with a real hay-cutting tractor to come out and cut X number of acres in one go- pool money for the cutting, and share the hay out equally. Get involved as a community, and you might discover other things you can trade or pool on- like vet calls, farrier calls, produce from home gardens- even yard chores.

Okay- that's the .99 novel. If it helps, great. I hope someone finds a use for it!