Buying hay

 
When we bought our first 10 bison in December 2014, our plan was to allow them to graze on 22 acres of pasture we had fenced off and, when necessary, start buying them hay.  Having grown up in Wisconsin, which is frozen for a large part of the year, I figured we would likely have to start buying hay by the spring of 2015.  However, as spring rolled by and there was still plenty of grass (I even felt comfortable enough to burn half of the pasture) I began to realized that the grass in southern Virginia grows a heck of a lot more than it does in the northern US.  Over the following summer and fall the grass remained strong and fed the herd through the winter of 2015-16.  It was during that winter that we added a three year old bull and two bull calves to the herd.  Since then the grass on this 22 acre area has managed to continue feeding the herd until recently in early 2017 when the need for hay has become apparent.

In my opinion there are two causes for the recent shortage in grass.  First, last year during the late summer and fall we had very little rainfall and very high summer temperatures.  These conditions greatly reduced the growth of both warm and cool season grass species.  Second, the addition of three more bison about a year ago probably created too much grazing pressure.  With the recent availability of hay this grazing pressure should now be greatly reduced. 

Finding hay to purchase wasn't too difficult.  Craigslist had a wide assortment of different types of hay listed in my area and I soon found a source that fit my needs about 30 minutes away.  I started feeding hay last week with a single test bale.  This allowed me to confirm they liked the hay and also gauge their consumption rate.  They enjoyed it very much and consumed most of the bale within the week.

Today I hooked the trailer to the truck and bought eleven more big bales.  This should hold them for quite a while and allow the pastures to recover. 

Comments

  1. Tall PinesFebruary 3, 2017 at 11:01:00 PM EST

    How much is hay per ton?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Buffalo DanFebruary 4, 2017 at 12:57:00 PM EST

      I paid $30 per large round bale (5'x5') of mixed grass. I'm not sure how much per ton that would be. For a pricing reference, I used the USDA's weekly hay reports https://www.ams.usda.gov/market-news/hay-reports

      Delete
  2. Tall PinesFebruary 4, 2017 at 11:09:00 PM EST

    Did the owners says how much the average bale weighed?

    My guess is a 5'x5' bale could weigh 800-1000 lbs. If on the lower weight, that would be about $75 a ton - which for here is a very good price. This year - where we have a large surplus of hay - a 1200 lb bale would usually go for about $70 to $80 a bale for cow hay. Many are asking higher if the hay is for horses.

    I am not familiar with your grasses so 'mixed grass' could be good or not so good taste and/or nutrition-wise. Since the buffalo seemed to enjoy the hay, most likely the hay tastes good.

    Since a bale lasts a week the buffalo must still have some pasture to graze as supplement.

    Right now my 14 cattle are going through a 1200-1400 lb bale in three days. Our cold weather has upped their hay intake as usually a bale lasts 3.5 days.

    15 inches of snow last night. 1 to 2 feet more snow predicted by Tuesday morning. And 15-25 mph winds tomorrow potentially creating blizzard like conditions. Good thing I have shelter for the cattle to get out of the weather.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Buffalo DanFebruary 7, 2017 at 4:25:00 PM EST

      I didn't get a precise estimate from the sellers, but 800-1000 lbs seems right. It does seem as though hay is very inexpensive in southern Virginia. I've heard from some of the locals that nearly all of the fields there used to be used to grow tobacco, but everyone stopped growing it during the federal tobacco buyout. The buyout was supposed to help them transition to other crops, but it seems like most people just planted grass and cut hay. That's my theory on why there's so much hay around here.

      A lot of the mixed grass around here is orchardgrass and timothy. I've been told that you can feed bison more nutritional foods like alfalfa, but most of the protein will just pass out through their urine, so there's no point in paying extra. I've also noticed that they always seem to be attracted to what I would consider to be bad hay. Whenever one of them finds some half rotted grass in the field they all crowd around trying to get some.

      They do have some grass left in the pasture, so that could be supplementing the hay. They also have a natural decrease in metabolism during the winter when they tend to slim down. This helps the cows give birth more easily in the spring.

      I think my bison prefer the cold weather to the hot summer days we have here. Today it got into the 70's.

      Delete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Front-end loader mounted t-post installer

Image
 Since we started fencing the perimeter of our ranch in 2014, I've strove to increase the rate at which I am able to fence an area.  Among the most recent improvements has been a t-post pusher which is mounted to our tractor's front-end loader bucket.  This device is very simple, but has already saved us countless hours of work. The following photographs illustrate how I use the post pusher.  Aiming: The loader is first positioned with the end of the pusher is close to the ground.  I then maneuver the tractor until the end of the pusher is in alignment with the marked post location.  This is how the lined up pusher looks from the driver's seat of the tractor.  Yes, I know the loader has an issue with the hydraulics cover. Loading:  Once the pusher is aligned, I place the tractor in park, raise the loader arm and insert a t-post into the open end of the pusher.  Tilting:  Correct placement of the t-post is dependent aligning the post along three axises,
Read more

DIY cultipacker-roller

Image
For those of you who are unfamiliar with agricultural equipment, a cultipacker is an implement used to compress soil.  There are several reasons a farmer may use a cultipacker, but, for me, the primary purpose for the cultipacker is to pack down soil that has just been planted with grass seed.  This should greatly improve seed germination in newly planted bison pasture. Five truck tire rims welded together form the shape of the cultipacker.  Technically this is really more of a cultipacker-roller hybrid as the ridged portions on the roller should be more closely spaced on a true cultipacker.  A thick piece of steel tube runs through the center of the rims, which I'll explain later in this post. For added weight each tire rim was filled with concrete after it was welded in place.  A photograph of the roller portion of the cultipacker completed and waiting for the concrete to cure.  The length of steel tube that runs through the center of the roller is welded to the
Read more

Face fly nightmare

Image
Face flies beginning to appear a few days after my initial treatment with AiM-L VetCaps.  I unfortunately don't have any photos of the original mob of flies, which was much worse. Since the forth of July an insect called the face fly ( Musca autumnalis ) has plagued our ranch and caused me a considerable amount of stress.  It was a week ago, on the forth, while doing a routine check on the herd, that I noticed that the bison appeared to be greatly agitated by a surprisingly high number of the flies.  While the sight of flies or other small insects buzzing around grazing animals is nothing unusual, this was something different.  The flies flocked in groups around the eyes and nose of each animal so incessantly that the bisons' natural defenses appeared to be ineffective.  All the blinking, ear flapping, tail wagging, snorting, rolling in soil, and rubbing on trees had little effect.  No matter how many times they did these things the flies would just briefly fly up into the
Read more