Today wasn’t a thrill ride, but I did get to cross off a good deal from my list.
I also learned a little more about my pasture and my options.
For instance: Everyone here seems to fertilize their pastures if they want good hay. I’m not crazy about the idea because it’s expensive and I’m not gaga over chemical fertilizers.
I also learned that the reason all my grass goes to seed before anyone is haying is because it’s mostly fescue, which is a cool weather grass. The trouble is that almost everyone puts up hay in large round bales out here. Folks who hay have to go where the real acreage is, so the big rounds go up first and the small squares on little lots like mine go up last. Combine that with my grass and the fact that the burned pasture has actually been crap for me–contrary to what everyone said. Instead of better grass, all the burned stuff has no grass and fuckloads of weeds.
So, my hay’s crap, and due to the situation as it stands, that’s just a fact of life for me (unless someone wants to hay small squares a lot earlier, which I’m pretty sure they don’t).
As a side note, hay is put up in two steps. First it’s cut and left to dry out a bit, sometimes being turned or raked at that point. Then it’s baled by machines that basically scoot along and scoop it up and compact it and tie it into either small square bales–the roughly 15 x 18 x 40″ blocks most people think of when they think of a bale of hay–or large round bales, the 4 x 5′ giant round things you see all over the countryside this time of year. There are also large squares, but they’re less common around here. The small square bales and large round bales are made with two different machines, and in our area, there are fewer people with small balers. The large bales are faster and less labor-intensive–so, cheaper–to make and move. The primary livestock here are cattle and cattle eat a hell of a lot more than sheep, so even for smaller operations, the large bales make sense. You get about 20 small square bales to the large bale, so that’s 20 bales that have to be loaded on a truck for everyone one bale that can be pierced and moved with a tractor. (There are also machines that throw or load the small square bales into a trailer as it’s baled, but I haven’t seen them around here–I think they’re more common in areas with a lot more horses, since small squares are more popular for horses.) Small square bales do fetch more per pound than large rounds, but I think the market here just doesn’t make the math of it work out.
Anyway, if I wanted good pasture for hay, I’d pretty much need to fertilize (~$60/acre) and/or reseed ($20/acre). If I treated 5 acres, that’s $400, or twice what I’d probably need in hay. Would that set me up for 2 years? Maybe, maybe not.
Another option is native grass, which is a hot weather grass and would be ready at the right time, but would take years to establish.
Or I could just buy hay going forward.
Maybe option would be to graze them on larger paddocks, not worrying about saving anything for hay, and to winter graze (a good option with fescue, I learned), and buy a small amount supplementary hay. Grazing them on what seemed like dead pasture last year, they only ate about half the hay I expected, despite the harsh winter. I was told in a mild winter, they might get almost all they need from fescue.
I’m going to research it a bit more and learn what I can about more targeted grazing, winter grazing, cultivating a small but awesome portion of the pasture for hay, etc. I have enough land and few enough sheep that I could probably come up with a good system that alternates different areas to rest and graze over a multi-year plan.
For this year, I’ll get a little hay from the useable part of my pasture, buy a little more, use up the old stuff I still have, and graze them on all the weedy pasture, possibly reseeding it as I do. I’m more into overseeding than fertilizing, both because it’s cheaper and not petroleum-based.
Anyway, it’s some good stuff to chew on, and I’m going to try to do some creative thinking.
