Seems like every Monday is Hay Day. Peg and I fed the flock this morning, and we left them with less than a half bale in the barn. After breakfast, I jumped into Moby and headed down the hill to Leo’s barn. George has a lot of his 2nd cut hay stored in Leo’s hayloft. Last fall, when I asked George if he had any 2nd cut available, he kindly offered us 50 bales and took me down to the barn to show me the ropes. Walk through to the back of the barn, up some steep and rickety steps to the hayloft. Open the hayloft door by removing a two-by-four and a stick that are propping it shut. Toss the bales out behind the parked truck below. Close up, load up, head up.
OK, why 2nd cut? First cut hay is literally the first cut of the season – it tends to be older – it’s been growing since March/April and may not be cut until as late as early July. First cut has a lot of the taller grasses – timothy, fescues, and the like – which are more mature at cutting time and naturally tend to have lower protein and higher fiber content than legumes like alfalfa.
(I stole that last sentence from an internet forum of answers to the question: “Can you explane (sic) the difference between first and second cut hay? The benefits and disadvantages of each?”)
Second cut hay tends to be higher in protein content, and not as dry as first cut hay. We think that combination makes it much more palatable to our sheep.
We went through those 50 free bales by the end of the year. In early January, I called George to ask if we could keep getting more. Sure, for $4 a bale. That is pretty much the going rate if you pick up the hay at the barn. Delivery adds 50 cents a bale.
So, pretty much every Monday we need to reload with 12 bales. I can fit more in the back of Moby, but the hay shelf in the barn holds 12 comfortably. I’m keeping a running tally of our consumption (actually, their consumption) and we’re averaging 1.4 bales a day. We have no idea if this is high, low, or normal. We’ve been told a typical bale weighs anywhere from 35 to 40 pounds. So the math says our 11 sheep eat 4 ½ to 5 pounds each a day. However, this doesn’t account for “waste”, the hay that finds its way to the snow-covered barnyard and doesn’t get consumed. If we assume 80% of the hay gets consumed, average daily consumption is more like 3 ½ to 4 pounds each a day.
We fill up the hay feeders twice a day – morning and evening. Sometimes they consume everything we give them, sometimes not. The girls are more likely to finish everything than the boys, which makes sense because we have almost twice as many girls as boys. We don’t think they’re going hungry – we also give them grain twice a day.
As we get closer to lambing time (early April?), we will need to pay more attention to the body conditions of the ewes we hope are pregnant. Too thin, and neither the mothers nor the fetuses will be getting enough nutrition. Too fat, and lambing could be difficult. I mentioned to Peg this morning that we should check their conditions this Friday when we get our hands on them for their second dose of Permethrin.
Todd