Hay season is in full swing and the hot and dry weather has many farmers happy with their well stocked hay barns full of delicious cured 1st cut.
While some farmers use preservatives and chemicals to cure their hay, many horse owners prefer hay that is cured the old-fashioned way, Mother Nature. The problem with preservatives and chemicals that are sprayed by either the cutter or the baler onto the hay is that many of these products, if indeed not all, have never been tested for safety in horses. Many have never been tested for safety in cows or other livestock either. However, the quicker baling turnaround time means less time spent turning/raking hay and less machine hours that use expensive diesel and add to the labor costs.
For those of us who make hay the old-fashioned way, we need to wait for at least three good days of clear, sunny weather with temperatures at a minimum in the high 70's. Cloudy days may slow down the curing process, although a strong breeze can dry hay nicely if the hay is already in windrows.
The haymaking process involves maintaining all the equipment and the capital costs of that equipment are high. When things need repairing parts are also expensive. A new gear box for a discbine for example can cost upwards of $2000, a new tire for a 100 horse power tractor over $2000! You get the idea.
For the hay season much diesel will be required to run all the equipment, and the baler must be kept stocked with twine, which sells for about $30 for two spools. When you are baling hay, that cost adds up quickly.
The operator of the equipment must be well versed in handling large equipment often in tight spaces, know the complex process of levers and how to set up windrows, keep the baler feeding correctly with the proper groundspeed and know all the methods of setting up the equipment safely. Plus be prepared to jump out and handle any mechanical difficulties that might arise. Equipment only breaks when you are using it after all. Hours and hours of driving time are involved, and so labor costs also add up quickly.It is not uncommon to be driving from morning until dew time in the summer, in order to get the crop in when Mother Nature provides the opportunity with her sunny rays.
So the hay will be 'knocked down' or cut, then after the surface of the cut hay has dried off it will be tedded or turned with a tedder/rake, usually within 24 hours. This procedure will be repeated on the 3rd day and if the hay is cured enough ( to less than 14% moisture content) it will be raked into windrows and baled. Of course those bales don't stack themselves, so if small squares are involved, which are the favorite type of hay for horse owners as they minimize risk of bacteria, (botulism especially), are easy to handle and to stack, someone has to unload those wagons and safely stack the hay. A conveyor is usually used, and the labor of throwing all that hay is hard work, even for the strongest of workers. So again, more labor cost is added to the cost of the hay.
Now to selling the hay. While word of mouth can be very productive, the farmer still has to advertise his hay for sale. Advertising costs money and time to keep the advertisements up to date. When the buyer arrives, the farmer now has to provide labor to load the hay onto the truck. If the farmer delivers, then naturally the hay will have to be stacked and transported and in many cases even stacked at the recipient's barn. The return leg of that delivery running empty will still cost the farmer fuel and of course this whole exercise takes time.
Throughout this process hay may be lost to errant bad weather. The hay will still need to be picked up and then thrown out or mulched back in which requires another machine and more machine time to go over the entire crop and break it down. Drought may impede the hay crop growth and leave the farmer short on quantity, and as a result you may see hay prices increase.
As you can see making hay requires a lot of hard work, is time consuming and as it is always hot weather when it takes place very often the producers are working in very high temperatures which may easily exceed 100 degrees in the barns when stacking high up.
The job is not without risk either. Insurance costs are expensive and the risk of injury or death is high, despite the best safety practices. Equipment malfunctions, a fall or bad step, tumbling hay can easily knock you off your feet and cause knee injuries, hands or clothing caught in equipment, rolling or falling equipment. The list goes on...
Between cuts the fields also need some care and attention. At our farm at Willowview Hill in Stamford, New York, we farm organically so we add manure to our fields to build back nutrients into the soil. From time to time we may add other natural products such as lime, to keep the soil in good health.
Other farmers use chemical fertilizers. Whatever is used it adds more expense.
At our farm we also edge our fields by mowing them out twice a year, to ensure there is no encroachment on the professionally seeded hayfields of neighboring plants, weeds or tree saplings. If we have a tree come down, it is blocked and used for firewood and the remnants picked up and then the area is hand raked. No-one wants twigs in their hay or weeds either.
So next time your hay provider tells you they need an extra 25 cents a bale, think about it in a positive light. Farmers struggle to make ends meet as it is, and hay is not going to become any cheaper as land is swallowed up for development and farm space is lost. The day will surely come when small squares of hay are simply too labor intensive to make and you'll need to buy special equipment yourself to handle the oversize round bales, invest in special feeders that will hopefully not injure your horses, get used to the wastage large round bales incur and push and lug the big rounds into your specially built barn. There won't be any opportunity to put them in a hay mall! Though you may end up storing them in plastic outside, which can cause a myriad of other problems with the preservatives and chemicals required.
