Hay Hauling 101

I thought my City Girlfriends might like to see what's been keeping us so busy at the Broken Y. Rick works a full-time job and then comes home to work another full-time job getting brome hay cut. Bo and I help in this process while Bailey keeps herd on the K's. All of this is done while we juggle baseball games and tournaments and barrel racing and rodeos.

Michelle at City Girl Turned Country Girl has become one of my favorite Chickies to check in on. We have alot in common and I'm looking forward to meeting her soon since we don't live too far from each other. At the A&MD Ranch, they are getting ready to do this too.

We start with this . . .



A tractor and swather. It's not glamorous, it's not air conditioned, but it is paid for! Many farmers now days can't get equipment without some sort of financing AND have you priced out a decent tractor with a cab and a/c? Good grief it's ridiculous! The swather works kinda like a combine head with teeth that spin and cut the hay. It then lays the hay down in a row like this . . .






At this point the hay needs to lay and dry for about two days. This is the one time that I am thankful that at 8:30 am, it is already 92 degrees! We are supposed to hit 100 degrees today and tomorrow so the hay should be good and dry.

If we bale the hay when it is still wet, the chemical reaction that happens when hay begins to rot from moisture and no airflow is highly combustable. So when you hear of a large barn fire - there was probably a bale of hay that was still damp and combusted or caught fire inside the bale. There is nothing you can do to save it once it catches fire. You just have to let it go. So . . . we make sure it is good and dry.

This field, if we were making into square bales like this . . .



Would pull off about 400 bales. We have a water way that has a good stand of brome that will be cut tonight. It would pull about 400-450 square bales.


This year, we are going to use this . . .



This fine looking piece of machinery will make a round bale of hay. You pull it with the tractor over the row of hay and it has a rake system that tosses the hay up into the belts which then turn over and over, collecting the hay and rolling it into a large ball. Unfortunately, I don't have a picture now, but will have one when we're all done.

Once we get all this hay cut, we'll load it on this . . .



And haul it up to the arena where we will line it up in a nice row and it's ready to be fed. We'll feed this to the horses when they are out in the paddock and some of the hay with more weeds will go to the team roping steers.

Now, we've already bucked about 250 square bales of hay. We have a pasture up near Wichita that a guy comes and cuts and bales and we haul our share of the hay off. To give you an idea of how much work this is - each bale ways about 70-80 pounds. There were 250 bales on the hay trailers that we needed to transfer to our trailer. We could only load about 125 each time so that made two trips.

So, in the end, the three of us threw down from one trailer to stack on the other, drove home and threw down to the barn floor, and then stacked up 125 bales - TWICE.

In the square bale stacking process . . . these tools are instrumental . . .



the Hay Hook - you literally hook and drag or hook both ends and pick up! Doesn't take long to learn the benefit of the hay hook. Helps keep the wires tight on the bale and give you better leverage when picking them up.

That's Hay Hauling 101 for this small operation!

Wait . . . this is also required after a long day of sweat and sore muscles . . .



We've upgraded! Welcome to the Cowboy Country Club, where the water is still green since I can't figure out my chemicals, but there are no toads nibbling on my toes!

Blessings to ya'll from the Kansas Heartland where 100 degrees is a welcome blessing and smelling yourself is the sign of a hard days work!

P.