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West Central Illinois | Something i switched to this year is staging my hay in the fall while all the cows are out on stalks on each place so that each paddock has the appropriate # of bales and placed in the spots i want to add fertility by feeding hay in that spot this winter. It's nice to get all this done in a few nice days in the fall and a guy can see the areas of grass lacking fertility that would be good to unroll and feed hay on come winter.
As opposed to what one would consider traditional for smaller herds in this part of the country i.e. loader tractors filling bale rings in a sacrifice lot/field etc. What i could come up with in just fuel and tractor hour savings doing it this way was previously a guy would be putting at least 150 hrs (idling included) putting out hay on 4 places vs. just setting them all out in a few days all at once at 18 tractor hrs. Rest of the year don't even need to start a tractor to deal with the cow herds just get to where i need to be on 4 wheeler and unroll them, worst case like this week if you end up in such deep snow drifts that you can't even get a 4 wheeler to you end up walking and you can unroll by hand if on big enough hill or let them bale graze it worst case.
In the past week my 4 wheeler has burned about 2.5 gallons of gas getting around everywhere to feed about 60 hd and some other misc. chores, i feel like i'd have really burned some diesel this week if feeding with the tractor everyday...
Edited by Lb94 1/16/2024 16:56
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Re: Low cost producer tips
