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Boy did I screw up

R

rrlund

Well-known Member
I cut 20 acres of hay between showers Wednesday. They said clear skies for Thursday and Friday so I figured I'd be OK. It was cloudy all day Thursday and started out that way Friday,so I started chopping corn to fill silo. I checked the hay at noon. It was getting dry on top but was green underneath. They had backed off on the rain chance for yesterday to a slight chance until evening,so I figured I'd leave it and keep chopping. Wrong thing to do. I cleared out with a breeze Friday afternoon,but then yesterday,it was pouring by 12:30. We got almost .9. Then I woke up to a storm this morning. It's still coming down and from the look of the radar it'll be with us for a while. Just what I didn't need in a drought year when feed's already short.
 
It doesn't look like it's going to get any better it's looking like rain on and off the next couple of days good luck
 
I know the feeling. I cut thick Bermuda on Tuesday hoping for a few days of sunshine. Has rained on it everyday since. May have missed it yesterday. Just a mess.
 
Ya,they say maybe Tuesday will be OK. I'm sure kicking myself for not raking Friday. Pretty sure I could have started right in baling as soon as I was done the way it turned off.
Not the first time I did something that stupid. I had some this time of year two or three years ago that laid for 10 days. That stuff got rained on three times after it was raked. When I finally did bale it,it started raining before I got done. I kept going until it was so wet the baler just wouldn't handle it anymore. I moved it off to the side. When I hauled it home in December and started dropping it out on the ground so the cows could knock it around,they ate it all.
 
I know the feeling. I cut thick Bermuda on Tuesday hoping for a few days of sunshine. Has rained on it everyday since. May have missed it yesterday. Just a mess.
 
Don't beat yourself up. If the weather isn't working with you you can't do anything right. If it is you can't do anything wrong.
 
I baled six bales yesterday in light sprinkles down here. I came in and looked at intellicast weather and cut 2 acres late in the afternoon just cause it wasn't showing rain for three days. I see this morning it is calling for rain tomorrow. The six bales were a bit damp but I fed them last evening to the horses. I'm glad I am only piddling on this 8 acre patch and renting out my farm.
 
Just yesterday I was thinking about how the neighbor many years ago filled silo right at Labor Day regardless if the corn was fully mature. My understanding is that a fair number of years the silo ran pretty good out the bottom with the juice from the too green corn. Good luck with the hay.
 
I used to work with a guy that swore the forecasters were in cohoots with business owners. Predict rainfree weekends so everyone made plans and traveled.
 
At least you got enough rain to do some good. I cut Thursday and Friday and it's been rained one at least 4 times over 3 days and only got a tenth. Hay won't dry and not enough to help the beans.
 
Randy if you do not have a hay tedder beg, borrow or steal one. LOL as soon as you can drive on the field get that hay tedded before the sun shine hits an heats up the windrow. You can save the hay without losing much other than some color. Rolling it around with a hay rake will just result in it becoming junk.
 
After having no rain at all in July and very little for most of August,I've had over 6.25 since late last Sunday night. It's done wonders for the pastures,and I'm thankful for that,but it's too wet now to even chop any more corn. It's shaping up to be 1986 all over again. We had over 21 inches in September that year.
 
I never look at the weather forecast in deciding to cut hay. I look at the national radar, go outside and see wind direction and then make my own prediction. I'm wrong even more times then the weatherman. So I don't know what the answer is.
 
Dad and Uncle Claud always used to have the silo filled before school started right after Labor Day. I never chopped this early,but I had some that I planted early to pick and it burned up in the drought. The bunker was empty and I'd been green chopping to feed in the feedlot,so I just went ahead and chopped all of that field.
 
Ya,it's kind of an instinct thing. If anybody saw me cutting Wednesday they must have thought I was out of my mind. The ground was already saturated. I cut til noon,then it drizzled for a few hours. I went back and finished it after the rain stopped,but it was still pretty nasty. I think I'd have got it baled if I'd have just stuck to the plan.
 
It's not raked and not all that heavy. I'll leave it alone until there's a break in the weather. Problem now is the condition of the ground. I left one end uncut because there was water standing. The rest of it will be a mess for the next few days.
 
Can you sell the laying hay as forage and use that money to buy dry hay before winter?
 
The cows will eat it. I never baled anything that they wouldn't eat eventually. Trouble is,I was planning on feeding it to the calves in the feedlot,but the cows will probably end up with it.
 
I have some first cutting to get to yet, it?s been such a wet year. The forecast is so ugly. Were were supposed to get 4 inches over the long weekend here so I didn?t cut anything; turned into 3 rains of a tenth or less each, which is hard to make hay through but honestly the best/ driest weather we had all summer. Now they have an inch forecast for Tuesday, so do I cut or not...... sigh.

My very small alfalfa field is blooming, I want to get a few 100 nice bales in the barn, really would like to find an actual dry patch to cut it down.

As a one man band, the very few dry spells here have been occupied with planting, spraying, replanting, and so forth. Was kind of a dry week and a half right at oats harvest (tho 90 and 90 temp and humidity), so swathing combining and baling straw and resting/ drinking fluids took that period, no time for hay tho it would have been nice briefly.

Paul
 
the secretary for the American highland cattle association lives near Denver Co they have been being for rain all summer.
the secretary for the Heartland Highland Cattle is near sw mo same for them how can some of be so wet and others so dry?
 
Like I said,it was critical here. We were dark brown on the drought monitor. It started in a week ago and just won't let up.
 
When you can get to it bale it and feed it immediately. I've had hay that was baled wet trying to outdo mother nature and a couple of weeks later fed it because it was getting hot. Cows loved it.
 
I'm still hoping to get it dry. There's a front coming through,then it's supposed to clear up and be hot Tuesday and Wednesday. Sometimes the best thing to do is wait. Of course that's what got me in to this isn't it? LOL
 
Since you said they were on feed already, whatever shape it's in, when you can get it up you will have that asset to be used now or if it survives, later on this winter. I bought a 24" SS thermometer with about a ?" stem, analog dial readout (like you stick in a Turkey, only much larger) that I use when in doubt. Wasn't much, 15 bucks give or take. Plenty of web numbers on what happens at what temperature. Good luck!
 

At least it will be clean. I got my 1st cut done in June. No rain in July. It rained all of August until about a week ago, so I got a little second done. The current forecast calls for three days of partly cloudy but the partly calls for around 50% each day. It is hard to dry hay in September with only half days of sun.
 
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