Haymaking is an essential process in farming and livestock raising: it lets you preserve grass to feed livestock during the months when natural pasture is scarce. Hay, the end product of this process, is a rich source of nutrients when it's done properly. In this post, we'll walk you through the haymaking process in detail.
Haymaking is the process of mowing, drying and storing grass to turn it into hay. This process preserves the grass's nutritional value and lets you use it as feed all year round, especially in dry or cold seasons when fresh pasture isn't available.
The steps, in order
- Mowing. Mowing the pasture is one of the most important steps in forage production. Deciding when and how to mow directly shapes the quality of the feed our animals receive.
- Drying. Once mown, the grass has to dry to avoid losing nutrients. Drying can take several days, depending on the weather. The key is bringing the grass's moisture content down to 15-20% before storing it. During this time, it's important to turn the grass over regularly so it dries evenly with the help of sun and air.
- Raking into rows. Once the hay is dry, raking is the next step: gathering the dry grass into rows, ready for baling.
- Baling. Once the grass has reached the ideal level of dryness, it's baled. There are different types of bales, round and rectangular. In my case, I use small bales: the narrow access roads to the meadows rule out larger machinery.
- Storage. After baling the hay, it's essential to store it somewhere dry, sheltered from rain and with good air circulation. What we call a hayloft.
The enemy is moisture
Throughout this whole process, moisture — whether from the air, from rain, or from hay that wasn't dried properly — can ruin a whole year's work and wreck the harvest.
Fermented or moldy hay isn't fit for our animals to eat.
This means that, besides being farmers, we also have to be weather-forecasting experts, so that rain doesn't ruin a good harvest.
In my case, besides the forecasts on TV, I also use several apps to draw my own conclusions and decide on the best time to mow and kick off everything that follows, to get the highest-quality hay.
