Anyone Cutting Hay Yet?

[donnaIL]

Mowed a field of ryegrass monday the 19th. The 7 day forecast called for a very slight chance of scattered showers on wednesday night into thursday. I figured i would roll the dice and take my chances since friday, saturday, sunday and most of monday were supposed to be in the eighties and sunny. Well we got less than a tenth of an inch on thursday morning so i figured we were in the clear. Man, was the weathermen wrong. Figured on baling saturday. Saturday: three inches of rain, golf ball sized hail, and tornado warnings for our county. Then it just kept raining the next three days. I don't know how none of the weathermen could not forsee any of it. The hay was so thick we are going to have to bale it off yet no matter what. My questions are is it of any value to feed, and also if the hay loses pretty much all its nutrients will that effect the fertilizer requirements for the next crop?

You must be close to me! We are in Bond County. Don't know if you saw it but Dave Murray Channel 2 apologize for his forcast. The other thing was the temperatures didn't quite get as warm as they said either. Cut ours on the 18th and 19th, have raked it over to dry it out a little and we will bale it today(more rain last night but warm today so hope to get it done). It was also very thick, and was cut at the right time. I don't know about the nutrient loss but we feed rained on hay, last year some of it was thick like this we cut, the cows ate it like it was candy. Also I saw several other persons in the area with the same situation.