Otha
Well-known member
We have around 3 times the amount of hay we will need to make it through the winter this year. We will be keeping some as roll over for next year in case cost rise or we have a drought, but with irrigated hay fields we will always be able to make enough to get by. We've decided we don't want to sell any hay if we can help it, however we could use a little extra cash flow this fall and winter. We've discussed various ways to manage these needs with little ground being made on a solution. The main idea we've come up with would be getting extra cattle on the farm to eat more hay. The two ways to accomplish this are of course buying some cows or we likely have the option to run some heifers for a neighbor. The neighbor isn't short on hay either so the price we arrived at wouldn't be anything that would make us much money but we could at least make back some of the cash we spent making the hay. So the question is, what's the value of feeding the hay on our ground? We've seen the benefits of unrolling hay and what it does to the ground for the next few years but we don't have a way to put on a dollar amount to that effect. I understand we could possibly make more money by feeding the excess hay to some class of trader cows but there would be much more risk involved in that route.
Thanks in advance for your advice.
Thanks in advance for your advice.