The Bovine Bugle

Migration of the humpback bales

Ben has been very busy clipping the pastures the past few weeks, often for hours in the hot, humid, sunny 90 degree weather. He started strapping our beach umbrella to the back of the tractor seat to have a little shade. Some of the pasture clippings were very thick, so Ben raked the clippings into windrows and we borrowed a baler to bale up the clippings.

While Ben baled, my brother-in-law, Marty, and I picked up the bales with the tractor and wagon. We took turns loading the wagon and driving the tractor. Kind of interesting that the 16-year old was running the baler, while the two forty-something guys loaded the odd shaped bales. But I must admit that Ben really struggled with the baler, having to stop and do repairs several times.

The bales of clippings, which we will use primarily to mix with manure for composting, were oddly shaped and hard to handle and stack. This was mostly due to the baler we were using. The baler was a "kicker" baler which means as the compacted bale comes out of the baler it is usually "kicked" up into a wagon being pulled behind the baler. We didn't have the right type of wagon to use, so the bales were shot out onto the ground causing them to contort into odd shapes. As we ran the bales up the hay conveyor into the barn, I thought of the phrase "humpback bales" as the bales rode the bumpy "migration" path from the wagon to the hay platform. I even took a picture of a pod of humpback bales on the platform. As hard as the bales were to handle, Marty and I managed to get almost all of them up the conveyor and into the barn.

Got a question about hay baling, or anything else on an organic dairy farm? Use the comment box below and I'll try to get you an answer here in the blog very soon.

--Jonathan, Howmars Farm
Franklin, Vermont

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Posted by Blogger Chris at July 8, 2005 02:37 PM