The Bovine Bugle

New hay for bedding brings out the curious cows, and a snoopy steer

I needed to bring round bales into the barn this morning since last night we had finished feeding the four bales already in the barn. Actually, we had finished three of the bales because one of the bales the cows would not eat. The bale was very dry and had a lot of dead grass in it. Maybe the cows didn't like it, but the older heifers and Angus animals would love it as bedding in their pole barn.

After pulling the leftover bale out of the barn with the loader tractor, I took off the bucket attachment and put on the grabber attachment. I managed to get a good grip on the loose hay, and I drove down to the pole barn to deposit the hay inside the barn. I parked the tractor and grabbed a pitchfork to use to spread the hay around inside the 18' x36' pole barn. By the time I got down there, several of the heifers and Homer, the Red Angus steer, were already wading around in the hay. I shooed them out of the way and then pitched the bedding around until the pack had a fresh layer of hay covering its surface.

In the late spring/early summer when we take to bedded pack out of the pole barn and put it into a windrow, the material, with it's large percentage of hay, will heat up great and turn to compost in no time. I've seen conventional farms where they just dumped poor quality or spoiled round bales into a gully, but here we turn bales that are no good for animal consumption into a great product for our soils.

--Jonathan (left), Howmars Farm
Franklin, Vermont

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Posted by Blogger Chris at February 13, 2006 06:58 PM