With fruitful hay, the chopper can easily get plugged up. My father, Gerald, and brother, Dillan, make a quick fix and get right back to chopping.
Alfalfa fields are fruitful this year which makes chopping and bailing hay favorable for farmers. This summer, farmers are busy getting hay cut, merged, tedded, chopped, baled and more. With unpredictable weather, planning when to work in the fields can be frustrating and challenging.
On the Klinkner family farm, we finished 2nd crop hay last week. On our organic dairy farm, we cut, merge, and chop most of our hay. With the chopped hay we fill up silage bags and silos to ferment the hay into silage. We also use a hay tedder to fluff the cut hay to bale it. We hire local custom hay balers to come bale for us.
We use the chopped hay in the silage bags and silos as feed for our cows. The silage is mixed into a TMR, Total Mixed Ration, mixer. Many different ingredients, such as mineral, salt, protein, and high moisture corn, are mixed with the silage to be fed to the cows. We use the baled hay specifically to feed our heifers, ranging from young calves to yearlings. We also use baled hay for other purposes.
As a reminder, as farmers are busy traveling from field to field, be cautious on the road. It is a busy time for farmers which means we all need to be safe to keep our farmers going strong.
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