Haymaking with Walk behind?

[prof fate]

WRONG!
I'm a horse person, but the concept applie to all 'grass' eating animals. They've evolved over millions of years to eat continuously, and eat grass. Feeding grains is hard on their systems, it's not how they're 'designed' to eat.

If you're working them and they need the calories and while working can't browse/graze, then yeah, grain is needed. Otherwise, they'll be healther and happier to eat hay if they can't be on pasture, which is best.

LIke folks feeding sweet feed...really? it's like coca cola, way to omuch sugar for horses.

Keep it as natural as possible.

And hay isn't all the same - what grasses are in it? lots of alfalfa vs mostly timothy/orchard maks a difference, how weedy is it? first or 2nd/3rd cutting?
LAst year's hay, older? dusty/moldy? (a big problem here the past 2 years with double our normal rainfall - hard to get it dry, get enough in, get it cut at the right time, and the everything is stupid wet and humid storage is an issue)

True, but you missed my entire point.

It is 2019, there are better ways to feed animals now other than hay. Methods that are faster and healthier. My sheep nutritionist for instance recommended feeding my sheep 40% corn silage for energy, and 60% grass silage for protein content. With that mixture the sheep thrived.

I even had a pony that year and was sure it would lag from the mixture it was getting, but the stupid thing actually thrived on corn silage.

Again I do not do that any more because I get "free" hay, but that is the direction I would go if I produced my own feed.

 

[LouNY]

I have enjoyed reading this thread,it is quite humorous to me.
I can recall when the 2wd Allis Chalmers WD was the big tractor which did the "heavy" work while the little Case VAC did the "light" work.
This was for active dairy farming which has evolved much over the years and than changed over to beef with the dairy turndown.

 

[BrokenTrack]

I have enjoyed reading this thread,it is quite humorous to me.
I can recall when the 2wd Allis Chalmers WD was the big tractor which did the "heavy" work while the little Case VAC did the "light" work.
This was for active dairy farming which has evolved much over the years and than changed over to beef with the dairy turndown.

I remember where came from as well.

As a kid we had this 120 HP Massy Ferguson pulling a square baler and a wagon up over this steep part of the farm, and we were scared as all get out that we would spin out on a cow turd and go backwards down over the hill.

Years later I crop rotated that same field into corn, and plowed it with a seven bottom plow, going uphill, and in the rain using a 200 HP tractor. When I was doing that I thought, "Man have we come a long ways".

It is always good to remember back from where you started from to get a better perspective.

 

[Jstpssng]

I have enjoyed reading this thread,it is quite humorous to me.
I can recall when the 2wd Allis Chalmers WD was the big tractor which did the "heavy" work while the little Case VAC did the "light" work.
This was for active dairy farming which has evolved much over the years and than changed over to beef with the dairy turndown.

I remember doing it all with an 8N, but we only had a six acre field which my father hayed just to keep it open.