According to A Jackson in 1001 weird Facts for Canadian Gardeners the largest organic crops grown in Canada is hay, and almost all of it is sold to the US for their organic dairy farms.. huh, who knew?

One of the few books I have found that covers many of the issues of very small hay management is this book

Today has rained, and rained and rained, light rain, hard rain, pelting rain so hard it sounds like hail on our metal roofs, and with this rain goes all hope that the stripe of perfectly ready hay that was hand cut down will turn into good quality hay, its  lots enough value to the rain that when allowed to dry out, it will be good for bedding and not much else.

My little farm is not certified organic but not a single chemical has touched my hay fields since I bought the farm, but I am well aware that the fields next to it do get sprayed, part of the reason, we pulled the fence lines back one lawn mower lane on the outside.

While this is hard work and I would not recommend doing this for any length of time if you are not fit, as it is a workout and half, hand cutting hay, hand raking dried hay into rolls and then if you want making and using your own small sqaure baler is a real choice for those that have a small area to do. We tend to do a quarter acre at a time, we also use the flock of sheep to control the pasture growth in order to have different parts at different growth stages in to order to be able to not have to do a couple acres all at the same time.

On average DH can cut a 1/4 acre in a matter of an hour to an hour an half, depending on how fast he sharpens the blade at the end of each line, you can cut more lines without doing this but you will see the effect when you want to rake/roll it for drying.

The hay is cut in a way that it is spread out and falls in a certain pattern, typically I am the one that checks the hay and then taking a rake, rolls it to help the underside dry, at that point, depending on the use we have planned for it, it can be rolled, tied and hauled to the barn as is.

The second choice is to use the small sqaure hay baler that Small Farm Canada put out directions for (I thought I would find it online to direct you to) but so far I have not been able to.. its not hard to make at all.. Make a box, cut panels on both ends, lay the bale twine across the bottom and out both ends, two in total, stuff box with hay till you can’t get it packed tighter or harder and then lift the twines up and tie them off, pull bale straight up and its done.. its not as neat or tight as a machine bale but its alot better then rolling it if you want to stack them.. personally I find loose hay rolls just as easy to work with and just as easy to lift into the hay loft and then fork down for the critters.

As you can see from above there are whole books on the subject on how to get hay right and how the mix of what you grow will effect the protein of the feed, and therefor different mix’s for different critters, some do better with first cut, some can do either first cut or second cut, makes little difference to them and their condition. The bottom line is that you cut at the right time, and that you get the hay dry so that it won’t mold or lose condition in storage.

While the timing has to be perfect if you are cutting many acres of hay and in that case if you can hire someone to do it, it would be worth it in the long run, but if you are doing smaller area’s and you want to be able to pasture rotate, then cutting by hand is a great skill to have and one that we often forget that for many hundreds of years, that was how it was always done!

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