[AT] Cattle farmers

Mon Aug 30 17:30:59 PDT 2021

You say: "Horse people are a funny lot."... OMG!!! What an
understatement...  :-)  :-)  :-)
Most of our clients are pretty much nuts. Too many of them are an accounts
receivable nightmare. Many of them are of course just nice people but the
bad eggs make it into work. We are only about 6 miles from the horse track
and casino and we see a fair number of racehorses. Thankfully we are self
care boarding and we don't do a whole lot of daily handling. Many of those
that race come in pretty squirrelly. Word has gotten out that a short stay
here will calm them down a lot. One gal that has kept horses here for 10
years works at the track and has kept several track horses with hers for
short times. Right now only one client is not track connected. She is a vet
tech that is now in KY and paying the 10 year gal to care for her horse. We
only keep doing this stuff for 2 main reasons. One, we like the horses and
second, we can make 6 or 7 times as much per acre as we can renting ground
for corn / soybeans. I would shift more acres to the horses but I'm already
too busy (and too old to get more busy).
My father also grew up working horses on the farm. He really disliked
horses. He always said that he spent his whole youth staring at a horse's
rear end and hardly knew what the other end looked like. My paternal
grandfather never owned a tractor or car. When my father took over the farm
the horses were the first thing to go, replaced by a new Ford Ferguson 9N.

On Mon, Aug 30, 2021 at 6:33 PM Cecil Bearden <crbearden at copper.net> wrote:

> My Dad grew up working horses to farm.  He always said you did not feed
> alfalfa to a horse that was going to be worked.  They would get too hot.
> They only fed alfalfa in the winter.   I sold horse hay for many years
> before I got cow that eat more than I can raise.  I had people coming from
> 15 mi away to get my hay.  I baled hay for a couple of "horse" people
> around here and they would wait until the hay was dry as broom straw before
> baling.  Many times I baled mine the same day it was cut.  I still do if I
> can get my old joints to keep calm..!!    Nearly every buyer would remark
> how my hay was always so green when opened up and their horses would eat it
> like it was candy.  I had one lady who called and returned 4 round bales
> because her 3 horses ate it up in 3 days.  She said she could not afford to
> feed that much hay!!!!
>
> Horse people are a funny lot.  My 2 horses are 15 and 11 yrs old, and they
> eat anything I drop over the fence.  I cut the weeds off their field with a
> swather and baled it to keep the weeds from going to seed.   I baled it
> very very green.  Big juicy weeds, 4 ft tall.  2 weeks later they were
> eating the bales where they sat!!!    Moswt horse people don't want johnson
> grass as they say is is bad for horses.  I had a vet tell me that a horse
> could handle more Johnson grass and the prussic acid that forms during heat
> stress than cattle could.  I noticed that my horses keep the johnson grass
> ate down as far as they can reach over the fence...   I bale it with the
> TS110 and now the new 504R Vermeer, then haul it in with the old 5000 Ford
> with the hyd bale trailer behind.   The best thing I can find on the new
> baler is it will wrap a 12in diameter bale.  I can wrap one like the old
> Allis roto Baler.   Net wrap though...
>
>
> Cecil
> On 8/30/2021 6:00 AM, Indiana Robinson wrote:
>
> I wouldn't know why it wouldn't be OK. As a late first cutting it will
> naturally be a little stemy but it will still be hay. I have seen beef
> cattle in particular winter through on some remarkably rough hay. Much of
> what is feedable is often just the perception by people of what is good
> hay. I've seen people that would turn up their noses at decent hay on a
> good hay year but in a shortage of hay year (or a tight wallet year) they
> would feed thistles and scrub brush and be glad to get it. Son Scott once
> had a girlfriend that kept her horses here. I knew money was tight so I
> offered to give her some fairly decent hay I still had in the loft. She
> turned it down saying that her primary horse was a show horse and he
> couldn't eat that rough hay. I pointed over to the corner of the fence line
> and said "He ate that damned gate"...  :-)
> Our own little private herd of 7 useless but loved equine creatures
> (mostly rescues) normally winter over just running about 65 acres of corn
> stalks and soybean stubble and usually get fat on them. When the weather
> gets really bad we do usually stick in a round bale, often something son
> Scott didn't try to sell because it didn't tie right or was miss-shaped.
> Most of the time if the world is encased in ice or deep snow we feed a few
> alfalfa cubes. About a pound per horse, hand-fed like treats late in the
> day seems to make a good difference in keeping them warm overnight. They
> have shelter but seldom use it. A couple of semi-recent old and starved
> rescues do get special feeding. They are getting pretty slick looking now.
> To be on topic... Any time I take an old tractor out in the pastures they
> all have to gather around it and study it carefully. Not sure why, none of
> them know how to drive...
>
>
> On Sun, Aug 29, 2021 at 11:52 PM Mike M <meulenms at gmx.com> wrote:
>
>> Hi all, I have a question. I have a guy that bales my field, for his
>> cattle. I just give it to him, because it saves me the trouble of brush
>> hogging it, and it doesn't go to waste. It's  been so wet in SE
>> Michigan, he hasn't been able to get on it it yet, He's only baled 40 of
>> the 200 acres he normally bales. At this point of the year, is the hay
>> even any good?
>>
>> Thanks,
>> Mike M
>>
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>
> --
> --
>
> Francis Robinson
> aka "farmer"
> Central Indiana USA
> robinson46176 at gmail.com
>
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-- 
-- 

Francis Robinson
aka "farmer"
Central Indiana USA
robinson46176 at gmail.com
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