Hay Baling on the Farm

We had a very busy and exhausting day yesterday!  Early in the morning we heard from the neighbor that he was wanting to bale our fields to see if he could get some in before the rain cam this morning. As I have mentioned previously, we have the BEST neighbors!!!

Earl the Pearl brought his tractor, baler and wagon over and started.  His wagon holds 100 bales.

We had worked very hard all morning to get this section of the barn cleaned out.  The Boss had stacked a lot of things there in preparation for moving his stuff into the barn.  It had to be totally cleaned out to get this wagon in there.

Eli and Elizabeth

A young family had come for adjustments and stayed to watch the excitement.  Our family was really excited to get hay in the barn.  Plus there was the extra suspense of racing the rain.

When the wagon dumped the bales they tumbled out the door!

Lee was very happy to check out the bales.

The team set to work as we had only about an hour to get the first batch of bales stacked before the next one was coming in.

Michelle and Elizabeth worked hard at stacking the bales in the upper part of the barn.  These were very heavy bales!  I was super impressed that Elizabeth could heft a bale around.  She is getting to be a real farm gal! Hard to believe she is only nine.  As soon as she finished eating dinner, she showered and headed to bed.  It was an exhausting day!

We were super blessed to have some friends ( 5 young men) come over and help us on our project.  I don't know how we would have gotten it done without them.  We were racing the daylight and we had to finish up by headlight as it was.

Elizabeth and Michelle worked very hard and you can see that glow of hard work on their faces.  They really enjoy working together!

The baler had one major issue.  About every fourth bale,  the knotter wouldn't work and the bale wouldn't get tied up.  That made a lot of loose hay in the wagon and spread around the barn.  We had to work hard to gather it in a pile.

When the tractor came back we ran the loose hay back through the baler to form it into tied bales.  This almost doubled the time it took.  It cost us another potential load of hay bales from the field.

We don't have a hay elevator and so we had to figure out a quick easy solution.  Paul, our mechanical engineering student, came up with this.  He fixed a sled on a large wooden I-beam.  He attached a rope and it had a back stop.

Hay bales were place on the sled and...

Thomas or one of the other big guys pulled it easily up to the loft.

Thomas seemed to enjoy this job.

Michelle's height was useful as she could swing the bales up to the higher rows when we were stacking.

Sam the Man, held the bales down.  Actually, he worked along with everybody else.

Paul, worked hard with organizing and carrying bales.  He is an expert at figuring an easier way to do most jobs.

Here is the loft crew waiting for another bale.  We ended up with almost 200 bales in the barn.  We are left with over 600 bales worth in the field.  Unfortunately, the rain this morning has soaked it all.  We are hoping it has a chance to dry out before the next rain.  Then we can still round bale it.

Autumn on the farm is a busy time.  Here's hoping that winter slows down a bit more.  The old house is on the market. I can't wait until it sells and I get my DH husband home before ten o'clock at night!!!

Moving the Chicks Along

Sometimes I am so busy living that I don't have time to write about the living.  That is not necessarily a bad thing!!!

I finally couldn't stand having almost 65 chicks in the basement!  The dust was overwhelming even though most of it is contained by the sheets around the brooder.  The mobile coop is not near done and I just couldn't wait for it to be finished to get some chicks out of there.  I decided that one of the horse stalls in the barn would have to be cleaned out and made into a new home for the chicks.  This one is pretty tight and was cat proof.  There is netting along the open area on the top.  It was a very dusty job, but Paul helped me.  We then took the hay that came in the barn and spread it around the floor.  We hooked up one heat lamp.  I was too nervous to use two because the wiring in the barn is very old and decrepit.

Michelle and I selected 15 of the largest most feathered chicks and brought them out in a box.  This was a challenge as they were not excited to be caught and the brooder is large.  Fortunately, Michelle has very long arms and I know how to act scary to chicks, so we could chase them down to her end.

They hung out under the light or burrowed under the hay.  One has to be careful where you step!  Don't want to step on a chick.  We watched them carefully for a week.  We decided that 50 chicks that are growing rapidly was still too many to have in the basement.

Yesterday, Michelle and I took out another 31 chicks leaving 19 chicks in the basement.  We chose the most feathered ones.  The reintegration of the chicks went smoothly.  The largest roosters quickly let the others know that they were in charge and things settled down quickly.

My DH made a feeder for them.  This works better than somethings we have done.  We have come up with a couple modifications for next time.  The holes are too big and are down too low.  Too much feed flows over the edges. Next time we will do 1-1.5" holes that alternate towards the the top.  The chicks do a good job though of cleaning up the spilled feed.

This was another homemade feeder that worked well for short term.  Can you tell what it is?  It is a Chipotle Burrito Bowl.  I washed it out and cut holes in the cardboard part.  This works well for smaller chicks.  Now that they are 5-6 weeks old they can open the top from the bottom.  I liked it because it was easy to fill and there was not much spillage.

Here are the 46 chicks in the stall.  They have lots of room now.  So much better than the brooder!  The sheet is hanging there to minimize drafts.  They all seem to be thriving once more, and Mom is happier because there is so much less dust in the basement.  I am still looking at buying more chicks for meat and some turkey poults for meat later this summer and autumn.  Can't wait!  With the price of beef and pork going up so rapidly, poultry will be the more affordable option.

Here is how far the mobile chicken coop has come.  There is still quite a bit more work to be done on it before it is ready for the chickens!!!  The boss has an appointment with a welding friend for next week.  So grateful for a handy stall for the chickens!