This One Hurt! Slapped with the harsh reality of small farm USA

tons of you guys have said wellow you just save a bunch of money if you bail your own hay I'm like what am I going to bail look at it what am I going to bail here guys there's nothing to bail hey fuzzy ball hey fuzzy ball good morning fuzzy ball where are you been yeah that's a good kitty hey [Music] kids hey kids how you doing good morning good morning morning everybody how you doing this cow had a limp and she's doing much much much better awesome having her out here on this dry land is really Bud Susie [Music] Donnie tickle tickle hey guys Blackjack Butthead hey butt head hey butt head Donnie The [Music] no oo edible Landscapes m all right guys welcome back to Sony Ridge Farm this is hay this is the hay for the season this is not all the hay we will have nearly 10 loads this big this is 23 bales of hay at $50 a pop these are 4x5 Fescue and mixedgrass round bales there's some fescue in there there's some Timothy in there there's some wild grasses in there native grasses I guess and there's awesome Fescue what we really want on the Stony Ridge Farm to grow our cattle and what we really want to grow on the Stony Ridge Farm it's dry super dry hay is going to be in short hand this year guys so I suggest if you don't have your hay for winter now you better get on it because it's been super dry especially here in the Southeast so this is what we've got we've got 23 Bales on this trailer each bail cost $50 our total hay expenditure for the Stony Ridge Farm for the year is going to be 200 bales if you do the math post it down there I don't do math on camera I'm not very good at it I know what it costs though it's going to cost my butt so what we're doing here these are the hay bales they get unrolled out on the land they get hooked up behind the ATV and unrolled with the Greg Judy bail unroller some of the hay like you just saw me put out just a second ago with the tractor doesn't get unrolled and the reason it doesn't get unrolled is because that is last year's cut it is twine wrapped and it doesn't come off the roller like it should so I'm setting it out I'm actually having to feed hay here in June because it's been so dry today's high is 99° no rain for several weeks other than just a little popup 10c shower so let's take a quick look at this hay and kind of assess what we're looking at this hay dried out a little bit more than the hay I had uh delivered yesterday this is my second load uh you see a little bit of green in there but the rest of it pretty brown when you get brown hay like this what does that mean it may have been cut a little bit too late okay when we cut it too late once that seed head is shot up and dried out that's cutting it too late so hopefully this hay is what I think it is and I'm pretty sure it's got some green in it it just set out and dry just a little longer than I like for it to dry we need to keep a little moisture in there okay yeah so check it out down in the bail it's nice and green we need to keep a little moisture in there but it's so dry that even my hay guy can't keep up at all and we talk about hay and we talk about growing hay and bailing our own hay on our own Farm tons of you guys have said well you just save a bunch of money if you bail your own hay I'm like what am I going to bail look at it what am I going to bail here guys there's nothing to bail the cows have grazed the farm okay so even if you think it's cheaper to bail hey it's it's not okay let me just tell you you have to have about a 60 or $80,000 tractor if you want a cab tractor you want to ride in Comfort it's good to have a nice reliable piece of Machinery so you've got to have an expensive tractor then you got to have an expensive round Bailer if we want to do round bails that are net wrapped then we have to buy an expensive net wrap hay baler we have to have a hay cutter we have to have a tedar we have to have a rake numerous pieces of equipment plus the fuel and the time that it takes to cut the hay plus the lime and fertilizer that it takes so what we're doing here is buying hay and bringing it to the land and we're buying the best quality hay that we possibly can we bring it to the land so our cows have Optimum Nutrition in the winter time am I working on hayfields on the other side of the farm absolutely what does that take time and money time and money so if we fertilize this farm and we Line This Farm every single year for cutting hay it would cost us somewhere in the neighborhood of 25 to $30 $30,000 plus the Equipment Plus the fuel plus the maintenance versus 10 grand for the hay and when we sell our cows off in the fall we'll probably recoup all that $10,000 plus another $10,000 back so that's the math here on the Stony Ridge Farm would I like to cut hay off the farm absolutely Is it feasible for me to cut hay off of the farm financially no not yet we're going to actually reduce our numbers of cattle this year this upcoming year so that we don't graze it so hard we've got 55 cows on 85 fenced acres and that's a lot of animals if we had rain and we had no dry spell we'd be doing just fine we wouldn't be feeding hay right now but I just so happen to come across some really inexpensive hay and that's what we're feeding right now for about another two weeks so the cows have access to water shade and hay until these pastures recover so let's get busy unloading this hay having some fun we're just setting it on the edge of this fence line right here okay two reasons so the cows stay off of the fence so it's easy for me to fence it in and so it's easy to access on a nice flat piece of ground when it comes time to unroll the hay the hay that you see dropped right here will service this pasture and we'll have 46 Bales in this pasture 46 in the next one 46 in the next one and so on until we get up to the 200 Mark cool let's get busy unloading this hey and guys be sure give constructive criticism please try not to give destructive criticism there's a reason why we all do everything on our operation and everything is different for everybody let's have fun woo folks thanks so much for tuning in and enjoying the farm with me unloading this hay is just really kind of something fun I enjoy it I enjoy cutting hay I enjoy mowing hay I enjoy bailing hay however it only makes good Financial sense right now for us to bring the hay to the land and feed the land what you have to think about here is that each hay bale is a seed bank so that hay bale is loaded up with probably around 25 to 30 L PBS of grass seed inside of it so whenever we unroll hay like this the cows go through they pick through they consume some of that grass seed and the hay and then they poop out that good butt fertilizer that we like so much that helps us build our soil once they've spread their own manure we go in behind the cows and we take a drag herrow and we drag it the Wingfield drag herrow Smooths out all the manure pths and helps to disperse that nutrient to the land the urine and the feces that comes out of our cows in other words our manure in our urine is just about pH neutral so it's helping to correct the pH of the land but it's just taking a number of years along with lime and a little bit of fertilizer we're going to make these pastures shine and we're gon to grow the highest quality beef thank you guys so much I hope you'll hit that like button and I hope you enjoy watching us unload the hay and learning a little bit about the finances of the farm please record your message hey Larry this is Josh just want to let you know I've got the truck up on the black top waiting for you to getting the next load thanks buddy all right job well done we got everything unloaded guys I just wanted to share this with you this is an annual thing that goes on on the Stony Ridge Farm each bail here cost about 50 bucks they are up $3 from last year so around 10,000 bucks is what it costs to feed the cows all winter long so if you think about it and you divide our year into three month segments how much is the pasture worth in the summertime give me that 3 months 10 grand how much are the pastures worth how much is this grass Worth to our animals when we take our animals to Market and when we start selling our farm fresh beef that's going to pay for everything we have here but it takes work and it takes dedication to keep the farm running and it takes carbon and we have no top soil here in North Carolina where I live so all this rolled out on the land is going to build some beautiful top soil just like this right here but it won't be that dry thank you guys so much please hit that like button please leave some comments down there I'd love to have you back here on the Stony Ridge there a subscribe button and links to other cool videos and funny bloopers at the end of this I had some struggles today see you next time woo it's so hot it's so hot why am I upside down I'm it's so hot oh it's hot air air a good morning boys and Fa character different types of hay they're so I should have bought a tripod hey little buddy what are you doing there hop hop hop don't have a tripod at the house don't have a tripod at the house I'm a dummy I'm a dummy dummy last night we let the hay talk I can't remember everything it said but my wallet hurts told me that you wish I got some hey from somebody else baby baby let me tell you this hay is the best oh it is the best willby right back