Hauling Hay and the Value of Pasture

As a ten year old, I was ill-equipped to haul hay.  The small bales of hay weighed as much, and sometimes more than I did with the bales weighing in at 70-90 pounds.  I watched the "men" haul the hay for the first couple of years I worked for Rawl.  When I was 12, I was asked to drive the tractor in the field while the others picked up the bales and stacked them on the wagon towed behind the tractor.  I felt like a king driving the tractor, particularly the John Deere 3020 that Rawl had.  I had to grab onto the hand hold in the fender as well as by the steering wheel as I pulled myself up to the driving platform and seat.

From atop the tractor I could see the hard work, picking up the bales, walking them over to the wagon and either putting them on the wagon or pushing them up in the air onto the stack as the wagon got full.  Usually two people would pick up bales and bring them to the wagon while one person carefully stacked the bales on the wagon.  Stacking the bales on the wagon required both muscle and finesse.  The worst thing ever would be for the stack to fall apart as you drove down the road or pulled in to the barnyard.  The stack on the wagon had to be sturdy enough to endure bumps in the road, braking the tractor, and the steep downhill and uphill slopes encountered when maneuvering the tractor from the hay field to the barn or stacking area.

By the time I was 13, I was strong enough to begin to help hauling hay.  It was fulfilling to know that I had reached that level of masculinity (try not to laugh).  I even tried hauling hay without my shirt on.  That was a bad choice.  I don't recommend that.  The hay, primarily alfalfa, was unforgiving as it gouged my skin and made me bleed.  The pollen from the hay would get onto my skin and in the scratches and made my skin welt up.  My suggestion:  keep your shirt on.

Hauling hay was hard work.  It was physical and exhausting.  We would haul hay from right after breakfast at about 9:00, to milking time at 4:00.  We would take a quick break for lunch as well.  By the end of the day, I was ready to crawl into bed at 8:00.  Rawl had 13-20 acres of hay, depending on the year.  The hay yielded 5-7 tons to the acres, over three cuttings.  We hauled roughly 50-60 tons of hay each year with the first cutting in early June, the second cutting in mid July, and the last cutting in mid to late August.  These were hot and sweaty times of the year.

While stacking the hay on the wagon was important, stacking in the barn or yard was at least as important.  We would put roughly 60-70 bales on a wagon, but we would put 2,500 bales in the barn. The stack had to be built well so it didn't fall down during the time is was stored in the barn.  The stacks got 20-30 feet high with the use of a hay conveyor.  Careful building was required.  Rawl "taught" me several times how to build as stack before I gained a good understanding and became proficient.

One day, after hauling hay, but right before milking time, Rawl said to me that pasture is really where he made the money that he made on the farm.  I was puzzled.  "Why is that?" I asked.  He said, he didn't have to pay anyone to harvest the pasture because the cows harvested the pasture themselves.  I thought that was interesting, but didn't see that what he paid people to haul hay as very much.  What I didn't consider was all of the equipment, fuel, repairs, maintenance, storage space, etc. that he had to pay for to harvest hay.  Is was worse for corn silage.  On pasture the cows fed themselves, and spread fertilizer while they fed themselves.  It would be years before I realized the simple genius of this concept.

Rawl had earned a special award from the Soil Conservation District for his pasture management.  I didn't get the idea.  It seemed to me that Rawl was a little backwards.  After all, it seemed like no one else still pastured their dairy cows.  I thought Rawl was a little old fashioned.  I thought it was okay, but it seemed to me he was a little behind the times.  I had no idea how far ahead of the curve he was.  Rawl practiced what is commonly called "strip grazing."  In effect, this is a special kind of "Management Intensive Grazing" (MIG), where you give the cows just what they need to meet their daily nutritional requirements well, but not enough so that they spoiled any of it.  This strip grazing allowed the grass to be harvested cleanly by the cows, but then given a rest of about five weeks to recover and grow before it was again harvested by the cows.  This allowed for more nutrient dense feed to be managed in a way that suppressed weeds, prevented soil erosion, built organic matter, improved butterfat yield, improved cow health and all other manner of fantastical things.  Rawl was decades ahead of other dairy or beef farmers on this issue.  Even today, forty years later, many still have not learned the lessons Rawl had learned and put into practice.

I have learned much more about the concepts and science behind MIG over the past 10-15 years.  I hope to be able to implement what Rawl knew and practiced as well as other elements of MIG and other biological farming processes that could make it even better.  Rawl was a good mentor in teaching me about pastures and the value it brought to the farm.

As I look back and think, would I rather cut the hay, rake the hay, bale the hay, haul the hay, stack the hay, feed the hay, clean up the manure, and spread the manure; or would I rather move a single wire in the field and let the cows take care of all that.  I will choose the pasture when it is possible.  I will also be prepared to deal with the hay while trying hard to let the cows do the work as often as is possible.  Simple is good.  Let the cows be cows.  Use human management to help the cows help, rather than harm the environment.