We Have Idiot Bales

I have idiot bales. My other hay guy just called! Yeah

I'd had Mike call a guy north of Sioux Falls a few weeks back. He's the hay guy we bailed on. Turns out he had more for the second cutting. I'm buying 150 ditch grass hay bales. It's nothing special, but I needed something to offset Maverick's appetite. He can eat SO much hay. I need to get him on grass soon. I have exactly one month to get him adjusted to the herd. I hope I can catch him once he's in the herd.


Awhile back the neighbor said to come over and pull some fence posts along the gravel road. While Mike was making the treck back down the ditch to the approach I took some pictures. I should add a few more. The above was right at the end of my driveway. Everything looks so green.

The below pic is after Mike, our farmer friend, and I threw 50 bales of alfalfa onto the flatbed. I was a bit disappointed that half those bales started to get wet. I'm hoping my drying system has fixed the issue. It was so wet when they were baled and sitting on the flatbed. I really don't know if my fix worked or not. But no matter what I need to get those bales out of the hay shed and into the hay barn.

This was the view as we were pulling out of the driveway to pick up the bales. Nothing like waiting until dusk to throw bales. I knew we needed to get the bales out of the field asap. They were talking rain the next day. And low and behold, we had rain the next day. Luckily the bales were in the shed but I waited too long and some started to mold while sitting on the trailer. I hope that my fix works. I'll have to post a few more pics of our alfalfa bale adventure some other time.

I'm just excited we have hay bales, even if they are ditch hay. I'm paying $3 a bale. I'm sure that it's too much for what it is but the guy was willing to call us instead of the other way around. I'd seen his ad on CraigsList and thought maybe we should call but later on in the day he called us! AND I don't have to pay in cash (which is a pain to run to town). I think this guy is pretty honest so hopefully the small bales will be good enough. I'm not sure if I need to put in another order from him or not. I don't know how many bales Maverick will go through. I'd like to have an emergency stash of hay for this winter but I don't know. I don't really know how much to spend on small squares.

I know I'm spending more on small squares of ditch hay than per ton of the dairy quality hay but I won't know what the big squares are going to cost me until the middle of winter which for me is unacceptable. I want to know how much it's going to to cost me before I agree to it. But that's not the case with this hay guy. It's rather frustrating. Maybe I'll see if I can do some more wheeling and dealing and get a few more small squares just to appease my mind.