HAY PANIC

At least we don’t have a feed lot type operation. Many cattle farmers around here have big open cover buildings and cows standing on concrete, fed hay and grain.

I only need hay in the dark winter – they need hay all year round. By now we usually have one cut in the barn or close to it. But we save ours for the winter. The cattle in yards need that hay right now. I have already talked to a few really panicked cattlemen. They have stands of animals in small spaces surrounded in empty corn fields where there should have been pasture.

Just imagine the muck they are dealing with.

There are two reasons why my farm will weather this endless rain a bit better. Last year I had to make an emergency run to New Zealand and I sold stock to get there so already I am light on animal numbers. Secondly, my cows eat fresh grass all summer and fall and I have plenty of fresh pasture. Thirdly, I can fence my hay fields. If it continues to rain I will call my hay standing hay, and put the cows IN the hay fields in the winter.

Also, I will buy no new stock this summer even though some of these other farmers are already considering selling off stock they cannot feed and the prices should be pretty low in an already depressed beef market.

Old fashioned small scale farming is more able to adapt to a changing climate. Not something I had thought about before.

And we had another two inches of drowning rain, thunder, lightening and tornado watch again, all in about half an hour yesterday afternoon.

Celi