[A Guest]

I have around 10-12 acres. I have a very tractor with Fahr mower, bob, and Jones baler. All very old and baler may be seized, I am about to find out, somewhat nervous!!

The grass is very long. We have a few sheep but only grazing 1 of the 4 fields. Last year we let a farmer take silage from it, just to get it cut, and the year before we let his cows graze it. We are considering offering him to use the grass again but hate giving it away so it's time to try making hay for the first time. I have a few questions, forgive the greenness of my questions (no pun intended!) and hope some nice experienced folk on here could maybe offer some answers or suggestions to this green newbie! .......

1. I know how to make hay, the basics at least. But how do you know when is the best time to cut? The grass seems pretty long now to me, seed heads all over, a nice red colour on the top especially in the evening sun. My wife however thinks its too early and says to wait until August. But with this heatwave we are having from today/tomorrow, I think I should get cutting. Any hints for solving this particular domestic?

2. Thistles/Weeds - we had a few thistles last year. We do not want to use chemical sprays, so we dug a few up last year and burned them. We have a lot more this year. I assume we are right to avoid those in the hay for obvious reasons, but does anyone have tips for getting rid of these?

3. We actually don't need hay very badly. Our fields are all nicely fenced now (finally) so this winter won't see the sheep confined to one small area with electric fencing, they can graze all 4 fields in rotation (if that's wise?). So the main purpose of cutting the fields is because we don't want weeds to get any worse. Am I right in thinking you can't leave it long and uncut year after year? I assume not as I think this allows weeds to strengthen and seed, but if our baler doesn't work, I wondered about just cutting and letting it lie, or cutting and turning so we can collect by hand with forks and trailers, then putting the cuttings somewhere to rot down.

What about a little idea I just had of cutting it over and over, only maybe 1-2 inches at a time, as a kind of mulch method, so short bits rot down?

Basically, since we dont "need" the hay, I am looking for the best possible way to manage the land, keep the nutrients in there as best as possible, reduce weed and thistle growth, and generally just tidy up as easily and cheaply as possible.

Any and all thoughts very welcome, thanks!

[shep53]

The ideal time to cut hay is when you can guarantee  up to 5 days of dry weather ,   the best bit of the grass is leaf so less stems / flower heads produces the most nutritious hay  .    Thistles are a constant problem , if you really don't want to spot treat with say glyphosate then  hand cutting with  a sickle  just before flowering can weaken .   The winter grazing of all 4 fields in rotation is a sensible   approach  , you can let the grass grow a bit longer in the autumn to utilise over the winter period ( deferred grazing )   .  IF you leave  grass uncut year after year it will  die and form tussocks and the good grasses will get crowded out  and rubbish will take over .     CUTTING  and let lie will  kill the grass underneath if in rows mulching and spreading would work ok .    Don't know how you would do it but the small cuts and  rotting down would work .         YOU should be able to find  a farmer  who would pay so much per bale to make silage or a price per head per week to graze cattle    ( advertise in your local farm shop or vets  or free ads  ??       Hope some of this helps sorry  I didn't notice the post earlier

[A Guest]

Thanks very much. When I said cut and let lie i meant with the hay mower on tractor.
I have a flail topper mower for towing behind quad. I did wonder if that would semi mulch and just keep cutting with that for a while to get weeds to die back. I definitely can't bring myself to use roundup type weed killers, even more so after recent news in France but I wouldn't have used it before then either. I heard vinegar can be a good alternative. I dont know when thistles flower, obviously too late now though so I guess i will have to go at it next year early on. a lot of work to come methinks!
thanks again

[Fleecewife]

We haven't cut our hay yet, but we're in Scotland, and will do so the minute the forecast tells us we have our five day window of haymaking weather.  In a bad year, it can be August before we make it, but the quality isn't so good.  Earlier than July and there's not much bulk.  But, being down in the SW I would think you are already a bit late.  Sorry Mrs A Guest 
For your baler, have a look at it now, grease everything and let it stand for a day or so before seeing if it works.  There's no point going into haymaking not knowing if your machinery works.  If you can't service it yourself, then get an agricultural mechanic to take a look.  it's always a good idea never to put your machinery away after use without going over it and greasing it for the winter, so it should be raring to go when you suddenly need it.

After this year, if you really don't want the hay or don't have enough livestock to graze efficiently, you could use the topper every time the grass gets a few inches tall, maybe once a week.  This will return the cut grass to the system, so you won't be removing soil food.  Any longer than that and clumps of mashed grass will cause the grass underneath to go brown.  However, 10-12 acres is a lot to top every week.  Renting it for grazing seems a better option.  I hate seeing that sort of waste.
Cutting with the hay mower then leaving it to lie is indeed likely to kill off the best grass underneath, and allow coarse grass and twitch to come through.  Tidying it up by hand, for 10-12 acres is just not practical, unless you have an entire platoon to help.  Even an acres worth of hay makes a huge pile for rotting down.
If your thistles are creeping thistle, then regular topping or hard grazing will keep them at bay.  If they are spear thistles then you need to dig them out by hand (see the 'thistles' thread)
If you make hay and find thistles in there, then pick it over each time you turn the crop, and pick out the drying thistles then burn them.  We once took hay from a neighbour's field with a thistle problem.  When we came to use the hay we found that the thistle flowers had matured after cutting and blew around the field in the winter wind - the following year we had a real thistle problem which has taken several years to sort out.

[Me]

Any fool can make good hay - as long as they can make the sun shine! 

[A Guest]

Fleecwife - thanks very very much for that informative post. Yes we hate waste too. Since we moved in, we have let the neighbouring farmer graze the fields with his cows. It seemed to do a good job of controlling things nicely, but then someone told us it will take most of the goodness out of the ground so we thought we would let it grow this year. I can cut and bale it (if baler works, if not it will be fixed and wet baled). The bales can be used around here for other things than animal feed, plenty of kids, bows and arrows, dens etc! Just to get it off the grass I mean, not because I want to cut good grass and let the kids use it as a toy!

We have a few sheep (including some North Ronaldsays by the way) and they only needed 10-15 bales through last winter but with the grazing here they probably wouldn't need any, so the hay taking is more an experiment than a need. Once I get everything cut and cleared, and machinery checked, working and serviced/greased up nicely, we will be able to get on top of everything more.

I have a flail mower coming for the quad (petrol powered) which will hopefully take care of the weeds around the edges of fields and allow me to quickly keep those down. Your idea of topping fields regularly is a good one, and I do actually think we could manage that. a quarter of the land is the sheeps main grazing field so it would only be the others which need topping, and I have others who can drive the quad so I think doing it once a week would be manageable.

Main issue is the damn thistles. I don't know how to find the thistles thread you mentioned. Perhaps you could drop me a link to that if you have one please?

I dont know if ours are creeping thistle or not. I will try to take a few snaps later. The most worrying thing is that the field where the sheep are has a very thin but wide area with tiny 1 inch tall thistles matting under the grass. Maybe that is what you referred to as creeping thistle? Its a bit scary to see it. covering such an area. And I reallllllly do NOT want Orf here if we can avoid it. We bought a few lambs from a farmer a year ago and they had Orf, took em straight back and disinfected everything they had touched, which was only a stable overnight, phew! We also have huge tall thistles popping up in other fields, perhaps those are spears?

thanks again, very much indeed.

[Fleecewife]

Hay made from that kind of mixed grass is perfect for primitive sheep.  Even better if it has a variety of wild herbs in it (weeds to some).  If you can make that into good hay and small bale it, you could sell it off the field for £3 per small bale to local smallholders, who find it difficult to source appropriate size, handleable bales.  At about 90-100 bales an acre, you would have an extra income source, which is never to be sneezed at.

Whilst grazing will remove the fertility from the soil, just as taking off any crop will do too, at least with grazing the animals add that fertility right back into the soil in their droppings.  Far far better than spreading artificial fertilisers which simply create lush, early growth, and leave your animals scouring.

What you do need to be sure of when renting your ground out for grazing, is that the animals are wormed immediately before coming onto your land, and that they do not carry wormer-resistant worms - which you absolutely don't want on your land.

Umm - I'll see if I can give you the link to the Thistles thread, or someone else might be kind enough to do that (I'm not very techy).  This might be it
http://www.accidentalsmallholder.net/forum/index.php?topic=62378.0;topicseen

Yay it worked 

[SallyintNorth]

You can still use that for fodder; there are years we can't get ours till it's like that, and it's still good fodder.  Just it'll be better fodder if you can get it earlier.  The government environmental schemes are designed to prevent you cutting your grass until all the wildflowers have seeded, and people still make hay and feed that   You need less when it's got earlier, and may need to supplement some livestock if it's poor - but on the plus side, poor hay is necessary for native ponies, for instance, so you might find your pony-owning neighbours queuing up to buy that off you!  (When I say 'poor' I am meaning 'of poor nutritional value'.)

someone told us it will take most of the goodness out of the ground so we thought we would let it grow this year.

One of the most difficult things when you are starting out is knowing which "someone"s to listen to

Grazing grass with animals is putting quite a lot of the nutrients back into the ground as the animals poop it out again, fertilising as they graze.  We don't fertilise our pasture fields, only the hay meadows, as taking a hay crop off removes nutrients.  By spreading the farmyard muck back onto the hay fields we replace the nutrients we removed .

x-posted with Fleecewife - well done on doing the link, FW! 

[A Guest]

"that kind of mixed grass" - how do you know its mixed?! What grasses are in it that you can see? I am fascinated!! Wish I knew more!

"primitive sheep" - we only have a handful of ronnies mainly for pets for children. Our small but growing flock for meat is Wiltshire Horned. Lovely sheep too. Really dont want them getting orf!

Worming before grazing - OH DEAR! Too late for that one now, but thanks very much, will certainly bear in mind for future. We had our first lamb slaughtered recently and the vet said it had tapeworm in liver so liver couldn't be eaten. No big deal we thought, but maybe it is? He did say its most likely dogs causing it and we have dogs. Now I am a bit worried about the cattle. Neighbour just has 20 or so cows which he rears for meat, but he sprays and fertilises like all the commercial farmers do round here, so now I am a bit worried as I wouldn't be surprised if his cows had worm resistant worms, which I had never heard of until now admittedly!

I actually had that idea for taking hay for an income, a few years ago when I bought the tractor. Got a great deal on an old tractor with Jones baler, turner and Fahr mower. All working when i bought (decent chap, didn't show me but i trust him 100%). Life took over and with house renovations and stuff needed, we just let the farmer graze the fields to keep them managed. Now I would love to take hay. Trouble is, I dont have a clue what a weed is, what a herb is etc. I know dockweed and the usual thistles, brambles etc, and i know what Clover is and that its good (we have a fair bit in the fields). But how to know what is a weed and what isn't, whether to pull it, cut it, burn it, or let animals graze it, its all a bit of a mystery to me. Need to find a good book about it I think.

[shep53]

Looks like  a typical  old grass hay meadow to me  can't see any thistles or docks and  not thick and rotting at the base so easy to cut and  dry.          Cows and sheep have different worms so don't worry , you can graze cows with sheep to reduce worms in each species .

[A Guest]

Thanks, this is by far the best field. is it cow parsley at the edge?I play to flail mow that down.
Cows and sheep - how interesting, thanks!

[Fleecewife]

The umbelifer looks like hogweed, but there could be cow parsley in there. Both fine.
The pink stuff at the back looks from the pic like foxglove, which you don't want as it's a poison - very pretty though.  Foxglove is the plant from which Digoxin, a heart medication, which slows the heart right down and can stop it, in humans is derived.  Sheep tend not to eat it, but I wouldn't trust that and would dig it out, leaves as well as flowers. Sometimes when toxic plants are dried as hay they either become more toxic, or more palateable to the animal so it will eat it in hay, when they wouldn't touch it fresh.

Stand back and look at what's growing in your field.  You will see that the grass has a variety of seed heads, different shapes and colours, and heights.  That means the grasses are of mixed types - there are a large number of grasses, and it doesn't really matter what they're called, just which are nutritious and which are not. When pasture is part of a rotation, where different crops are grown in each field in a set order, with soil nutrition in mind, the seed is carefully chosen for variety.  I only keep primitive sheep, so I don't want the commercial type of grass, as it's too rich for my sheep.  Our pasture has become 'permanent pasture', where it's not part of a crop rotation, and is not reseeded every few years, so different species of grasses, wild flowers and weeds grow.
For weeds, the persistent ones are ragwort  (toxic, get it out, root and all and burn it), thistles, burrs, sticky willie (cleavers), and nettles if you don't want them, but some sheep eat them, and certain butterflies need them for their survival.  You also don't want brambles, foxglove as mentioned, rushes, although they're not toxic, just a pest.  there will be more depending on where you live, and certain garden plants hanging over the fence will be highly toxic too.

[SallyintNorth]

Tapeworm in liver is dog worms, the *ONLY* way to prevent this is to ensure that all dogs who poop where your sheep graze are wormed for roundworm *AND* tapeworm every *THREE* months.

Many vets offer roundworm-only worming for dogs unless the owner has seen tapeworm segments.  I wish they didn't... 

Most adult cattle don't get wormed as they build up immunity.  Youngstock normally get a worm bolus for their first grazing season after they've been weaned.  The best tactic is to (a) only allow grazing by animals from a High Health Status flock or herd - with cattle you also want to be sure you are not getting Johnes disease onto your land, so unless the herd never has Johnes, avoid them, and (b) graze sheep then cattle in a rotation - each species eats and nullifies each other's worms.

The weeds at the side of your field are one of the cow parsley types. They're harmless unless they are enormous and/or got purple-blotched stems.  I found a good video here about telling hemlock from cow parsley - the id bit starts at 8 mins in. 

I say 'harmless', but one of the plants that's very similar is called fool's parsley - and you don't want to eat it.   I found a page here about that.

I should add that I found both those links googling - so the information, although it looks and sounds pukka, may or may not be correct.

[A Guest]

whats umbelifer when its at home?!

when you say "both fine" what do you mean? cut it and bale with hay? cut it but not in hay?

No i dont think its foxglove but will check. we have pink wildflowers here (beautiful). will get a pic when i go that way again, thanks

[A Guest]

thanks Sally, very useful info there. will read those links, with a pinch of salt as you sensibly mention!

Worming - yes, we dont worm our dogs at all (unless they get an infestation or if their health appears to be affected). We do however keep them out of the sheep grazing fields now, since we recently had the fields fenced. Slowly we will get there. Can't wait to get the flail ATV mower. One of our fields we actually fenced off the bottom half as its like a nature reserve and we sort of liked it that way. Full of rush and thistle now, but also masses of brambles and berry's, the birds and bees love it, so we sort of donated that area to nature as its too boggy to get a tractor on most of the year anyway. In our naivety we sort of ignored that area and of course it's a thistle seeding factory now, so we will have to get in there and deal with it by hand. Thanks again