OUR FARM IS A MESS!!!

hi i'm pete and welcome to just a few acres farm well like i've been saying we've gotten a lot of rain in the last week on top of a wet summer overall and i want to show you some of the damage this is embarrassing for me so please be gentle as you know last week we moved the hay feeder into this heifer yard here because we were going to separate the herd well it's been too wet to do that everything is just too muddy look at this mess they made here it is just soup so this morning we got the hay ring out of here and we thought about putting it back where it was here but i want to get the cows out of the mud i'm tired of it so we move the ring down into the laneway that goes down to the lower pastures put it in here where it's nice and dry i do not like showing the cattle this way i mean it's been raining so much our farm isn't designed for extreme cases like this normally our yard in the grove there is dry all summer and yes i could put some gutters on the barn and take gutters are a nightmare in this climate so first of all you got to put up the gutter and then you got to put snow guards on the roof and hopefully they'll keep the ice and snow from tearing the gutters off when it slides off the roof and then you've got to deal with leaves from the trees clogging up the gutters and climbing up and cleaning them out twice a year and then you've got to deal with well where am i going to put the water that the gutters take yes you could use it to water the cows but a lot more it's not like it's matching the demand of the cows so when you get a big rainstorm there's thousands of gallons that come off that roof i'm not storing it for the cows that's just goofy i'd have to worry about water quality issues algae all that kind of stuff and so if this kind of weather continues i will have to put a gutter on there or something to take care of the water or move the cows out of that yard for the summer but i'm not basing how i build our farm on one extreme weather year there has to be at least two for me to seriously think about it meanwhile we're dealing with it as best we can now the pigs on the other hand i think they kind of like this mud yesterday i let the little pigs out took off the plywood i'd put on i've been bedding this area with hay so at least they got one dry place to go to and the little pigs and the big pigs are getting along just fine all right guys you're one big happy family after all you're all half siblings right you got the same dad there you go goofy guys it's been hot too it's been in the mid 80s and very humid so they've made a wallow here in front of the water and they roll around in it when it gets hot you see the size difference big little there's another little guy and to help them get along better i've put out four feed trays now and so when they all come to eat there's plenty of space for them spread out and actually when the little ones are eaten alongside the big ones the big ones aren't pushing them around at all so with pigs it matters by batch kind of you know you get some batches that are really aggressive you get other batches like these that aren't so aggressive and i'm thankful for that these are the pullets that we started growing out to be laying hens starting this fall they'll be old enough and we started them in the brooder in the spring moved them into the winter house to grow out because we can't mix little laying hens with the big laying hens out in the field they get bullied too much anyway last week we opened the doors to the yards there's one yard here in one yard on the other side so these pullets have been busy tearing down all the stuff that's grown up in the pen and that's an enjoyable activity for chickens i think as i said we haven't gotten around to dividing the herd for breeding yet so the two bulls titus and ordon are still here in the barn and out the back in the winter pasture i'm hoping they'll dry up soon so that we can put them with the cows and divide everybody up it's a big job and i don't want to do it in the mud i've been kind of bummed during all this rain because i get stuck in the house some days when it's raining we come out and do the chores twice a day and i try to catch up on stuff that i need to do in the house but today there's only a 40 chance of rain and tomorrow's supposed to be sunny and hot up in the upper 80s and wednesday looks kind of dicey i'm thinking there's enough time here to get some hay cotton bale before i can mow this mess there's a hose that comes from the hydrant in the barn over here and snakes through and we just pull it around to the different chicken boxes plus we've got wiring coming out of the barn extension cord that goes and feeds the lights on the turkey arc to keep the predators away at night so we've got to move all that stuff out of the way so i can cut the field first i gotta find the hose though here's the electric cord here's the hose [Applause] [Music] i'm going to start out cutting the chicken pasture here and it's a mess i explained it in a video about a week ago it really needs it one of the ways that i keep weeds down in my pastures and hay fields is typically i cut them three times a year for hay and then i may clip pastures once to help keep the weeds down as well well with two cuttings this year this being the second cutting the hot weather weeds have had more time to come up and i hate it i hate the way it looks so we're going to get it out of here all right you've seen me cut hay a whole bunch of times before so i'm going to mix it up a little this time and while i'm cutting hay i'm going to answer some faqs about our hay fields and pastures so fun facts and frequently asked questions about our hay and pasture fields why don't i make silage or baleage which is the bailed form of silage well i don't because i don't have the storage facilities for plain silage which either need a silo or a bunk to store in and you have to cover it with plastic to keep the oxygen out of it because making silage is an anaerobic fermentation process i don't make baleage because of all the plastic waste baleage is made by wrapping the bales with plastic either in a long row so it looks like a big white worm with the plastic on it or wrapping each individual bale so they look like white marshmallows and that's a lot of plastic fuse i have no way to recycle it and that's the reason i don't make balance yes i'd love to feed silage or baleage but i can't deal with all that wasted plastic the sun's coming out [Music] do i ever need to plow up and re-seed my fields or re-seed them say frost seeding for clover i've never had to our fields are going eight years now and the original seedings are going strong i think it's all about how you take care of them so this field that i'm mowing here needs different care the weeds have gotten to be way too much and part of that's the wet summer but part of it's also that i haven't heavily composted this field put compost on it in at least five years and so if you keep the proper nutrition for the grass you keep the proper ph to grow the grass along with cutting it at the right time or clipping pastures at the right time i found that the weeds stay at bay nicely in all of our other fields this holds true i see no need to reseed going eight years after 20 years who knows maybe i will but i'm reluctant to ever plow up a field unless i absolutely have to because it damages all the systems in the soil so much the living systems all the life that brings nutrients to the plants and that the plants exist in symbiosis with so plowing is a last resort for me die burdocks die do you have dedicated hay fields and dedicated pastures or do they rotate we rotate our fields so i've found that the best way to keep them growing well is to pass your cattle on a field for about a two year stretch and then rest them for one so our fields go through that sort of rotation all but one of our fields are fenced and those consequences i've found if i don't rotate the fields because i've experimented with this is if you heavily graze a field year after year you wind up with what i think is bad soil compaction the grass just doesn't come back the way it should so if i rest that field for a year and take hay off of it two or three times the soil and the grass come back that's just my experience it's what i've seen and this is why we use temporary fencing to make daily paddocks for the cattle instead of putting in permanent fencing and just working them through a set of permanent paddocks because i need to be able to open up the field in the years that we're making hay out of it and the temporary fencing is really no big deal to move the other advantage to the temporary fencing is i can adjust the paddock size based on the grass growth to get optimal grazing here's another common question how much fuel did you use doing that well the field i'm cutting i think is five acres actually that's what i always say about every field but i do think this one's five acres i'll burn about five gallons of diesel cutting this field so i guess that's a gallon an acre and i'll probably burn another gallon an acre or so tetting it and raking it and bailing it so i'll have two gallons an acre into it maybe three gallons an acre ounce just to see to the pants guest my tractors don't really use that much fuel the fuel tank on the 656 is around 35 gallons it's kind of like the fuel tank on a full-size truck and the fuel tanks on the h and the m are more like what you'd have on a car the h's fuel tank i think and somebody can correct me it's around 12 gallons or something like that i really don't burn that much fuel in a season that's all there is to it really getting close now another field cut glad to get all that crap down i usually wait until the next morning to ted hey because usually i finish cutting later but i got enough time today i'm going to ted the hay now and then maybe i'll tell it again in the morning because my window this time is pretty short [Music] oh yeah by the way this is why the pto shaft looks back because the shield wobbles it's nothing to do with the shaft itself or the u-joints but you gotta be aware of that wobbly muffler it's not wobbling so much today i get this question all the time how come you windrow the hay or put it in piles behind the hay bind when you're cutting and then just go back and spread it all out why don't you just let the hay bind spread it all out when it's cutting well the reason for that is because the hay bind needs a clear space at the inside shoe where the cutter head is driven by the wobble box that shoe needs to ride in a clear space of cut grass without any grass laying on top of her the whole business clogs up and then you're in for a worldly curve wait there is a ton of swallows flying around it's hard to see them on the screen i know but it sure is cool wowie look at them all this is the traditional way of checking the fuel on these old furballs i got enough to finish this wheel on the tedder is still clogging up and i figured out the reason it's because at this time is out and it's dropping hay into it i just need to unbolt this one and take this loose piece off i guess i'll do that before i start again tomorrow there's hillary doing the afternoon chores chickens chickens and turkeys well that's it i am so glad to have this field cut moving the chicken boxes was getting to be a real pain with the tall grass and this will make it so much easier here's yet another question i always get can you start this ever on diesel and the answer i just figured out is yes pull the diesel throttle up it's in diesel mode the tractor is warmed up and they'll start on diesel now luckily the starter and the battery are strong enough to turn it over under higher compression and she pops right off well that's about my day howdy figures how are you guys doing hey little ones you guys getting along alright that was long day's work i remember the first three years that we had the farm we mowed with a sickle bar mower mowed all of our hay either with the super c and the c21 sickle bar or the h and the 120 sickle bar and it was a lot different i'm so glad we don't have to do that anymore we'd mow it down let it sit for two three four days just doesn't dry as well because it lays it flat on the ground instead of fluffing it up then come back with the rake and the square baler this way of making hay is so much easier i hope you enjoyed this video hopefully keep your fingers crossed i can get this bailed up before it rains the day after tomorrow i'll see you next time right pigs they're too busy

Channel: Just a Few Acres Farm

Views: 104,246

Rating: 4.9831061 out of 5

Keywords: farm, farming, hobby farm, hobby farm guys, hobby farming for profit, homestead, how farms work, just a few acres farm, life on a farm, day on the farm, slow farming, busy day, haybine, farm day, hay, hay season, farmall 656, international 990 haybine, cutting hay, mowing hay, second cutting hay, old equipment, pigs, piglets, dexter cattle, tedding hay, chickens, farmall md, mess

Id: h8SlBHmnytA

Length: 16min 2sec (962 seconds)

Published: Tue Aug 24 2021