Hay making

Earlier this week our son Jon took advantage of the weather and made some small bale hay. As he is an agricultural contractor he has modern well maintained machinery and the bales are collected in the field, lifted onto large trailers,and unloaded in the barn without being man handled. The harvested fields were down by the brook at Rhydunnog Farm.


This is a very civilised way of doing things and a big advance on the way we made hay in the years after baling hay became popular in the nineteen fifties. Some people will regret the loss of friendship and banter that was involved with the old system alongside the hard graft. As farmers we have to adapt to new technology and make sure that our business is competitive in a changing world.
One of the advantages of hay making as compared to silage is that no plastic wrapping is required. The plastic is expensive and we have to pay disposal costs. The plastic is an evironmental nightmare, as it finds its way into streams and rivers. The big blessing of silage making is that it has made harvesting grass possible when the weather has not been dry and sunny enough to make hay.