It's Haymaking time!

Arguably the most stressful time of the year is haymaking. here at Wheal Clifford Farm we make our own forage.

Here is last years Hay.

there are 3 types of forage, hay such as the picture to the left is fully dried grass, which can be stored inside, and is very popular for horses, however it takes a full 3-7 days to dry, which means that you can only make hay in late June to July.

the next type of forage is called silage which became popular in the 1940s, It is basically wet grass, placed in a heap and compacted, before being made airtight, which lets it ferment; this is used mostly on dairy farms as it is the cheapest way to store lots of forage and  has a lower dry matter (DM). however it requires many machines, and a place to put it, called a 'clamp', however silage can be cut from may to September with some farms getting two, or even 3 cuts of the same fields.

the third type of forage is relatively new, and was created in Cornwall! called haylage, or bailage (depending on DM%) it is part dried grass that is bailed and the wrapped with black, or white film to keep it airtight. this means that it doesn't have the storage issues of silage or hay, and you can get more than 1 cut off the land. however, it does require some pretty specialist equipment!

 First we have to cut the grass, as seen in this picture, for most of these processes we use a contractor as the equipment needed is very expensive!

when the grass is mown it is placed in rows, or 'swaths' which allows the ground to dry and machines to be able to drive through the drying grass without running it over.

 here we see the grass 1 day after being mown, as you can see the swath has become flat or 'settled' which means there is less air in it, slowing drying. as you can see the colour has already begun to change





this picture, below shows the grass after being spread on the 2nd day, since the ground has and a chance to dry out the grass can now be spread along the whole width allowing to to dry faster.

Here, we see that the grass has been 'rowed up' into a swath once again, this is so that the baler can pick it up more easily. (the reason that half the field has no rows on it is that the first baler broke down - notice the bales in the other pics)

And here we see the baler in action picking up the grass and ejecting it as bales, weighing around 400kg each. (the more eagle eyed of you will notice that this is actually last years forage - The baler came at 5am and left before i could take a photo of it!)

 The bales need to be collected and taken to the stack where they will be wrapped. however, unlike conventional, or small square bales they are a bit to heavy to lift by hand! Here is our tractor collecting them.

 the field then looks like this, but quickly begins to green up and grow again.

 The bales are then collected at a central location ready to be wrapped, here we see the bales waiting to be wrapped  - and the difference between bales that are bound in twine (below) and covered in net (above).

these bales were done with a different baler, which broke down

 Here is the equipment needed to wrap, the green piece of machinery applies the film to the bales, while rotating them, while the blue thing is used to pick the bales and place them on the stack without damaging the film.

 here we see the finished stack, as you can see it is covered in net, which is held off the bales. this is to stop birds from pecking holes in the film, looking for bugs, as shown below. Any holes allow mold to develop which can make the feed unpalatable, or at worst poisonous to the cows.