Lessons From the Ant, Preparing Baleage for Winter

Take a lesson from the ants, you lazybones.
    Learn from their ways and become wise! Though they have no prince
    or governor or ruler to make them work,
 they labor hard all summer,
    gathering food for the winter.

Proverbs 6:6-8

Ants are creatures of little strength,
    yet they store up their food in the summer...

Proverbs 30:25

In order to survive and be successful we need to be wise in how we manage our time and resources.  We need to look to the future and be prepared to care for ourselves and those under our care, including our animals.  We seek wisdom from many places; those more experienced around us, scripture and nature itself to name a few.  All of these sources tell us that though it may be hard to think about winter’s cold during a balmy summer day, we must not only think about it, but also prepare for it.  Thus much of the work during summer is preparation for winter’s bite.

It is no small feat to get enough hay, grain, silage and baleage stored to feed roughly 200 plus cattle (including dry cows and heifers) from late October to early April when there isn’t enough grass in pasture to sustain them.  It takes all of us working in concert, the weather cooperating, and equipment working at peak standard to get it all done.  Each feed type has its own unique process to get it cow and storage ready.  Today we will look at baleage (remember baleage from our last Farmerese lesson?).

Once the hay is tall enough and we have a forecast of enough sunshine to get the jobs done (hopefully three days to a week), tractors start up and head to the field.  It takes all generations working together to get this job done efficiently.  Roger’s Dad, Benny (first generation), comes in to help Roger (second generation) and the boys cut and rake the hay, Roger usually operates the baler, Andrew (third generation) is often on the rake or helping to move hay bales and Daniel (also third generation) operates the wrapper.  When he is available to help Rob (Lisa’s dad) comes and fills in where needed.

Long windrows of hay waiting to be baled!

It is a bit of a mad rush to get the 70 acres of hay that are good enough quality for baleage cut, raked, baled, moved to the wrapper and wrapped at just the right stage.  Baleage is a little trickier than dry hay (which true to its name, completely dries out before baling) because it needs to retain just the right amount of moisture to ferment (somewhere between 55 and 65%).  If the hay is too dry, the microorganisms won’t grow quickly enough and the hay just rots, if it is too wet the microorganism population explodes but then quickly runs out of food, also causing spoilage. 

Fresh big bale from the baler!

Once baled we wrap our big bales in white plastic using a special machine that gets the plastic very tight so air cannot get in (which can also ruin the baleage).  It’s really neat to watch this machine at work. 

Our "in-line" wrapper.

See this piece of equipment in action on our Facebook page!

The cows absolutely love this; we love for them to have it too.  Because of the added moisture the cows can consume more of this without needing to take a break to drink like with dry hay.  The more food they can eat the more milk they can make (within reason of course)!  It’s so funny to see them crowd around a freshly opened bale in the winter, sometimes steaming in the cold air due to the lingering heat from the fermentation process.  After a few summer months fermenting in the heat this baleage will be just what the cows are craving on those cold winter mornings.

At the end of a long day's work I think we’ve completed work even an ant would be proud of.

Snaking rows of completed baleage.