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Alan..... ....like you, I have a small acreage, and the best feed value in pasture grass is in MAY in the Puget Sound Area..... ..problem is you can't dry the stuff untill after 4th July as it rains too much and by then there is NO FEED value left. It even makes lousy bedding. I bite the bullet and buy alfalfa from Columbia Basin for winter feed. According to the books, Sheep don't need feed value of alfalfa but they won't eat local grass hay. I don't blaime 'em, would be just like eating newspaper for food value. What you never ate paper? I always ended up swallerin' that spitwadd 'cuz the teach always seemed to sense that ol'Dell wass gonna do sumptin foolish and shee needed the blackboards cleaned or sumppthen. gulp!!! (grin) ..... but I digress..... Just guessin' enough new/modern small haybale equipment probably gonna run over $10K. Enough 50 yo hayin' quipment (and subsequent reliability issues) probably $3000+ investment. And then theres learning how to keep the bailer adjusted. (its a black art). It'll probably take you 2 yrs to get enough of the right kind of used N-tractor compatable hay machinery unless you luck out and find an estate sale with all the right stuff and go in with a big checkbook. I know it is irritating to have 6 acres of pasture hay and not being able to get it bailed is really the pits. My advice, is to keep the grass growing by mowing/brushoggin and let the chopped grass compost back into the ground. Remember, the reason grass grows is for S3X. If you keep cutting its s3x off before it fertilizes itself, it'll keep growing. Once grass has s3x, it quits growing, smokes a ciggerette, and says was that good for you? (grin)..... ...Dell
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