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Pasture Posts #237

Here’s the weekly roundup from Watson Farms and your direct connection to your farmer. Enjoy the latest edition of Pasture Posts!

Making Hay with Some Legacy Machines

Most farms have to find creative ways to save money from time to time.

This was the case for us when we decided earlier this year that we were going to go back to making our own hay (haylage) so that we could put excess forage to better use.

So why did we quit making our own hay in the first place? There were several reasons, but the main one was the time it required. We could purchase the hay that we needed each year and spend the time we saved on other enterprises. This worked well for the most part, but there were always times each year that we had excess forage that we felt like we wasted by not having enough cattle or the hay equipment to harvest it.

In our area, we tend to get rain in spurts rather than consistently throughout the year. What we’ve learned over the years is that we are never able to exactly match the size of our cattle herd to the amount of pasture that we have at a given time.

So when it became evident earlier this year that we would be transitioning out of the egg business and shifting away from our own delivery service, then it made more sense to start making our own hay again.

But we didn’t want to go overboard and invest heavily in new equipment, so we started looking around at what we had left over in the fence rows from our past decades of haymaking.

The first thing we came across was our old mower/conditioner that I had used hours on end as a teenager. My dad bought it new in the early 1990s. It’s an old style hay cutter and has a sickle bar for cutting instead of the newer style, much faster disc-type cutter. This makes it a good bit slower than more expensive versions, but with 8 or 10 hours of TLC earlier this summer, I had it ready to go back to the field.

Approximate cost of a modern used hay cutter: $15,000
Cost of restoring our old cutter: $350

Another item we needed was a hay rake. We looked at several options, but we had to keep in mind that we would be raking wet hay which is, of course, heavier than dry hay so certain types of rakes don’t work well.

We had one in the fence row that my granddad purchased new in the mid-1960s that had a gearbox problem. This rake was the first piece of equipment I operated when I was about 8 years old.

Even if we fixed it, we weren’t sure it would be able to move the wet hay well being it was ground driven. We decided to take a chance since newer rakes were so expensive.

The first step was rebuilding the gearbox which I had never done much of, but I figured I didn’t have much to lose. I took it apart, ordered all the parts and carefully put it back together. We then replaced a ton of missing teeth, repaired some various other minor things, greased it good, and took it to the field.

In the first 100 feet of raking wet hay, the tires started skidding and the rake locked up. We needed more traction, so we chained on some old wheel weights (150 lb chunk of steel) and it worked great!

Approximate cost of a modern used rake: $10,000
Cost of restoring our old rake: $1,000

Sure, the older style equipment is slower, but for now we chose to save the cash and spend a little more time in the field.

With hay typically being one of the largest costs in a cattle operation, we’re hoping these savings will help counteract the high cattle prices that we discussed last week. And it’s pretty cool seeing Abby operate a piece of equipment that her great-grandad purchased about 60 years ago.

On sale products

Check out this ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ review from Travis:

“I have placed multiple orders now:1/4 beef, pork sausage, flats of eggs, pork roasts, chicken legs…everything is excellent. Service is amazing. I could not be more pleased with the selection, quality and service.”

We would greatly appreciate it if you would be kind enough to leave us a review.  It helps first-time customers purchase with confidence.

Check out our Reviews Page!

Shipping Timeline and Store Hours

UPS Orders (all orders ship with insulation and dry ice):

UPS orders normally ship out on Mondays – Wednesdays.

We will try to ship your order on the next shipping day as soon as we have it assembled.

You should receive a text message and email with a tracking link when your order ships.

Farm Pickup (Always Free!): Please wait until you receive an email stating that your order is ready to be picked up (usually 1 business day from when you place your order). Farm pickup is done during store hours:

Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday: 10am to 6pm
Saturday: 10am to 2pm
Closed Sunday and Wednesday

Tell a Friend!

It’s now easier than ever to Give $15 and Get $15 through our Referral Program. We don’t spend a lot of money of advertising, but rather we focus on producing products that people love and are willing to tell others about. So we depend on word of mouth to find new customers and ultimately to heal more land.

So in an effort to streamline this process we have made it easier to tell others (via email, Facebook, or Twitter) about Watson Farms. And it’s all automated on the backend, so you don’t have to rely on us to issue the store credits manually. Just head over to our Referrals Page and start sharing!

Start Sharing!

Thanks again for being partners in this endeavor of local, pasture-raised proteins that has truly transformed our farm.  We look forward to continuing this transition while serving you long into the future.

Sincerely,
The Watsons

Pasture Posts is written and/or edited by Matt Watson.

1 thought on “Pasture Posts #237”

  1. Pasture Posts #260 – 100 Gallons of Water & A Dash of Patience – Watson Farms

    […] recipe. This is truly a “full circle” moment on the farm. If you remember back in September (Pasture Posts #237), we were working hard in the heat to put up the haylage we are feeding right […]

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