Farm Diversification and Hay Calculation

Jon 0:00

Welcome to Just Say hey .

Jon 0:00

The podcast podcast where I talk about the things that matter to small farms . You know why ? Because we are a small farm , if you know us . We we run about an 850 acre commercial forage farm , which is a lot . I mean , when we started we were super small . I mean we had like 20 acres and it was all we could do to get that bailed . And so you know , we've grown a little bit and just want to share some of the insights we have from that in this podcast . But here's what I want to talk about today .

Jon 0:25

I got asked by a customer the other day how much hay do they need to get through the winter ? And you know , for me I've been doing this long enough now that it's kind of second nature . I kind of just do the math and move on . But I want to talk a little bit about how to do that math and how to figure out how much you need , talk a little bit about when it's time to diversify your operation . When you start a farm , you're trying to figure out how to make money with it and sometimes you need to focus all of your energy on doing one thing really , really well , but then again , you also need to figure out how do you stabilize that income and sometimes we need to diversify a little bit . I'm going to talk a little bit about why we changed balers I get a lot of flack from some buddies of mine why we changed from a red to a green baler , and then a little bit about maintaining our sanity in the months coming up . So let's get into it .

Jon 1:13

Welcome to Just Say hey , the podcast where we talk about what matters to small farms , whether it's business , marketing , agronomy , equipment , livestock health . If it matters to small farms , we'll probably talk about it here . So let's get into it . So the other day I had a customer come up to me super good guy , and they're just getting into livestock and they didn't know how much hay they needed to get through the winter . And again , you know , if you've been doing this a while , you sort of know what your hay needs are and you get that taken care of and you move on .

Jon 1:42

I sort of have my strategy for how much hay I want to have for my horses and then for my cattle . I plan a year and a half's worth of hay by the time we get to this time of year . I want to have a year and a half's worth of hay in my barn for my horses . The reason for that is , if we go into next year and there's a horrible drought , I have six months to figure out where I'm going to get hay . You know , if you , if we're in a bad drought , hay producers will . We won't have anything , and if we do , the price goes up because it's about you know you have a very , very limited supply , so the price generally goes up because it's about you know you have a very , very limited supply , so the price generally goes up quite a bit .

Jon 2:27

We had this happen before we got into farming our own hay . Had this happened , I want to say it was 2012, . 2007 , 2012 . We weren't farming our own hay , we were just buying hay for our horses and we were running out of hay and we had a drought , and so it was a real juggle to get enough hay to get us through . So my plan is a year and a half .

Jon 2:50

But how do you figure out what that year is and how much hay you need ? They call it an AU and the whole process was thinking about grazing management , how to figure out how many animals your land can support . But we can use that same calculation to figure out how much hay we need to have on hand . And the formula is really really simple and I got to doing the math today and I think I figured out that it's even simpler than I thought . So an animal unit is considered to be a thousand pound . Mama cow , with or without a calf by her side , and that's an animal unit . And there's I think it was an animal mass unit and then it got abbreviated to just an animal unit and then they have animal unit month . So how much grazing land do you need to support that one animal unit for a month ? Well , the easy math for it is let's see if I can do this the right way . Their math says you need 780 pounds of hay , assuming that this animal is going to eat one to two percent of its body weight per day in hay Probably needs a little bit more if you're doing in grain supplement . But you know , just for round math I like to overestimate and say this animal is going to eat or 780 pounds a day , 780 pounds a month . I think it's like 26 pounds a day .

Jon 4:28

I like to think that that animal is going to need a thousand pounds and the reason for that is in almost every operation that I see mine included we have waste Hay that gets trampled , hay that gets pulled out of the feeder , and then trampled hay that gets left in the feeder . They can't reach it , or whatever the situation is . So I like to figure a thousand pounds of hay per animal unit per month . Well , that's pretty simple . If you have four goats , a cow and a horse , we can add up what the weights are . We're going to say your horse is 1,200 pounds , your cow's 1,000 pounds . That's 2,200 pounds . You got four goats at 200 pounds each . That's 800 pounds . So you're 3,000 pounds . That's how much hay you're going to need for the month . 3,000 pounds of hay , and that gives you a little bit extra for waste . So it's kind of an easy equation to do . It's a equation you add up how many pounds of animal you got and then you multiply that by how many months you're going to be feeding .

Jon 5:32

Now everybody's feed ration and everybody's feeding strategy is a little bit different . I mean , for our horses , for example , we do stall feeding , so they get fed high quality hay every day , twice a day , but they also have a lower quality hay that's usually put out in a feeder that they can snack on during the day . They're not starving for it , but if they want some grain , it's just . If they want some hay , there's just a free choice hay out there . So that is sort of the way our strategy goes . So we probably put a you know thousand pounds for six horses . We'll put a thousand pounds of hay out a month just for them to snack on , sometimes a little more than that , but then they get a full ration of hay in their stalls morning and night . Now , with our cattle , we free choice feed our cattle hay and we have a specially designed feeder . If you want to see that , check it out on our YouTube channel . Kind of cool . We based it on a University of Kentucky design out of Eden Shale , kind of cool . But again , still , the math still adds up the same . So you know , add your animals up , how much do they all weigh . That's how many pounds of hay you're going to need per month . And this is again a good , just a rule of thumb way to do it . So you know , I thought that might help some people . It's surprising how many times I've gotten asked that question over the years .

Jon 6:55

The other thing we were talking about I mentioned it in the beginning is diversification . You know small farms . You start out with a product you're going to grow or you're trying to grow you're trying to supplement your food . I'm really talking about the people who are doing this , who farming , trying to farm for a living , trying to make this your full-time gig and looking at diversifying . And we started out when we started farming . We started our idea was going to be was cattle . We were going to raise cattle . Cattle market was good .

Jon 7:28

When we started I was still working a full-time job , so it was a little difficult . But as we moved on we sort of pivoted our farm to a commercial forage farm . That was the land that was available . We had some equipment . It just made a lot of sense for us . Now we still run a small cow-calf operation . In fact I'll be taking calves off in the morning , taking them off for sale . But we still run a small cow-calf operation . Again gives us a little bit of a buffer , gives some extra income to the farm and it doesn't take a whole lot of work . So you know , during calving season there's a lot of work and a couple of days real hard work during weaning , when we're doing the weanings and we're vaccinating and that , but after that it's not too bad and we enjoy it . I enjoy being around the cows and got a good partner over here in Daly who helps me work it . So that was how we decided to diversify .

Jon 8:28

So when you're looking at diversifying , when you're looking at should you do something else with the farm , you have to make the decision . How much time do you have to apply to it ? Because coming up with great ideas is pretty easy , but then you have to . Are you willing to put in that work to be successful at it ? If it's a side hustle , and is it , does it detract from your primary goal ? And let's say you're raising , you know , let's say you're raising food to supplement your grocery , so you have fresh vegetables and you're canning and you're doing things like that , and then you have this side hustle . Does that take away from your primary focus and determining what's important ? And I'm a big fan about money , about equipment , about anything like that Looking at the things that you have that are valuable , and that may be knowledge , it may be equipment , it might be people you know it might be whatever it is and looking at your limitations . For me , like with most people , it's you know my limitations are time and money . So you know where those are my biggest limiting factors . At the end of the day , I'm done . I've already put in a 12 or 14 hour day , and so when I come up with an idea that I think might be interesting to pursue , I have to sit down and really think is this going to take away from my primary focus ? If it is , is it going to be financially worth it or emotionally , spiritually worth it to do and then make that decision

Farm Diversification Decision-Making Factors

Jon 10:19

.

Jon 10:19

So you know , I was talking to a guy the other day I got asked about , you know , when should you diversify ? And that's a difficult question . You have to look at all the variables because everybody's operation is different and everybody's time , input and money , input and output , all of those things are different . But that's sort of how I would think about going about the decision of how do you diversify a farm . You know farming is pretty difficult . So you've got to really be sure , if you want to give your operation the best chance for success , that you have the resources to put toward whatever you're planning to do to diversify , and that's time , money , equipment , space , real estate , whatever it is . So to answer the next question . That was kind of .

Jon 11:06

I've taken a lot of flack for this because we switched from a Heston baler to a John Deere baler and a lot of guys that I know just think that was a wrong decision to do . And you know and I'm not red and green man this battle has been going on for ages , but the decision wasn't about the manufacturer and this is something that I found . This . I think this is important for everybody . When , if you're trying to farm and do it seriously , for you know a living it's important , or if you're planning to do that , that building a relationship with your dealer is important , and when you get , when you have a relationship that works , no relationship's perfect . Had you know I've had problems , minor problems with it . You know you have minor problems no big deal , they happen but when you have major problems , then it becomes an issue .

Jon 12:13

And my opinion people would ask what kind of truck do you drive ? Well , I drive the truck that I can get service on . What kind of tractor do you drive ? You know I drive tractors that fit my needs and tractors I can get service on , and we made the decision to switch . We had I've talked about it before , I don't want to get into it . We've had a really bad relationship with one of our local dealers and they just got purchased by another company . So maybe that'll change in time .

Jon 12:44

But we had to make a decision based completely on service . It wasn't about price of the equipment , it was about the ability to service . Because in our business , in our farm , when we are bailing that bailer cannot break down , we lose lots of money when that bailer is not running . If the mower breaks down , you know what we can bail . What we have mowed and we're a couple of days late getting our cutting Doesn't really impact the bottom line . As much Rake goes down , you've got other rakes . The baler can't afford to have multiples of those on an operation our size . So when that baler goes down we lose money . So we had to make a decision based on the service . It was not about paint color , it was not about mechanical capabilities , it was about service . So that's the reason we made that decision . So you know the guys quit , quit messing with me . They can quit messing with me about the change in bailers and that . But I'm excited about a lot of the technology that our new bailer comes with that our old bailer didn't have . But that's the reason we changed . So with that I'll jump in .

Jon 14:02

Here we are , if you listen to this podcast today , when it's released , tomorrow's election day . I encourage everybody go vote . Your vote counts . It's an important thing to do . If you're an American , we vote , so

Holiday Stress and Support for Farmers

Jon 14:21

go do that .

Jon 14:21

But we're coming up on the holidays and this is a stressful time for a lot of people and I just want to give everybody a thought to just relax about the holidays . Just let them happen , enjoy being with your friends and your family and , if you don't have family around , start some traditions of your own to just take stock and think about the things that are going well in your life and the things that are not . Make plans , get help if you need it , ask for help if you need it . I know it's challenging for a lot of people for different reasons Deaths in the family , finances , all of the things that are going on . I know grain prices are getting are really bad , and so you know to the farmers that are struggling , it's okay to ask for help . It really , really is . So with that I will leave you today . Hope you have a blessed day , good luck and God bless .