[Jacob-list] AGM & Hay

[Susan J Martin]

It was great seeing some of you at the AGM - it's always fun to be able to associate faces with names, learn more about other flocks and interests, marketing options, etc.  After leaving the AGM we camped just outside of the Smoky Mts. National Park on the Cherokee Indian Reservation until this morning -- and had a great time hiking to waterfalls in the park, tubing on Deep Creek (which felt especially good as the temps. that day were around 100!), and enjoying the beauty of the mountains and the wildlife.

Regarding hay - we live in southeastern PA and we recently bought some beautiful 2nd cutting alfalfa in small bales (50 lbs.) for $200 a ton and that was not delivered - we went to the farm, loaded the hay onto our trailer, brought it home and off-loaded it into our barn.  This hay is nice and soft so we are having less waste -- some alfalfa we've gotten in the past has been stemmy and coarse resulting in more waste.  We prefer to buy hay directly from farmers, and to check its quality before actually purchasing it, although we have purchased hay at a local auction in the past - there is an Amishman @ the auction every week and all we have to do is call the auction and tell them what we want, they relay the message to the Amishman and he takes care of finding what we want and bidding on it......and he gets $3 for his services (he sets the fee & it may be higher now).  We always feed alfalfa because it is available.......we typically feed less grain or sweet feed.....and our sheep do waste some of the alfalfa.  We also have had a dry summer although in the last 2 wks. we have rec'd some rain and the meadows have greened up......normally we never feed in the hay in the summer mos., but the drought forced us to feed hay this summer.  I recently bought a bale of orchard grass to try on the sheep -- being extremely spoiled by the alfalfa, they didn't bother to give the grass hay even a simple sniff!! 

Sue Martin
Stonecroft

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