rachels.haven's Journal

[farmerjan]

Wow, so sorry you have gotten so much rain at this time of the year....
Are those japanese beetle grubs?

 

[rachels.haven]

 

[rachels.haven]

Wow, so sorry you have gotten so much rain at this time of the year....
Are those japanese beetle grubs?

Idk. I should look it up. They are Muscovy food now. It's ducks eat free day.

 

[rachels.haven]

Wow, so sorry you have gotten so much rain at this time of the year....
Are those japanese beetle grubs?

It looks like they may be, except these did not have the legs half way down their bodies, just the grabby front ones. Maybe a younger stage?

 

[SageHill]

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Happy chooks! Fresh grubs!

 

[SageHill]

Happy chooks! Fresh grubs!

I gave mine 2 pans of them - but I dug them out of the garden. No rain here. You got a ton of rain - we would’ve washed into the ocean with that much.
Hope everyone feels better soon.

 

[Baymule]

I’m sorry y’all are sick. Being sick and having farm chores is no fun. Being sick and doing farm chores in flooding rain is just a PITA.

 

[rachels.haven]

Thank you all. Personally I am not sick yet (don't know why other than just blessed, I've had a surplus of exposure). But with all the running around fussing over every one I may as well be at this point. We're getting by though, gosh darn it!
The weather plans on raining for two more days straight then letting us have a few more dry ones. Welcome to the TN rainy season. I actually think this is more normal, but the dry conditions we had this year were not. There is a rainy and dry season, but there should be more rain than there was this summer. I kind of hope we get enough. Everything is doing okay here.

The unregistered boar that is pending pickup and the only pig lower than him on the pecking order (the barrow). In some grass hay that came baled into our alfalfa hay that looks suspiciously like johnson that my hay lady assured me was orchard, lol. And the grass half is very dusty, so the pigs get it. I might be looking for another hay supplier over that one, but we'll see. Sometimes Johnsongrass is deadly toxic and you need to be mindful of that when feeding, and NOT assuming it's orchard grass.

 

[farmerjan]

Orchard grass is very grassy looking. Johnson grass is much wider blades... think more along the lines of immature corn leaves... more stalky.....it is very obvious in the orchard grass hay we make at one place... We have had to spray for it a couple of times as it is along one edge of the field along the road and it creeps into the field.... mostly we roll the outside 2 windrows (which is 4 mown rows since I rake 2 together) to feed to the cattle and then have more pure orchard grass to sq bale. It could be immature johnson grass ... not enough "closeup" in the picture for me to make an educated guess. Unless the johnson grass was severely drought stressed, it won't hurt the goats.... but again, I know you were somewhat dry this year so don't know.

 

[rachels.haven]

Orchard grass is very grassy looking. Johnson grass is much wider blades... think more along the lines of immature corn leaves... more stalky.....it is very obvious in the orchard grass hay we make at one place... We have had to spray for it a couple of times as it is along one edge of the field along the road and it creeps into the field.... mostly we roll the outside 2 windrows (which is 4 mown rows since I rake 2 together) to feed to the cattle and then have more pure orchard grass to sq bale. It could be immature johnson grass ... not enough "closeup" in the picture for me to make an educated guess. Unless the johnson grass was severely drought stressed, it won't hurt the goats.... but again, I know you were somewhat dry this year so don't know.

It's leafy with Johnsongrass seed heads. I wish it were orchard. I may not have minded it if it were baled at the right time and not a little moldy...but it's still only a small portion of the hay, so the jury is still out o if we'll go with them next year. They have a skid steer and can bring 300-600 bales at a time, which is around what we need so I've used these people twice now. It was also a terrible year for anything but Johnson and crabgrass so I may try one more year with them if no promising leads come up on their own.