How much straw, when to buy winter hay?

[bocephus]

How much straw should I buy at a time? Currently have 6 sheep and 24 chickens that bed on it.

When should I buy my winter hay supply for the sheep? I'm in SE Michigan. Everyone is cutting right now, I'm guessing this is 2nd cut but might even be 1st for some due to the lack of rain. I like to think it's going to start raining and there will be one more cut before winter. I also assume that the demand goes up for that last cut especially since everyone is probably going to lose their corn crops they grow for their cows.

Any rules for muck pile placement? Wondering if there's anything it shouldn't be kept near, distance from barn, that kind of thing.

 

[SheepGirl]

Currently my sheep are under my deck and it's just dirt. But at my neighbor's farm where they used to live, there are two three-sided barns that have dirt floors and then the sheep had access to two pens inside the four-sided barn and it was bedded with straw. In the winter, my sheep preferred to stay on the dirt floor. Usually their wool was enough to keep them warm in the winter. So if you feel better getting them straw for bedding, go ahead, but I wouldn't bother with buying it.

As for hay, we only fed hay when there was snow on the ground...but even then the sheep were still out grazing.

However if your sheep are going to be in a drylot and they don't have access to pasture, then I would buy enough hay for 2% of their body weight each day plus 10% waste. (A 100 lb ewe will need 2 lbs of hay per day, but in reality you would need to set out 2.2 lbs of hay to offset waste.) Buy it whenever you can and keep it stored inside a barn or other shelter to help hold its nutritional value (green hay is better than yellowing hay).

As for muck...the neighbor's barn was never cleaned out. I take that back...I saw it cleaned out thoroughly once in the six years I had my sheep there. But it was never dirty enough to cause any diseases or odors. And that's with having a ewe flock numbering 15-40 plus with their 20-70 lambs per year (except for the last two years when there have been 9 or less sheep). However, what I would do if I were you is I would put it in your compost pile, if you have one. But if you don't have a compost pile, I would build one at least 50 feet from your house or the barn. Personally, I haven't cleaned out my sheep's pen (they've been here for about a month already) yet and it really isn't dirty at all. They seem to pound the poop into the ground with their hooves which seems to help it decompose faster, leaving me with little to no work in regards to cleaning it. The only thing I've done to their pen is rake all the straw/hay up and put it on the mud near their water bucket.

 

[bocephus]

Yeah I've seen all the formulas on how much hay you'll need. How long does it stay good for? I would be putting it in my barn loft.

 

[SheepGirl]

It can last a long time as long as there's no rain, mold, and no (or little) sun exposure. I'm sure it will be fine for at least a year, granted it will naturally lose some of its nutrients.

 

[Bossroo]

Yeah I've seen all the formulas on how much hay you'll need. How long does it stay good for? I would be putting it in my barn loft.

Storing hay in a loft may not be the best of ideas ... think spontanious cumbustion. to minimise it, I would store well cured hay bales and leave about 2 inches of air space between the bales for air circulation to disipate any heat from accumulating.

 

[goodhors]

Hot as it is here in MI, most hay done now, is going to be REALLY dry.

bocephus, I would buy my hay now. Sheep do well on the first cutting, mixed
or grass. Mine preferred first over the later cuttings and you don't feel QUITE
so bad if they waste any.

Quantity to buy will depend greatly on how much nutrition is in that hay. I am
lower Mid-Michigan and anything cut right now would be almost nutritionless. If
they cut and baled in June or May, it is probably fairly nutritions. We are pretty burnt here,
with only a tiny bit of rain every 10 days or so. Nothing growing, and if hay wasn't
cut lots earlier, it is actually straw, because there is no green.

You don't say how many sheep you have to buy for, if the ewes will be expecting lambs,
and if you plan to grain them at all.

Your time frame of feeding, no pasture, will be from late Sept to May. Yep, USUALLY there
is grass after Sept, and often Spring starts in March. But you need to have ENOUGH hay
on hand to feed that long, in case Mother Nature decides to throw a fit in Fall on thru winter.

Grazing early this year was quite iffy between the frosts which continued until mid-May here.
We were still feeding hay then. I didn't want the animals out tearing up the rain soaked ground
and destroying the plant roots. So they got little pasture time, and grass wasn't growing in the cold.

But with the wacky weather, I would buy hay now, get a goodly amount. You can ALWAYS feed it
later if you don't use it up over winter. Does loose a few nutrients, but not go to nothing if stored in
a dark loft.

Do clean the loft well before putting hay up there. Sounds silly, but wear a dust mask
and eye goggles to keep the swirling dirt out of yourself. Some of that dust has nasty stuff if the loft has not
been cleaned in a long time. Mouse dropping turned to dust, raccoon and opussum nasties if the
barn has been unused or any openings they can get in with. Clean off any lightbulbs with water,
remove all the dust. Accumulated dust on heated bulb can be a cause for spontaneous combustion!
Sets the dirt on fire!! I sweep floors and walls with a broom, get the cobwebs down, chunky dirt
into a bucket to haul away. A shop Vac with extra tubes helps for sweeping the walls. I then vacuum
the floor to get other dirt up. Lastly I take earplugs and still wearing my face protection from dirt,
I use the leaf blower to get the rest off the floor and walls. Of course all animals are outside so they
are not breathing dirt. A fan to the outside might help blow the dirt out a bit quicker, instead of leaving
it hanging in the air.

I do our whole barn like this once a year. That shop Vac is SUPERB for getting stuff removed from walls and
beams. And while the blower sounds silly, it gets dirt moved that you just can't reach otherwise. My blower
is electric, not gas powered. Cord is a bit of a pain, but machine is light, easy to use, with a lot of power
in the blower itself to move stuff. Easy on, easy off, no pulling to start the motor.

Barns are always a bit dusty, but you don't have to live with the dirt of years that will acumulate, mouse or
other varmint droppings laying around.

If you are using a loft, maybe you can borrow a short elevator to get the hay up there. Sure beats throwing
bales up!! I like lofts. If you are buying made hay out of a storage barn, should be real dry so you don't need
the loose spacing mentioned. That gets dangerous if you have to climb on hay pile to get bales down. Good
lofts will have air circulating anyway, which keeps drying the hay for you. All that swirly dirt should show you
air movement in the barn, to know how it moves for the hay storage. I envy your nice barn with a big loft.

 

[bocephus]

For now my wife has been hooking the bales onto a tow strap and I pull them up, not really a bad method. It actually takes longer for her to hook it then for me to pull it up. I want to put some sort of pulley system in there, I will probably start another post with some pics to get some help one what type of system I can use.

Thanks for the cleaning tips, I should really clean it out up there. There was actually some sort of poop up there. Really weird because it was dog sized but there's only a ladder to get up there. We just moved here a few months ago. Based on the size of the poop and what type of animals could climb up there it almost seems like a human would have had to put it there which makes no sense at all.

 

[ruthless]

sounds like your loft visitor is a raccoon or group of raccoons. they like a nice dark building to relieve themselves in for some reason. probably marking their territory. anyway it is dog sized

 

[CochinBrahmaLover=)]

For now my wife has been hooking the bales onto a tow strap and I pull them up, not really a bad method. It actually takes longer for her to hook it then for me to pull it up. I want to put some sort of pulley system in there, I will probably start another post with some pics to get some help one what type of system I can use.

Thanks for the cleaning tips, I should really clean it out up there. There was actually some sort of poop up there. Really weird because it was dog sized but there's only a ladder to get up there. We just moved here a few months ago. Based on the size of the poop and what type of animals could climb up there it almost seems like a human would have had to put it there which makes no sense at all.

If its not raccoons, COULD be a dog. Depends how the ladder is, but our dog can climb a ladder, shes pretty good at it. Just saying

 

[goodhors]

I would also bet it is Raccoon poop. They can climb and get into things that look impossible. You may want to set some
livetraps to dispose of them. I would NOT suggest dumping them elsewhere, because they WILL return to the barn
and you will have more trouble catching them a second time. Needs to be a permanent disposal once you trap them.
They are NOT friendly to meet when you feed or surprise them, could cause problems with lambs later if attracted to
blood. They will kill your cats to eat the food. My barn cats eat what they can consume while I do chores AM and PM.
Then food is put away in LOCKED METAL trash cans to prevent coons getting into that food. We don't leave cat food
out so the varmints are not attracted to come or stay, in my barn. We just did 6 coons in, they arrived suddenly and
TRASHED the feed room, trying to get into cat food. One by one, they got trapped and disposed of. Locally, they can
carry rabies and I SURE don't want to meet one in the dark!!

Without knowing how many sheep you have now, will have by spring, it is hard to say how much straw you need for bedding
over that time. Driving around now, I am seeing a number of the big square bales out. Those might be an idea for
you. Big bales seem to go for less than the small squares, but do have handling issues with size and bulk of the big bale.
Heck you might only need 2 bales for the whole winter if you got big ones! Ha Ha.

Straw that is older, not shiny, is a better buy for bedding. Even last year straw. Nope, not as pretty, but LOTS more absorbent as a bedding
material. The shine makes the straw shed water. You mostly get absorbtion from straw ends anyway, so the really
nice looking wheat straw, often makes the worst kind of bedding for keeping the animals dry without making it a foot
deep to start. Can take a few days of tromping on to break down the straw and get it absorbing anything.

Do you plan to clean the stalls or pens over winter? Some folks just keep adding new bedding over the old, to keep animals
dry. If this is your chosen method, you may want to make stall or pen walls taller, to keep animals inside when they stand
on that deep bedding! Other folks like me, clean the stalls or pens on a regular daily or weekly basis, so the job is less difficult,
faster to get totally done when we clean. Having machinery to scrape out a big pen can make a whole winter's work of bedding
a no-work event! Same pen is HUGE when you face it with a pitchfork and wheelbarrow!! Do remember that RENTING equipment
is possible, and they can save your body, time in getting jobs accomplished. We sometimes rent a machine and do a bunch
of jobs while it is there. Our rental place charges by the working hour, not the day. They deliver the machine and pick it up.
Amazing what a skid steer can do in a few hours!

How you manage your pens and stalls, can make you use more or less in straw bedding quantity over the season. I did some
chopped straw for a while, which was WONDERFUL bedding. However the chopping really reduced the bulk, so a small square
bale looked like almost nothing when I was done. Chopped straw did soak up EVERY DROP of moisture with the short pieces,
so I was only picking up wet spots, no wet floors for babies to lay in like long straw can have. I used my leaf shredder to chop
straw, but it is noisy, dusty enough to need a scarf or paper mask while doing it. I loved the chopped straw, didn't like adding
the chopping time on my small scale, with needing more every few days to have supplies for our daily stall cleaning.