Replying to Avatar rev.hodl

Harvesting lambs to reduce hay consumption, so the hay delivery is the last before spring.

After these two lambs, there are still four left to process. Even with savings on processing fees by butchering the lambs here at the homestead. The lambs still have feed costs until they are harvested. The sooner we harvest the less hay we will need until spring. This hay delivery should be the last before the pasture greens back up as long as waste can be reduced.

Trying to reduce hay waste without having to feed a daily hay ration is challenging. We found that wrapping a cattle panel around the large bales of hay drastically reduced waste. However, the cattle panel technique is still wasting too much, so to take things a step further, the bales are placed inside a large hay net in addition to the cattle panel.

#permaculture #permies #homesteading #meshtadel #producenowaste #lamb #meat #hay

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AC 10mo ago

Looks like some good lambs!

A few thoughts for you to consider:

Hay is never wasted. You're feeding your soil for better grass growth with what is trampled or left behind. It's probably cheaper and better than organic fertilizer options. We probably lose up to 25% of round bales to pasture fertilization by bale grazing our cows. I happily pay that for future soil production, which equals more grazing days later.

Holding lambs until June harvest will always pay off to your advantage. The extra hay cost gets returned about 3-4x the last time I did my math on it. You'll also have extra head to help consume the extra spring growth. The heavier carcass weights at 12-14 months is also desired among many customers we found. And meat quality is always highest when animals are on good quality grass, gaining weight.

Net wrapped bales if you can find them, stored on pallets or logs. I can imagine managing those tarps is no fun.

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