2nd Crop Hay/Checking the moisture

     This week we have been busy putting up our second crop hay.  Normally we would try and cut 28-30 days after we cut first crop.  However this time we gave it a few extra days because of our late start this year we are only going to get 3 cuttings and I'm hoping to cut the final time around September 1st. 
     I explained in an earlier post during first crop how we bale our hay when it is still wet and make balage.  Because the moisture can be quite different we need to test the moisture to see how much dry matter we have so we can plan inventories accordingly and also determine yields.  Ultimately we are interested in how much dry matter we have to feed the cows.  For example a bale might weight 1,800lbs but if the moisture is 40% or 60% the dry matter could be anywhere from 720lbs to 1,080lbs per bale.  If we feed the cows 21 lbs of hay dry matter per day a bale could be enough for anywhere between 34 cows or 51 cows.
      What we have found to be the most accurate is if we sample the hay when weighing the trucks.  In order to sample the bales we use a drill with a probe attached and pull a sample from about 20% of the bales.  We then mix the sample up and weigh out 50 grams.  Next we put the sample in the microwave with a glass of water and "cook" the moisture out of the hay.  This can take anywhere from 6] to 12 minutes depending on the moisture of the hay.  On Friday I showed Tanner how to do this and he is now able to check the samples and figure the moisture.  The math was the easy part for him.  He learned about how the bales have different moistures.

                                                                Weighing the truck

                                                                   Probing the bale

                                                  Tanner weighing out 50 grams of wet hay

                                           Putting the hay and glass of water in microwave

Tanner checking the "dry" hay.  He had 52 grams minus the container 23 grams.  29 grams of dry matter.  29/50=58% Dry Matter 100-58= 42% moisture.  The bales weighed 1757 lbs so each bale contained 1019 lbs of dry matter.

                                         

                                            Additional Pictures From 2nd Crop this Week