Hay is a cheap and valuable food for livestock. Adam Henson explains what it is and how its made <\/p>
Make hay while the sun shines. You don\u2019t need to be a farmer to know<\/strong> the famous saying about making<\/strong> the most of life\u2019s opportunities when you<\/strong> have the chance. <\/strong>It\u2019s a phrase that dates back to at least the 1540s, when it first appeared in a book of English proverbs: Whan the sunne shinth make hay<\/em> The rhyme might be medieval but it\u2019s as true today as it was 500 years ago. Our modern farmers, like their Tudor ancestors, still need good weather to make top quality hay<\/p> It is food. Hay is simply grass that\u2019s been dried, baled and stored for feeding to grazing animals \u2013 cattle, sheep, goats and horses. Hay is probably the cheapest, most efficient and environmentally-friendly way for most farmers to provide essential nutrients to their livestock. For cattle<\/a> in particular, hay fibre stimulates the production of butterfat and improves the quality of the milk. <\/p> Hay is not to be confused with straw, which is the dried stalks of cereal crops once the grain has been The hay growing season is spring and early summer so with the right combination of sun, rain and fertiliser the grass should be in tip-top condition. The conditions have to be just right \u2013 if the winter and spring are too dry the grass won\u2019t grow well. <\/p> If it\u2019s too wet in the summer, it can be impossible to cut. It needs at least a couple of days of dry, warm weather for mowing and drying in the sun. Hay that is cut when it\u2019s wet will be poor quality, unpalatable and livestock will probably turn their noses up at it.<\/p> First the grass is mown and left in the field. As it\u2019s drying in the sun a hay bob, pulled by a tractor, will rake over the hay to help speed up the process. When it\u2019s ready, a baler will compress the hay into manageable blocks tied with twine before the spikes on a front-loader lift the bales on to a trailer.<\/p> Just a few generations ago, farming was a community affair and hay making would see plenty of unskilled workers, even children, in the fields to lend a hand. Those were the days when haystacks could be seen all over the British Isles. Thanks to technology, it takes just a few people to do the same job today.<\/p> The larger the farm, the bigger the amount of hay produced, so the machinery used becomes more industrial. Round balers that produce cylindrical or \u2018rolled\u2019 bales are more popular than ever. Round bales are now as common a sight in the fields of Britain as the traditional haystack was 100 years ago.<\/p> Hay is a cheap and valuable food for livestock. Adam Henson explains what it is and how its made <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":31853,"template":"","categories":[1],"acf":{"readingTimeMinutes":"3"},"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/45\/2023\/11\/what-is-hay-and-how-is-it-made.jpg",2121,1414,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/45\/2023\/11\/what-is-hay-and-how-is-it-made-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/45\/2023\/11\/what-is-hay-and-how-is-it-made-300x200.jpg",300,200,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/45\/2023\/11\/what-is-hay-and-how-is-it-made-768x512.jpg",768,512,true],"large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/45\/2023\/11\/what-is-hay-and-how-is-it-made-1024x683.jpg",800,534,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/45\/2023\/11\/what-is-hay-and-how-is-it-made-1536x1024.jpg",1536,1024,true],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/45\/2023\/11\/what-is-hay-and-how-is-it-made-2048x1365.jpg",2048,1365,true]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"importmanagerhub@sprylab.com","author_link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbccountryfile\/author\/importmanagerhubsprylab-com\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"Hay is a cheap and valuable food for livestock. Adam Henson explains what it is and how its made","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbccountryfile\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed\/31852"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbccountryfile\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbccountryfile\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/rss_feed"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbccountryfile\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbccountryfile\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31853"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbccountryfile\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31852"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbccountryfile\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31852"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}What is hay?<\/h2>
What’s the difference between hay and straw?<\/h2>
How is hay made?<\/h2>
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