Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Jon (00:00):
Welcome to Just Say hey.
The podcast podcast where I talkabout the things that matter to
small farms.
You know why?
Because we are a small farm, ifyou know us.
We we run about an 850 acrecommercial forage farm, which is
a lot.
I mean, when we started we weresuper small.
I mean we had like 20 acres andit was all we could do to get
that bailed.
And so you know, we've grown alittle bit and just want to
share some of the insights wehave from that in this podcast.
(00:22):
But here's what I want to talkabout today.
I got asked by a customer theother day how much hay do they
need to get through the winter?
And you know, for me I've beendoing this long enough now that
it's kind of second nature.
I kind of just do the math andmove on.
But I want to talk a little bitabout how to do that math and
how to figure out how much youneed, talk a little bit about
(00:42):
when it's time to diversify youroperation.
When you start a farm, you'retrying to figure out how to make
money with it and sometimes youneed to focus all of your
energy on doing one thing really, really well, but then again,
you also need to figure out howdo you stabilize that income and
sometimes we need to diversifya little bit.
I'm going to talk a little bitabout why we changed balers I
(01:04):
get a lot of flack from somebuddies of mine why we changed
from a red to a green baler, andthen a little bit about
maintaining our sanity in themonths coming up.
So let's get into it.
Welcome to Just Say hey, thepodcast where we talk about what
matters to small farms, whetherit's business, marketing,
agronomy, equipment, livestockhealth.
If it matters to small farms,we'll probably talk about it
here.
So let's get into it.
(01:25):
So the other day I had acustomer come up to me super
good guy, and they're justgetting into livestock and they
didn't know how much hay theyneeded to get through the winter
.
And again, you know, if you'vebeen doing this a while, you
sort of know what your hay needsare and you get that taken care
of and you move on.
I sort of have my strategy forhow much hay I want to have for
(01:47):
my horses and then for my cattle.
I plan a year and a half'sworth of hay by the time we get
to this time of year.
I want to have a year and ahalf's worth of hay in my barn
for my horses.
The reason for that is, if wego into next year and there's a
horrible drought, I have sixmonths to figure out where I'm
(02:10):
going to get hay.
You know, if you, if we're in abad drought, hay producers will
.
We won't have anything, and ifwe do, the price goes up because
it's about you know you have avery, very limited supply, so
the price generally goes upbecause it's about you know you
have a very, very limited supply, so the price generally goes up
quite a bit.
We had this happen before we gotinto farming our own hay.
Had this happened, I want tosay it was 2012,.
(02:34):
2007, 2012.
We weren't farming our own hay,we were just buying hay for our
horses and we were running outof hay and we had a drought, and
so it was a real juggle to getenough hay to get us through.
So my plan is a year and a half.
But how do you figure out whatthat year is and how much hay
you need?
They call it an AU and thewhole process was thinking about
(03:21):
grazing management, how tofigure out how many animals your
land can support.
But we can use that samecalculation to figure out how
much hay we need to have on hand.
And the formula is reallyreally simple and I got to doing
the math today and I think Ifigured out that it's even
simpler than I thought.
So an animal unit is consideredto be a thousand pound.
Mama cow, with or without acalf by her side, and that's an
animal unit.
And there's I think it was ananimal mass unit and then it got
abbreviated to just an animalunit and then they have animal
(03:44):
unit month.
So how much grazing land do youneed to support that one animal
unit for a month?
Well, the easy math for it islet's see if I can do this the
right way.
Their math says you need 780pounds of hay, assuming that
(04:05):
this animal is going to eat oneto two percent of its body
weight per day in hay Probablyneeds a little bit more if
you're doing in grain supplement.
But you know, just for roundmath I like to overestimate and
say this animal is going to eator 780 pounds a day, 780 pounds
a month.
I think it's like 26 pounds aday.
(04:28):
I like to think that that animalis going to need a thousand
pounds and the reason for thatis in almost every operation
that I see mine included we havewaste Hay that gets trampled,
hay that gets pulled out of thefeeder, and then trampled hay
that gets left in the feeder.
They can't reach it, orwhatever the situation is.
So I like to figure a thousandpounds of hay per animal unit
(04:52):
per month.
Well, that's pretty simple.
If you have four goats, a cowand a horse, we can add up what
the weights are.
We're going to say your horseis 1,200 pounds, your cow's
1,000 pounds.
That's 2,200 pounds.
You got four goats at 200pounds each.
That's 800 pounds.
(05:12):
So you're 3,000 pounds.
That's how much hay you'regoing to need for the month.
3,000 pounds of hay, and thatgives you a little bit extra for
waste.
So it's kind of an easyequation to do.
It's a equation you add up howmany pounds of animal you got
and then you multiply that byhow many months you're going to
be feeding.
Now everybody's feed ration andeverybody's feeding strategy is
(05:37):
a little bit different.
I mean, for our horses, forexample, we do stall feeding, so
they get fed high quality hayevery day, twice a day, but they
also have a lower quality haythat's usually put out in a
feeder that they can snack onduring the day.
They're not starving for it,but if they want some grain,
(05:57):
it's just.
If they want some hay, there'sjust a free choice hay out there
.
So that is sort of the way ourstrategy goes.
So we probably put a you knowthousand pounds for six horses.
We'll put a thousand pounds ofhay out a month just for them to
snack on, sometimes a littlemore than that, but then they
get a full ration of hay intheir stalls morning and night.
(06:19):
Now, with our cattle, we freechoice feed our cattle hay and
we have a specially designedfeeder.
If you want to see that, checkit out on our YouTube channel.
Kind of cool.
We based it on a University ofKentucky design out of Eden
Shale, kind of cool.
But again, still, the mathstill adds up the same.
So you know, add your animalsup, how much do they all weigh.
(06:41):
That's how many pounds of hayyou're going to need per month.
And this is again a good, justa rule of thumb way to do it.
So you know, I thought thatmight help some people.
It's surprising how many timesI've gotten asked that question
over the years.
The other thing we were talkingabout I mentioned it in the
beginning is diversification.
You know small farms.
(07:01):
You start out with a productyou're going to grow or you're
trying to grow you're trying tosupplement your food.
I'm really talking about thepeople who are doing this, who
farming, trying to farm for aliving, trying to make this your
full-time gig and looking atdiversifying.
And we started out when westarted farming.
(07:23):
We started our idea was goingto be was cattle.
We were going to raise cattle.
Cattle market was good.
When we started I was stillworking a full-time job, so it
was a little difficult.
But as we moved on we sort ofpivoted our farm to a commercial
forage farm.
That was the land that wasavailable.
We had some equipment.
It just made a lot of sense forus.
(07:45):
Now we still run a smallcow-calf operation.
In fact I'll be taking calvesoff in the morning, taking them
off for sale.
But we still run a smallcow-calf operation.
Again gives us a little bit ofa buffer, gives some extra
income to the farm and itdoesn't take a whole lot of work
(08:05):
.
So you know, during calvingseason there's a lot of work and
a couple of days real hard workduring weaning, when we're
doing the weanings and we'revaccinating and that, but after
that it's not too bad and weenjoy it.
I enjoy being around the cowsand got a good partner over here
in Daly who helps me work it.
So that was how we decided todiversify.
(08:28):
So when you're looking atdiversifying, when you're
looking at should you dosomething else with the farm,
you have to make the decision.
How much time do you have toapply to it?
Because coming up with greatideas is pretty easy, but then
you have to.
Are you willing to put in thatwork to be successful at it?
If it's a side hustle, and isit, does it detract from your
(08:52):
primary goal?
And let's say you're raising,you know, let's say you're
raising food to supplement yourgrocery, so you have fresh
vegetables and you're canningand you're doing things like
that, and then you have thisside hustle.
Does that take away from yourprimary focus and determining
what's important?
And I'm a big fan about money,about equipment, about anything
(09:19):
like that Looking at the thingsthat you have that are valuable,
and that may be knowledge, itmay be equipment, it might be
people you know it might bewhatever it is and looking at
(09:42):
your limitations.
For me, like with most people,it's you know my limitations are
time and money.
So you know where those are mybiggest limiting factors.
At the end of the day, I'm done.
I've already put in a 12 or 14hour day, and so when I come up
with an idea that I think mightbe interesting to pursue, I have
(10:06):
to sit down and really think isthis going to take away from my
primary focus?
If it is, is it going to befinancially worth it or
emotionally, spiritually worthit to do and then make that
decision.
So you know, I was talking to aguy the other day I got asked
about, you know, when should youdiversify?
(10:29):
And that's a difficult question.
You have to look at all thevariables because everybody's
operation is different andeverybody's time, input and
money, input and output, all ofthose things are different.
But that's sort of how I wouldthink about going about the
decision of how do you diversifya farm.
You know farming is prettydifficult.
So you've got to really be sure, if you want to give your
operation the best chance forsuccess, that you have the
(10:51):
resources to put toward whateveryou're planning to do to
diversify, and that's time,money, equipment, space, real
estate, whatever it is.
So to answer the next question.
That was kind of.
I've taken a lot of flack forthis because we switched from a
(11:13):
Heston baler to a John Deerebaler and a lot of guys that I
know just think that was a wrongdecision to do.
And you know and I'm not redand green man this battle has
been going on for ages, but thedecision wasn't about the
manufacturer and this issomething that I found.
(11:35):
This.
I think this is important foreverybody.
When, if you're trying to farmand do it seriously, for you
know a living it's important, orif you're planning to do that,
that building a relationshipwith your dealer is important,
and when you get, when you havea relationship that works, no
(11:59):
relationship's perfect.
Had you know I've had problems,minor problems with it.
You know you have minorproblems no big deal, they
happen but when you have majorproblems, then it becomes an
issue.
And my opinion people would askwhat kind of truck do you drive?
Well, I drive the truck that Ican get service on.
What kind of tractor do youdrive?
(12:20):
You know I drive tractors thatfit my needs and tractors I can
get service on, and we made thedecision to switch.
We had I've talked about itbefore, I don't want to get into
it.
We've had a really badrelationship with one of our
local dealers and they just gotpurchased by another company.
(12:41):
So maybe that'll change in time.
But we had to make a decisionbased completely on service.
It wasn't about price of theequipment, it was about the
ability to service.
Because in our business, in ourfarm, when we are bailing that
(13:03):
bailer cannot break down, welose lots of money when that
bailer is not running.
If the mower breaks down, youknow what we can bail.
What we have mowed and we're acouple of days late getting our
cutting Doesn't really impactthe bottom line.
As much Rake goes down, you'vegot other rakes.
The baler can't afford to havemultiples of those on an
(13:25):
operation our size.
So when that baler goes down welose money.
So we had to make a decisionbased on the service.
It was not about paint color,it was not about mechanical
capabilities, it was aboutservice.
So that's the reason we madethat decision.
So you know the guys quit, quitmessing with me.
(13:48):
They can quit messing with meabout the change in bailers and
that.
But I'm excited about a lot ofthe technology that our new
bailer comes with that our oldbailer didn't have.
But that's the reason wechanged.
So with that I'll jump in.
Here we are, if you listen tothis podcast today, when it's
released, tomorrow's electionday.
(14:09):
I encourage everybody go vote.
Your vote counts.
It's an important thing to do.
If you're an American, we vote,so go do that.
But we're coming up on theholidays and this is a stressful
time for a lot of people and Ijust want to give everybody a
(14:32):
thought to just relax about theholidays.
Just let them happen, enjoybeing with your friends and your
family and, if you don't havefamily around, start some
traditions of your own to justtake stock and think about the
things that are going well inyour life and the things that
are not.
(14:52):
Make plans, get help if youneed it, ask for help if you
need it.
I know it's challenging for alot of people for different
reasons Deaths in the family,finances, all of the things that
are going on.
I know grain prices are gettingare really bad, and so you know
(15:14):
to the farmers that arestruggling, it's okay to ask for
help.
It really, really is.
So with that I will leave youtoday.
Hope you have a blessed day,good luck and God bless.