Hay Barn

We finished the hay barn last week. I didn't really work on it. All the men worked on it.

The hay barn is wonderful! It fits hay bales exactly so there isn't much extra room on the sides. The wood was all used at standard sizes so there wasn't much cutting involved. It has overlapping sides so there will be airflow, but not much snow or rain can settle on the hay itself. Air around the hay means we won't have as much spoiled hay.

The grandkids love to play on the farm.
It seems there is always something to climb on or explore.
This is the hay barn with the walls up, but no roof on.

Of course, someone has to climb on the stack of building wood!

And if you're going to play on the stack of wood for the hay shed, you might as well pretend it's a trampoline!

Despite the bad air from all the forest fires a few weeks ago,
everyone spent time building, putting the roof trusses on, and finally the metal roof.

We got a load of 71 bales of hay on Monday.
See how nicely the hay fits side to side?
Each level of hay has 14 bales.

The front gates are each 8' wide, which lets us load or move hay with the tractor if we want to.

We have gates so the animals can't get in and make a mess of the hay.

We'll be getting 250 bales of hay this year which should last us until next June.

How do we figure out how much hay we need? Math!

In the winter when there is no pasture for the animals, they eat about 1 bale of hay a day. 8 months x 31 days = 248 bales. We'll start feeding 1 bale a day about mid-October so 250 bales should last us until mid-June when the first crop of new hay will be ready to buy.

In the summer the animals eat about 1 bale every 2-3 days because they have pasture grass to eat. We usually buy the new hay in June and feed them a little bit of hay as a treat.

Corn is another treat they love!
Our neighbor had some old food storage corn that he brought over for
all the animals to enjoy!

We're so blessed to have friends and neighbors that think of us before they send their old food to the dump. The chickens love the wheat, the goats and cow love the corn and, dried fruits and vegetables.

I am surrounded by people who believe that they can do something nice for someone else every day!

I hope you have a great week and find something nice to do every day!