Can a custom hay feeder reduce hay waste and save you money?

Can a custom hay feeder reduce hay waste and save you money? How we save hay with custom hay feeders. How we feed hay to our sheep in the lambing barn may be very different than how others feed hay to their sheep in their lambing barns. Can't be wasting hay during winter with our custom hay feeders. Sheep eat hay during winter and our lambing barn is designed to feed our flock in winter during lambing season. Our hay feed system is designed to save hay, reduce waste, and ensure our flock is well fed. It is important to ensure we are as efficient as possible and don't waste hay which is why we ensure that we designed our custom hay feeders ourselves to meet our needs. See how we say hay with our round bale feeders that we built ourselves.
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Equipment used on our farm:
2017 Polaris Ranger 1000XP
2004 Chevy Silverado 3500
2002 Bobcat S250
2000 Tunitti 10 wheel V rake with kicker wheel
2000 M&W 1815 Rotary Hoe
1992 John Deere 1360 MoCo
1991 Bush Hog 2615 Batwing
1984 Allis Chalmers 8030 with Westendorf TA-46 Loader
1978 Gehl Bale 1500A Round Baler
1970's Kelly Ryan manure spreader (the politician)
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[@scrotiemcboogerballs1981]

God bless America 🇺🇸 thanks for sharing

[@FreedomFarmsMo]

Amen!

[@ladyryan902]

👍

[@richardgregory6455]

Great information

[@FreedomFarmsMo]

Thank you I'm glad you enjoyed it. If you haven't already you may be interested in some of the other videos on our channel, mostly based around starting/growing a first generation sheep farm, while working a full-time job.

[@jessealexander4329]

Those look like well built hay feeders. I'm sure they will save a lot of hay in their lifetime. The issues I have with cradle type feeders is that hydraulics are required to put the bales into them. This means you have to own a loader of some type with a bale spear and it has to be dependable. It would take the profit from a lot of lambs to buy a skidsteer like you have in the video. Several hundred ewes could probably handle that overhead but not a hundred or less. The other drawback of cradle feeders is that some of the most nutritious leaves fall to the ground. Also, wool sheep producers wouldn't want the chaff getting onto the sheeps back but this is a moot point with hair sheep. A more important point when feeding large hay packages is that you need to feed enough of them so that the animals have adequate space to eat. It isn't necessary that they all can eat at once but probably half of them need access to the hay at one time. To accomplish that, you are putting out several days of feed at once. This saves labor but results in a feast and famine situation due to sheep's ability to selectively eat the best of the hay first and leave the less palatable till later. The last couple or three days of hay available to the sheep will be much lower quality than what they got to eat the first few days. If feeding excellent quality hay, this doesn't cause much of a problem but when feeding just fair quality hay, it does.

[@FreedomFarmsMo]

Thanks, we have been using them for two years now. There is a video showing how we made them on our channel too. The loader issue I can see being a cost/value situation but remember we started with three ewes just 5 years ago. For someone who is mechanically inclined you can find equipment like ours in disrepair for pretty cheap. Then you are out some time and parts but gain a valuable piece of equipment that will make your life much easier. Plus like in our case we originally used our tractor for everything including feeding hay which make the cost/value factor of my tractor even less as it's worth was shared between multiple duties. We also eventually bought a little Allis tractor that was the predecessor to our skid steer. My point in that is don't just buy a tractor to feed hay to 100 sheep. If that is all you need it for you are going to have a high cost/value for that item. The cradles are not the best or perfect situation to prevent 100% of waste. Feed bunks and a tmr mixer would be. However that comes back to the cost/value situation. We originally used cattle panels and then designed this the winter after. When using cattle panels the waste was higher and we needed one 5x5 round bale to feed 2 ewes for 3 months. The hay cradles have reduced that waste and brought us down to using one 5x5 for 3 ewes for 3 months now. It's all about finding what works for your operation to say the least. On a brighter note, the waste gets put back on the hay field with the manure so at least it is adding nutrients back in the end.

[@jessealexander4329]

@@FreedomFarmsMo Over the last 40 years I have tried a lot of different hay feeders. They all have their pros and cons. I unroll round bales on pasture when the ground is dry, frozen, or snow covered. Our farm is on a side hill so this is easy. I walk down the unrolled hay and pitch 1/3 to the right, 1/3 to the left, and leave a 1/3. This spreads it out so there is less trampling and a thinner cover over the grass. When it is muddy, I have a large gravel dry lot with a 5' wide alley of feeder panels 100' long with a gate on each end. I unroll 4'x5' round bales down the alley by hand. Because the alley is 5' wide to allow for a little room to unroll the bale, sheep eating from both sides can't reach all the way to the center so I pitch the hay in the middle to the sides. By feeding one bale at a time I have a more constant plane of nutrition. I rotate my sheep through there and make my dry ewes clean up what replacement ewes lambs refuse. I stage several bales outside the pasture and dry lot gate and roll them in by hand so that I don't have to use my tractor every day (especially when it is below zero or in the single digits). One trick I learned is to never set the bale down on the flattened side it was stored on or it can be difficult to get rolling. Hay hooks help a lot. Also, I remove the net on the staged bales before it gets frozen or covered with ice or crusty snow. Roll them opposite the way they are wound and then turn them around to unroll the hay.

[@FreedomFarmsMo]

That is very similar to the method we originally used when we started. We unrolled a third of a bale a day for them at that time. Really helps build pastures up doing that too. A hill would make it a simple method. That's the beauty of research and development, try something and if you don't like it or think it could be better make some changes and analyze the data.

[@suewaart7575]

Awesome

[@FreedomFarmsMo]

Thank you!

[@terryburgettburgett965]

Hey sarge how are you doing

[@FreedomFarmsMo]

We are doing well Terry, winter is still here but still doing well😁

[@terryburgettburgett965]

@@FreedomFarmsMo think that I can handle the winter instead of the tornadoes we're. Getting

[@FreedomFarmsMo]

@@terryburgettburgett965 yeah I agree I'd rather have winter then tornadoes.

[@P3FARM]

How to get food there for sheep

[@FreedomFarmsMo]

We put hay in the feeders we made them

[@P3FARM]

@@FreedomFarmsMo Is there a food mixture for sheep to get fat quickly?

[@FreedomFarmsMo]

@@P3FARM we use a grain mix that the local feed mill nutritionist mixed specifically for our sheep to maintain them during pregnancy and nursing their lambs. I'm sure there is a mix that can be made to make them gain weight quickly though too

[@P3FARM]

@@FreedomFarmsMo Thank you friend for all the knowledge greetings from me small breeders in indonesia 🙏🏼🙏🏼🙏🏼

[@FreedomFarmsMo]

@@P3FARM you are very welcome. Glad we could help. That's a long ways away from us but it's cool to see we reach folks around the world