Getting The Job Wrapped Up

So far this year our silage making has been well timed and the sun and wind has helped dry out the cut grass nicely.  For the last two years I have been using a local contractor to come and do the baling and the wrapping.  Our old equipment means the whole team has to be turned out in order to get the job done.  Derek would be baling, a couple of people carting the bales back to the yard where they would be wrapped and then stacked.  Now with a little planning we can get Nigel to bale and wrap in one pass. 

He's actually using the same amount of fuel doing the two jobs at once than he was just doing the baling.  It helps our carbon footprint as farmers.  Tomorrow we will get the trailers out and carefully carry the bales back to the farm and stack them up.  We will treat them as eggs so that the plastic does not get ripped.  The plastic seals in the bale which turns anaerobic pickling the grass into silage or a slightly drier product more suited to sheep called hayledge.  The plastic will remain on the bales until they are used in the winter to feed the sheep.  Once removed the plastic is stored and then sent for re-cycling as part of our commitment to the environment as per the requirements for the LEAF Marque  Using two different colours of wrap the bales look like one of my favourite sweets, can you guess which ones?

Click HERE to the link of the baler/wrapper combo in operation, it really is an amazing bit of farm machinery

Yesterday evening (Wednesday) Gordon went off, with a good forecast for sunshine to mow one of the silage fields. The field is just south of Conderton and was planted last spring with perennial rye grass and red clover. The ley was grazed by sheep last summer and autumn before being rested over the winter ready to be cut for silage this spring. the red clover in the sward (mix of forage types) will provide good protein for the ewes prior to lambing next March. The rows of grass are being thrown around today to get the maximum wilt (to reduce the moisture), before being baled up in round bales tomorrow afternoon. The British summer can play havoc with silage making and even more so with hay making (as you need about 5 days good weather at least) so fingers crossed it stays dry for the time being. (Although the rest of the farm desperately needs about 50mm of gentle rain sshhhhh)