Glenrock Hay - News

Welcome Back to Deliveries for 2015

8/1/2015

A quick note to wish you all a very Happy New Year.

After a couple of weeks break from deliveries over Christmas and New Year, we will be back delivering hay next week. We have managed to stack some hay away in the shed while we were having our break, but the weather has made the drying of hay very difficult. We cut some horse pasture blend and the millet & cow peas on New Year’s Eve – and this hay is still be being raked. The cloudy and humid days are making drying hay very challenging. Joys of farming I guess.

Looking forward to a happy and prosperous 2015.

christmas break

13/11/2014

Well the year is drawing to a close very quickly and November is almost half over. Christmas will be upon us before we know it .

Oaten hay - in squares and rounds

6/10/2014

Our second paddock of oaten hay was baled late last week. This time, as well as small square bales to be used for chaffing and for sale as hay, we also did some 4 x 4 round bales.

These are mainly for our own use with our cattle at Glenrock, as well as a few for sale for those customers who prefer round bales. As the oats was so lush and tall, this paddock has yielded extremely well with just over 100 round bales and a touch over 800 small square bales from the one paddock.

Cutting the oats

11/9/2014

Our first paddock of oats was cut on Monday. It has been a great growing season and the oats are almost up to chest height and extremely lush. This caused a few problems for our neighbour (who does our mowing and baling) as the oats choked up the mower and twisted a shaft connecting the mower to the tractor, requiring a quick welding repair during cutting. Below are some photos of the oats being cut and a short video that Chris (our baler) took from the cab of the tractor. Our fingers and toes are all crossed for continuing fine weather :)

RCs NEwsletter - April 2014

3/4/2014

It's crunch time for grass!
Believe it or not, April is here. The first quarter of 2014 is history. This means that for many producers their 'critical date' is nearly here.

rain... glorious rain

31/3/2014

The rain over the last week was about as close to perfect as you can get for us - 82.5mm at home (Glenrock) and just under 100mm at Mondure where we grow your hay. Nice steady rain that fell over a few days. The lucerne paddocks and horse pasture blend in one paddock are now looking fantastic - but it will be several days before we can get on the paddocks to start cutting, and longer if more rain falls. One of the horse pasture blend paddocks really needed to be cut last week, so the lucerne in it is looking a little old, but the grasses are powering ahead. The drought is by no means broken, but this rain has certainly lifted everyone's spirits. We hope that is wasn't too much for those of you on the coast - certainly the falls we have heard were much larger than ours, but we DEFINITELY didn't want that much rain :)

the current hay situation

5/3/2014

In the last week, locally, any excess hay supply has dried up and the on-farm price has jumped massively. We are trying to limit price rises as much as possible, but have had to put our prices up. We have begun turning most new requests away to look after our existing customers. Depending on when produce stores last got their stock in, they may actually be cheaper at the moment, but it’s unlikely to stay that way. We know of hay growers that are getting more on-farm for a bale than we are delivering it to you for. On the good side, unlike last year, we are still producing hay J and lucerne should continue to be available through into winter. Our horse pasture blend should also get more productive as the cooler weather arrives as it is predominately cool season species. The current hay shortage is entirely due to the drought and good, widespread rain may turn the situation around quite quickly.

Busy week for glenrock hay

10/2/2014

A busy week is in front of us with summer grass hay ready to be baled tonight, lucerne that will be ready tomorrow night and we have cut more horse pasture blend today - so baling later in the week, as well as two deliveries. The dry weather is both a blessing and a curse - great for getting hay dry and in the shed, but demand is well over what is normal for this time of year.

Busy time baling

17/1/2014

After some busy nights (with one more ahead of us) we now have in stock some grassy lucerne, more horse pasture blend and more of the summer grass hay. Great hays to be feeding when there is not a lot of grass growing in your paddocks.

Summer grass hay

5/1/2014

After an early start to the day (2:30am) the first of our summer grass hay is in the shed. This is mainly urochloa and barnyard millet - great for those with not much feed in the paddocks. More lucerne hay was also baled. Now it can rain!