Equipment

Photovoltaic (PV) panels (commonly called solar panels) are an increasingly common sight on urban rooftops and rural properties across the U.S.

Ash is soil, rock and anything else you pick up as you turn your crops into feed. Soil and rock have no nutritional value for animals, so the more you can limit the amount of foreign material you sweep into your windrows, the higher-quality your forages will be and the better your animals will perform.

There are days when you walk out the door in the early morning hours, before the sun is a full circle in the sky, you smell the freshly cut hay, head for the baler and think, “Man, I love my job.”

After converting three small farms in his area to cattle operations, Doug Abney of Johnson County, Indiana, had run into two problems – time and water. 

As another season of forage production draws near, manufacturers of hay production and handling equipment roll out the latest in technology and design for efficiency and productivity.

Much like the transitions other ranchers and farmers have experienced over the past 50-plus years, our evolution with hay handling here in rural Idaho has been a transition from loose hay, to small square bales, to large round and square bales.