Welcome. . . to Jurassic Park

The film Jurassic Park has a great, yet disturbing, scene where the velociraptors have an ox lowered into their paddock, consuming him in short order.  It's great filmmaking, showing just enough of the action, while leaving out some visual details, in order to set the viewers' minds to work.

I really know jack about feeding raptors, but with three one-ton-plus oxen, the feeding time parallels aren't lost on me.  Last year was a hard year for haymaking.  A few back-of-the-envelope calculations drive home the point:

2000 lb oxen times 3. . . 200 days of hay feeding in a typical year. . . 3.49 total acres on the Collins "farm" (I insist upon the quotes when people ask if I have a farm.). . . 2% to 2.5% of body weight in hay per animal, per day. . .  only 1.5 acres in alfalfa and grass. . . 2 sets of hot wires to graze animals outside of the actual pasture sometimes in the summer. . . 3 animals which insist on being fed every day. . . uh, oh.  

When February first rolls around and you've already bought hay a few times, it's going to be a long winter.  As they say, "half your hay, you should still have on Candlemas Day. . ."  

This year, I've been buying square bales.  Big ones.  

A high school classmate of mine lives around the corner on a road named for his family.  This should tell you all you need to know about how long they milked registered Jerseys on the family farm.  Two years ago, though, he sold the cows and became a straight-ahead crop farmer.  ("I miss the cows," he told me, "I don't miss milking.") He still makes hay to sell, though.  In 1000 lb. square bales.  

With a quick phone call or text, he brings 2, or 4, at a time, unloads them with his skid-steer, and slides them into the barn.  The bales peel off in 15 lb. flakes and I can feed the raptors.  Making hay this way is easy and my back doesn't hurt a bit.

Forks off and he pushes the bales in.

My right hip, however, is pained greatly by the experience.  Right about where the gluteus maximus attaches to the walletus emptius. 

92 more days until grazing.  I can do this.  How's your hay situation?