Welcome to Fern Valley

Here in central Alberta prime farm country,my husband Martin and I work together raising beef cattle and Appaloosa horses. Fern valley appaloosas have long been known for their quality of temperament conformation and color.I have recently rediscovered a love of writing and have published 2 collections of poetry. "Telling Tails" and Tails Trails and Campfire stories" . I look forward to a future spreading my wings as an author and as a horse woman .

Thursday 24 November 2011

Don't be a lazy forker !

(Gratuitous Johnnie shot)

Yep, you read it right,I said lazy forker!
What the heck am I talking about? Let me explain .
We have  mostly round bales here, I feed a few squares to Phoenix and the "kids " bot overall I use feeder and round bales. Early in the winter though ,before it gets too cold , and when the horses are in good condition I just fork feed to them off a round bale a couple times a day . They don't all need to be on free choice just yet .
When you fork off a round bale especially ours ,as they are a soft core type , you need to make sure you take the whole wrap top to bottom  each time . Otherwise it tends to ball up at the bottom , and eventually you wind up in trouble , grabbing a fork full of hay when the bottom 6 inches or so is all wound up , tends to yield ,well about enough to fill a cereal bowl. not a horses belly!
It takes a little longer each feeding to do it right and clean up , but in the long run it saves time .

Apparently when we had the cold snap ,I got to be a bit of a lazy forker and just grabbed  what I could and rushed off to the next chore. Then when Martin was home , he kinda did the same thing . So after a week of lazy forking ... You can imagine the mess right?
Well I started it , so today I finished it , spent about 45 min digging in and unravelling the mess, to feed Cactus , still a lot of cleanup to do , but I had a headache and it was getting dark so will finish tomorrow. So essentially I saved a few seconds a day in the cold weather to add nearly and hour of hard labour to today !
That math doesn't work for me !
The moral of the story??? well I think it is clear

Stay safe and warm everyone!

11 comments:

GoLightly said...

I'm afraid my sheltered english weenie arse never experienced rounds. I have a rough idea of what you're talking about, of course;) Most of my experience with hay was unloading it into the mow. Thank dog for hay bales I could lift:)

Thanks for the free Johnnie pic! Love lookin' through those ears!

GoLightly said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Crystal said...

I hear you, I hate it when it all gets stuck at the bottom, except usually for me its the coldest day of the year (or when I am in a hurry) that I need to get that all cleaned up.

Janice said...

Been there done that...now we use the big squares you can get into a world of mess with those too.Sometimes I can barely fork the stuff into the wheelbarrow.How do I go about getting a calender?How do I pay and how much are they.Love Johnnie's ears and the boys of January are a handsome bunch.

Shirley said...

Laborious but worth it. I sure like the large square bales that the farmers make here, it's what I feed now, three times a day. Coyote Belle is terrible for wrecking round bales, even in a feeder; I've never had such a mare for digging and flipping hay out of even a new bale. Bad Belle!

Reddunappy said...

LOL I have never fed a round bale. We do square bales around here.

sally said...

Oh boy I totally hear you ....Just a month ago I had a silage round bale. I did the same thing then suddenly it was impossible to get anything off it.Pays to get it right from the start for sure.
Normally I use small rectangle bales and go through about 120

Leah Fry said...

I was never a forker at all, which is why my horses were always fluffy and (prior to moving to the farm) would need to visit the fat farm periodically.

Ami said...

I can't comment. All I can do is think of jokes about forking.

As in, "Fern's up there in Canada just forking around."

Love the photo perspective.
:)

Nicole said...

isn't it nice how it sometimes comes back to bite you in the butt.... NOT! :(

Janice Grinyer said...

well i think the moral is - get a better pair of snowbibs so you can literally live outside when that cold snaps - i got a pair that would sweat the hair off of a Northern Wisconsin Norwegian bachelor farmer's legs...and thats before I leave the house...

:D