Great article that shines a light on every aspect of making your own hay for your poultry.
Great article on using hay and very nice to reuse what a garden or land has to offer.
Hay is my favorite bedding for nest-boxes. Chicken comfort to lay an egg. ? The chickens like to eat some of it when they take their time to lay an egg or hormones make them broody.
I have only 100m2 of lawn to gather grass for hay. But this is enough to make a few boxes ? of shortcut hay. I don’t like it to let it grow higher then 6 or 7 cm, cutting it at 3 cm gives me lengths of max 4 cm. I find the short hay no problem at all.
When the weather forecast are good (no rain ) its the best time to make hay.
I use 2 methods:
The advantage of this method is that the small clippings stay in the lawn and feed the lawn.
the advantage of this method us that we can use the lawn immediately.
Hay is my favorite bedding for nest-boxes. Chicken comfort to lay an egg. ? The chickens like to eat some of it when they take their time to lay an egg or hormones make them broody.
I have only 100m2 of lawn to gather grass for hay. But this is enough to make a few boxes ? of shortcut hay. I don’t like it to let it grow higher then 6 or 7 cm, cutting it at 3 cm gives me lengths of max 4 cm. I find the short hay no problem at all.
When the weather forecast are good (no rain ) its the best time to make hay.
I use 2 methods:
- 1. Mow and leave the grass on the lawn to dry. Gather it after it dried (max 2 days) with a rake.
- 2. Gather the grass with the mower. And put the grass in a few mesh boxes they use in garden centres and let it dry/ rake it a few times. The smallest pieces fall through so the hay isn’t getting dusty.
the advantage of this method us that we can use the lawn immediately.