As promised a picture gallery of hard workin’ alpaca ranchers picking up their beautiful orchard grass hay…..

These guys look like they are working real hard!!!

Been working on a hay delivery lately.  There are 10 of us in fairly close proximity who go together and get hay twice a year.  We feed our alpacas orchard grass hay that is grown in Colorado.  Texas can do many things, but growing orchard grass is not one of them!  Just too darned hot.  Orchard grass is considered a cool temperature grass.  We can grow coastal and other types of bermuda, but orchard grass seems to be one of the best grass hays for alpacas.

So, I had anticipated a load to come in late August or early September, but I got a call on Monday from our supplier and he had a tandem truck that holds 800 bales available to deliver this week.  Wow, I had to get to scrambling and fast…

I have such a great group.  I didn’t have to beg for too long and got all of the 800 bales sold.  Will post pictures tomorrow.  We meet at 7am (to avoid the hottest part of the day) and off load.  Should be fun!!!

This past week I have been in the process of scheduling another truckload of orchard grass hay from Southern Colorado to our alpaca ranchers co-op around Boerne, TX.  After the debacle we had with our last delivery and being forced to go to a new source, I want to make sure that we get this hay here since I know that it is excellent.  See post on May 23, 2008.

I am astounded at the price!  When we first started buying this hay it was $5.50 per bale, not including the trucking charge.  In 2006 the trucking charge was $2.00 per mile.  I thought that was expensive – end cost being about $8.80 per bale.  Fast forward to summer 2008 and a bale of the same hay is $7.50 and trucking charges are $2.75 per mile  -  end cost being about $11.60 per bale.  WOW.

Take our little hay co-op as a microcosm of our society and this illustrates how the price of oil affects all of us.  It is nice, though, to see the price of gasoline coming down these past few weeks.  Seems like it began when President Bush lifted the executive ban on offshore drilling.  Congress, why don’t you lift your ban, too!   Oh wait, Pelosi and company had to go on vacation, that’s right.  Hey, don’t worry about staying there to work for those that you represent, selling your book is much more important. 

But, I heard just this morning on Fox News that another reason the price of oil may be going down now is because China is no longer stockpiling for the 2008 Olympics.  The thought was that they didn’t want to be embarassed by running out of fuel as they host the world in Beijing.  So, now that the Olympics has begun and all the guests have arrived, there is no need for China to stockpile oil anymore.    

Back to hay…  On August 23 our group of 10 alpaca ranchers will once again be meeting in Boerne to off load all of our hay.  Can’t wait til it gets here and I’m so happy we will be set for about 9 -10 months.

Dr. Norm Evans, a highly regarded camelid veterinarian recommends the following analysis for hay – and believes that orchard grass hay is an excellent choice for alpacas.

Protein          11-14%
Potassium     58-63%  or a value of 2.0 or less
RFV               95-105
TDN              55-62
Calcium/phosphorus ratio at 2:1

Yep, it’s that time.  As I look at our pastures one thing I’m sure of.  It’s time to water!  So now the watering begins…..

And, soon I will begin to think about casting seeds…probably Max Q Fescue!  The alpacas do well on that.

After getting our most recent load of hay and paying what we did for it, I am hoping that we can get these pasture to start growing grass…and Lord, we sure could use some rain.

The fun thing about watering in the pastures is watching the alpacas run over to the sprinkler as I turn it on and immediately start wetting their legs and bellies.  They will actually vie for a good position in front of the stream and usually the pasture queen or alpha male gets the best place.  If they only knew that in just a few minutes the sprinkler would be available to them without competition because everyone else has gone over and started rolling.  They are so funny!!

I think I will post a before and after picture of my pastures to see if my watering and sowing of seeds worked. 

I am convinced that it will do us well to get a nice pasture growing because the price of hay is just getting higher and higher. 

Well, I must say, we have the best hay group in Texas!  Saturday was one of the delivery dates for our group and things couldn’t have gone any smoother…  The truck driver is a great guy named Chuck Finch.  This is the second or third time he has delivered hay for us and he is so helpful.  The day was beautiful down here in Texas – cool in the morning and by noon it was short sleeve shirt weather.

I had everyone scheduled to arrive in groups of two or three depending on their number of bales.  By doing it this way we are able to help each other load our trailers.  Works great! 

I am always amazed by how many ranchers stop by while we are off loading our hay and ask how much a bale and if there is any available.  I feel kind of bad when I have to tell them that the load is pre-sold and there is none extra.  I don’t know if others are having a hard time finding hay around here or what.  The hay is such a beautiful green color that some even think it is alfalfa.  The coastal bermuda that is grown in this area usually isn’t as green as our orchard grass, in fact most of it is downright brown. 

We successfully off loaded 713+/- bales of beautiful orchard grass hay in 2.5 hours!  Great work guys.

One our way home, we had a blow out on our trailer.  We were talking about how good the day went, then all of the sudden we heard this loud ‘pop’.  I first thought that we had lost a bag of hay from the bed of the truck.  After off loading from the semi, there is always a lot of ‘hay crumbs’ on the ground.  We try to put as much as we can in trash bags so as not to waste it.  So, I thought that we probably lost one of those bags.  Then Chuck noticed out his side mirror that in fact it was one of the trailer tires on his side.  Finding a place to pull over was another story.  We were on a windy road with not much shoulder and the best place we could find was the entrance to an acreage subdivision.  Not real great to pull over and block someone’s entrance to their home.  But, it was all that was available.  We got the tire off and got the spare to put in its place only to find that the lug bolt patterns on the trailer and the spare tire did not match.  So off to Boerne to get the good tire put on the rim of the blown out tire.  Needless to say all this added about two and a half hours to our day.  But a beautiful day it was and I got a lot of phone calls made while sitting with the hay trailer while Chuck got the tire fixed.