Straws in the wind

I need bedding for the goats and by coincidence I discovered over the weekend an abandoned straw bale on one of the country lanes near Sunniside, where we live. It was one of those huge, round bales but it was damaged and one one side going moldy (the other side was fine). It had clearly been abandoned by a local farmer. I rescued as much of the good straw as I could and put it into my land rover. We've stopped buying wood shavings for the hen houses and use shredded paper instead. However, our shredder has inconveniently broken down and so, having run out of shredded paper, I used some of the straw today in one of the henhouses.

We don't buy or swap for the round bales as they are too big to handle and we are still looking for a source of hay and straw. Not many farms produce the old fashioned smaller square bales but I hope to contact one supplier tomorrow. In the meantime, the grass at Marley Hill Community Centre has been cut and I hope to collect some of it for fodder and bedding.



Being self-sufficient is not just about producing our own food, it's also about producing our own fodder for our animals. So the more hay we can produce ourselves, the less we have to buy in.