Home Forums Gear Horses and ATV's Rough winter

Bought 33 large bales last sept. 3'x3'x8's. should have gotten me to mid June. Down to my last five. Last winter seemed longer but this one is a lot colder and the horses are really burning through the hay. They aren't wasting it either, come in the morning and every last blade is cleaned up.

cows are rolling right on through it here

we square bale and barn our horses except for the brood mares

I have enough big bales to go thru June, but I have a little 13-2 mule that has eaten as much as a 16 hd horse this winter. Can't fill him up.
The snow is still about a foot deep in his pen.

We have had the easiest winter in memory..this is snow country and jan.feb and so far in march nothing.ticks are out, might even put shoes on , one or two.amazing calving season..the flip side, hope there enough moisture for farming duties

I'm going through hay faster than normal for a different reason than snow like usual. Extremely mild winter with enough cold to keep the ground frozen, then a rain comes through and glazes things over. Been sanding and cat littering way more than normal. Normally run them off the bale part of the day, but the risk of injury from falling is not worth the extra hay cost.
Only good footing for the horses is right around the round bale feeder. Had to sand a path 70 yards to the waterer after it melted and refroze last weekend. Been hell on their hooves.
Below zero this morning then expected to warm up to high 30's and rain by mon/tue.

It's been pretty nice here, almost too nice the last couple weeks.

Hay supply will(for the cows) will be close but we'll have 40-50 ton of straw leftover.


We had ice earlier and it lasted for over a month. Couple cows slipped and aborted, just mud to deal with now and even it's drying up quick.

I'am dealing with ice right now. Entrance to the stalls is on the north side and don't get any direct sun. I have it blocked off so they can't go in there. Don't need any broken legs, mine included.

Been really warm here. We have green grass coming. I don't feed much hay anyway they mostly graze out all year.

coldest February on record. Average temp of 8 degrees. Burning through hay real quick. with a snow pack over my knee that is starting to melt, I am thinking it's going to be a muddy spring!!!

One of the warmest winters on record here in Utah.......

Ski business had a sucky winter.....

Still about 80% snow pack on mtn......

Irrigation water should be on in 2 weeks...

Have 17 acres in hay......

I'm not gonna complain. Has been pretty easy here and is more like spring. We are greening up and have more than enough hay. Likely I'll be selling off much of the grass hay.
With it being so warm and what not I'm wondering what the bad news will be here in MT.

Idaho is another state coming off an unusually warm dry winter. The water supply will be ok but only because we had good carry over in the reservoirs from a wet summer last year.

We have been lucky, some first cut silage off already, Horses getting some graze. I miss many things about the Cariboo Country, winter isn't one of them. Good luck to all still dealing with the weather.

Christmas time we had 40 to 50 head of elk in the yard. Opened 7 round bales one night. We moved hay chased elk. We also had an orphan moose on the dole for a while. Then the weather broke. Things slowed down. Sold one mule....sent another to baby sit yearling colts.

Was watching the news and they claim we has the second coldest Febuary on record here in Pa. I tend to believe them.

We had the coldest February on record here in upstate NY. And we beat it by quite a bit. old record was ave. temp of I think 12, last February was an average temp of 8.

Back and forth here this year. Cold in Nov. A bit of a warmup in Dec. Cold again in Jan. with a long stretch below 0. Ice and snow on the ground for weeks.
Two inches of wet snow on the ground this morning as a matter of fact.

Fairly mild winter in western SD with little snow. We need a pretty wet April to have good grass. We are starting to green up a bit but the ground is pretty dry.