in today's video I'm gonna show you guys how I get cheap hay for my duck house
so I'm driving around with a load of hay in the back of my truck I just picked up
about 10 bales or 12 bales I've got to drop this load off and come back to the
farm and I'm behind the hay from and drop off another really hope that this
stuff doesn't dump
I'm buying all this hay from this guy Sherm I met him through some friends who
have helped hay in the past I was even over at Sherm's place this summer
helping load up bales of hay over there in fact one time there was this giant
round bale of hay that escaped the baler and rolled down a hill it almost crushed
somebody it was like a Vermont tumbleweed
all right so I had 14 in the last one yeah so uh whatever works I guess we'll
just fill it up again so this right here is one of the reasons why I'm really
glad I traded in my Volkswagen for the pickup truck
I find that I go through about a bale a week when I'm in here spreading this
stuff so I assume that 25 bales will cover me for about six months
that'll work down most of the hay that you see here as well as all the straw
and by the time I get run out of it all it'll be warm enough that I won't need
to have the house insulated so it's one of those things are it's like I've got
my own built-in drawdown philosophy once all this stuff is consumed it'll all be
packed down on the ground and I'll have to bring it out in the springtime I'll
probably bring it out in the form of compost now I know some of you might be
saying gosh you know if you use straw the compost that you'd make would be
much better and there wouldn't be as many seeds that could potentially create
weeds when you use it for gardening while that is true there is an economic
anomaly taking place within the area I live in so that anomaly is that hay
prices are about 1/3 the cost of straw prices when you do the math around that
and you multiply that by how much hay I'm actually going to be using this
winter the financial difference is significant and from a bottom-line
perspective it's still cheaper for me to buy compost from somebody else and buy
this hay versus making my own compost from the strong as far as keeping ducks
goes I find that hay is the superior bedding medium even as I start brooding
ducklings next year I'll be using hay because I find that the wood chips they
tend to eat more the hay is more like the grass that they'd find out in nature
the hay is also very absorbent and soaks up a lot of moisture pretty well and its
abundant and cheap and so there's an economic benefit to going with hay
versus other forms I think a lot of times people think they have to pay
retail for certain things like hay so like if you were to go to like a feed
store or tractor supply or something you can buy straw or hay but you're gonna
pay like two or three times as much when you go there what I found is
to get to know local farmers here and you're bound to get a better deal on
your head because I'm using the hay for the Ducks they're not consuming it like
roommates so it doesn't have to be as nutritious so I don't really care if
it's first cut second cut third cut all I want is you know absorbent carbonate
material as long as it's dry I'll use two year old hay it doesn't really
matter to the Ducks they're just gonna poop on it anyway the
duck house is ready for winter completely insulated I've got both all
the bedding I'm gonna need until probably say May as well as all of the
insulation I'll need to keep the Ducks warm thing is looking stocked and
looking good I'm excited