The weather here took a nasty turn today, 25-30 mph winds, a bit of snow and single digit windchills in the afternoon. Low tonight forecast for 12  deg F and windchill near zero F plus snow showers.

I figured the cows and calves needed some special fuel for this weather so opened up a line of very good baleage that was baled extremely wet. My very experienced neighbor with the wrapper suggested I try to use this line sooner rather than later or it might freeze up.

So late this afternoon I opened it up and gave each group a nice bale of this stuff. It was beautiful and smelled great. The bales were still very heavy. I would not have wanted to handle these bales out in my sloping pasture with a smaller loader.

Using the JCB 300T with a warm cab and a side door was quite a change from my usual Carhardt insulated coveralls and about frostbit eyebrows peering through several scarves on my open station 7610 loader tractor!  Cows came right over to the bale feeder as they remembered that sweet smell!  I think they like me having a warm cab...and bring them some furnace fuel before they head for the woods for the evening to get out of the wind. Fortunately most of my Herefords are already pretty woolly in their winter coats.  I spread some marginal outdoor hay bales for bedding, probably more than I would do with out a warm cab.

I like this loader for handling bales! Getting in and out of the cab to open and close the gate is pretty simple with the side door. Hard to take a good phone pic with the beacon.

(IMG033 putting out baleage in 25 mph wind and 6 deg F windchill 110918 (full).jpg)

IMG033 putting out baleage in 25 mph wind and 6 deg F windchill 110918 (full).jpg (61KB - 220 downloads)