“Half of the wood and half of the hay you have to have on Candlemas Day.”

 Not so long ago, we lived in a small one-floor suburban house that had a tiny wood stove. That wood stove could heat the entire house ~ and did so frequently over all the winters my son was growing up.  Every Groundhog’s Day, I’d read this saying on Bill Steffen’s Blog,* and think smugly that we definitely had at least half of the wood left from the half cord I’d purchased the summer before, and I didn’t have to worry about the hay because our rescued dogs didn’t eat hay. So basically, our lives bore no resemblance to anyone for whom this saying had significant meaning ~ but I wanted to feel like it did. Then we moved to our farm ~ 120 year old structures of little insulation, no trees for a wind-break across acres of fields, and, oh yes, sheep. Wood and hay have taken on an entirely new presence in my world.

I am deeply attached to our sheep. We have coffee together in the mornings, we talk a bit in the afternoons; I know how to move them throughout the three areas in the Little Barn so I can clean stalls without anyone having to brave the foot of snow and bitter winds out in the pastures. I know that Cricket is scared nigh unto death of my blue wool winter coat, and Betsie absolutely loves the rehydrated ground beets and molasses I’ve started giving her every morning for some extra calories.  I know that Wilma waits patiently in a corner while I give Betsie her medicine every morning, and that Bella will try to climb the stall gate if I’m too slow in bringing her breakfast hay. I know that Mary will guard both Cricket and Bella from the cats, and that all of them this midwinter day are just a bit stir-crazy from being inside so much.  What I didn’t know is that sheep are the pickiest eaters I’ve ever encountered.  Having half the hay left at midwinter is a good thing only if your sheep will actually eat it. 

I am rapidly running out of the good stuff, the hay which apparently has just the right type of grass dried in just the best proportion to all the other grasses in the bale.  I have no idea what type of grass that might be, but I know it’s the good stuff because all five sheep dig in and eat it all as soon as I set it down for them.  I also know that I’ve three bales left, and I’m sure there is no more of exactly this type to be found until this coming June.  

I do have another type of hay, though. It’s a golden brown, with still-green shoots in the middle of the bale.  I don’t know what type of hay this is either, but I know it’s not the good stuff.  I set a flake of this down, and the first one on the scene is Mary, pawing through the hay with such energy that stalks fly all around her legs. She pounds the ground through the flake, eventually finding a piece tasty enough to eat. Cricket doesn’t pound the hay; instead, he noses through it, scattering most of his flake around just by breathing into it. Then he’ll find a piece and eat.  Bella just sort of picks at the pieces as they fly.  There’s a lot of this hay that’s wasted.

And I actually have a third type of hay. It’s green and dense with seed heads and stalks. Everyone told me that this hay is really good, filled with the right type of protein for sheep. Mary all but jumps with her two feet into the middle of whatever I set down; Cricket scatters it all over, and Bella just snorts.  I don’t think Betsie can eat it at all since she only has four teeth left, and Wilma stares at me as if I’ve completely offended her taste buds. There’s a lot of this hay that’s wasted, too.  

So you see, I actually have well over half of the hay left from what I purchased last summer, but there’s been a ton of wasted hay over the past two months! One day, in an attempt to make sense of all this, I Googled “are sheep picky eaters?” and found out that yep, they are.  The advice I found was to try various feeding strategies, so I’ve tried a hay rack, a hay net, a hay trough, a hay box.  If it’s not the good stuff, it just sits. At least if it’s on the ground, they’ll paw through it and eat some.

The mid-point of winter has always been an important day in my world ~ not because of Paxutawny Phil or any other weather prognosticator, but because the sun is coming back.  This year, I’m also aware that the grass will be growing soon. I’m not concerned about our remaining wood ~ we’ve well over half of what we stored because of the mild January. But I have definitely learned my lesson about hay! As soon as I can, I’m buying an insane number of bales of the good stuff! I just hope that until then, my old grandfather is right ~ if they get hungry enough, they’ll eat. 

* Bill Steffen is a meteorologist with WOOD-TV8 in Grand Rapids, Michigan.