The ever-changing weather of East Texas is taking a toll on hay production.
“Earlier in the season in may and early part of June hay production was affected from all the wet ground and we were not able to get in and cut and harvest the hay,” says 5H Farms owner Taylor Hand.
Then June was dry and production was rolling, but the dry spell lasted too long.
“We’re still well short on hay as far as quantity of hay needed for the upcoming winter to supply to our customers as well as live stock for our farmers and ranchers,” says Hand.
He says they’re about halfway through the hay season, but have only cut once.
“We have put up about 3,000 rolls of hay and about 28,000 square bales of hay, whereas right now we should be more along the lines of 4,000 plus rolls,” says Hand.
They keep hay stocked up in order to satisfy customers in the mean time, but they’re relying on more rain to get their numbers where they need to be.
“It’s just slowly beginning to green back up considering we ended up getting some help from mother nature yesterday but if it doesn’t rain anymore we could very well be in trouble for everybody this winter being on the short end of the stick for hay,” he says.
(Information from EastTexasMatters.com)
