Combining Oats/Barley

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Harvesting oats/barley with our 1970’s era Massey Ferguson combine.  I won’t know an exact yield until I have fed all of it to our hogs over the next year.  We finished baling the straw on Friday.

Oats/barley is higher in protein and fiber than corn, but lower in energy.  I use oats/barley in the hog rations at a rate of 20% of the ration when it’s available.  So that’s 400 lbs. per ton.  I reduce the soybean meal by 50 lbs. per ton when I include oats/barley in the ration.  I see no noticeable difference in hog performance at this inclusion rate.

One Response to Combining Oats/Barley

  1. That is a great picture.

    As a kid on the farm I remember having to take the sickle out of the combine and replace and/or sharpen the teeth.

    It was one of those jobs that I hated doing as a kid as I had to spend a lot of time getting the sickle out of the combine then spend time meticulously replacing the dull or broken teeth.

    It was also usually on a hot day when dad had parked the combine next to the machine shed which made it so the combine was always directly in the sun. This made all of the metal on the combine so hot it was barely touchable.

    Looking back, he was probably trying to make my job easier by parking close to where the equipment and tools were. Since he was a life long farmer he was impervious to temperature extremes. I am sure working on hot metal parts didn’t bother him (as I do remember him do things like welding without gloves on)

    I guess should have just asked him to park it in the shade… or moved it myself.

    Cool pic.

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