Scott Perry guides his baler around a field of freshly cut hay Sunday, July 4, on Canton Land Trust property off of Breezy Hill Road. Photo: dotCANTON
July 4 was like any other workday for Canton dairy farmer Scott Perry and his young assistant, Canton resident Chris Lawler. The two were back on Ratlum Mountain to continue the process of harvesting about 500 bales of hay, a task they had begun a few days earlier.
Armed with two tractors, a baler and a few large baskets on wheels to catch and haul the hay, the two were working on Canton Land Trust property several hundred feet off Breezy Hill Road, acreage Perry said his father, the late Thomas Perry, donated to the trust.
It was Perry’s job Sunday to drag the baler around the fields and collect the freshly-cut hay. Lawler, who just graduated from Suffield High School’s vocational-agricultural program and plans to study agricultural engineering at SUNY Cobleskill in the fall, then hauled the full baskets down West Mountain Road and to the Perry farm on Barbourtown Road.
Perry said he has more than 60 cattle on his farm, almost equally divided between cows (mature females) and heifers (younger females). He said the hay he was harvesting Sunday would be fed to the heifers. He said he prefers to feed his cows grass that’s a little less mature.
“This is excellent grass,” Perry said. “But digestibility diminishes as grass becomes more mature.”
Perry said the 500 bales would be enough to feed his 30-plus heifers for about two months.
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– dotCANTON
