I’ve never had to give much consideration to straw. When I lived and worked with horses, the straw was always just there. How it came to be there was something hidden behind a Somebody Else’s Problem field. I only remember actually having to buy straw a couple of times when my son got into archery and we needed straw bales for mounting and backstopping targets. There might have been a time or two I used them for Halloween or Thanksgiving décor. I was living in Northern California suburbia, adjacent to horsey country, and I just called a feed store and they delivered a couple of bales. I think the price, even with delivery, was beneath my notice. Rice straw was so plentiful around there that they burned it in the fields until too many people got bothered by the air quality.
We’re now 2,500 or so miles away from there. Nobody on the island grows rice, or alfalfa, or wheat. There is plenty of guinea grass (Megathyrsus maximus) that grows in former cane land around here, but I don’t know of anyone who bales it up for livestock bedding (I suspect it wouldn’t be very useful for that purpose).
When the weather turned rainy here the sheep started spending a lot of time in their little barn, tearing up the dirt floor, tracking in water, and pooping and peeing. We discovered that what little straw we had on hand had succumbed to mold (as most things do around here). Then we discovered that we weren’t the only people who suddenly needed a lot more straw. And all the straw on this island has to be brought in by ship.
There was a Great Straw Shortage, and even though it has now eased it still costs around $50/bale. That kind of makes $8/gallon diesel fuel look cheap.
We’ve had 7” of rain in the last few days, not so much in a torrent as in a relentless shower. The sheep barn was disgusting this morning, so I mucked it out and was grateful that HA had secured a precious straw bale before she left. For the first time in my life, I mucked out a barn and worried about how much straw I was using. Fortunately, it’s a small barn.
One thing we have a lot of is bamboo duff, as we have several large stands of bamboo which drop leaves prolifically. I think this summer I’m going to try collecting and drying a bunch of it to see if it can be used as livestock bedding.
—2p