Recent Rallies Spur Farm Equipment Buys

By Tyne Morgan

On the cusp of suburbia, in the middle of fertile farmland, you can find Christy Kirtley cutting hay and raising cattle.

“For us to put fence posts through black dirt, I think they thought we were going crazy to be honest with you,” she says.

That didn’t stop them from striving to capture their dream: Growing their first-generation family cattle business one day at a time.

“As the herd grew, I felt very vulnerable to the hay market, and my husband and I thought it was very irresponsible to depend on someone else for our cattle’s feed,” says Kirtley.

So, they found a solution to their problem, in the form of equipment. “We bought special equipment that enabled us to do haylage equipment, or wet hay, and then wrap it, and that shortened the window of opportunity needed to do a harvest.”