First Cut vs. Second Cut Hay (And Why It Matters for Your Beef)

What's the difference between first cut vs second cut hay? It's one of the questions we get most, and the answer has a lot more to do with your beef than you'd think.

This week, we made some of the nicest second cut hay we've ever produced.

Whenever I start talking about the different hay cuts, I get a lot of questions about what First Cut vs Second Cut mean, so lets clear this up....

What is first cut hay?

First cut is the spring growth. Tall, stemmy, high-volume stuff. It's the bulk of the hay we'll make in a season.

What is second cut hay?

Second cut is the regrowth. Leafier. Softer. Slower growing. Finer stems, generally a higher percentage of clover (since there's just less grass volume), more protein packed into every bale. The animals love it, and we try to reserve it for groups of cattle that need the extra nutrition (AKA our finishing herd that are going to become your beef shares)

Depending on the season, the specific blend of grasses, and your management goals, you might also take 3rd and 4th cut. We generally take 2 or 3.

First cut vs. second cut: side by side

Making it is different too

The hay itself is different from cut to cut, but so is MAKING it.

First cut is largely a survival game. Everything is happening all at once, every field is growing like crazy and needs to be cut RIGHT NOW, and you are just trying to keep up and hope nothing breaks at the wrong time...

Second cut is more about timing and quality, which is more forgiving for a small operation with only one set of equipment.

With all the different soil types around here, and weird weather pockets (we got 6" of rain last week, while farms just 15 minutes away got 10"+ and others got 3") the timing for each property tends to vary.

We had a couple fields that were ready 3 weeks ago, and a few fields that were way behind and sprang back to life after absorbing all that rain.

It's all about paying attention and seizing the perfect moment.

Why this is the same discipline as everything else we do

Same way that we rotate the cattle to fresh grass at the right time, regardless of what else is going on.

Or that we only harvest cattle when they're perfectly finished, calendar be damned.

Or that the beef dry-ages a full two weeks before cutting, no matter what.

All of which adds up to the best beef our customers have ever had.

(That same seize-the-moment principle is what builds the soil underneath all of it. Here's how regenerative grazing builds soil that beats drought.)

Hay isn't magical. It's stored grass.

Don't forget, hay isn't magical. It's just stored grasses that we're able to feed out over the winter to keep the fat cattle train rolling all year round.

The cattle we're currently finishing for our fall harvest are eating the same exact super high quality grasses right now in our fields.

(For what winter feeding actually looks like around here, here's what grass-fed cows eat in winter. And for the growing season version, here's the 40+ plants on our pastures.)

So if you want a freezer full of beef raised and fattened on the good stuff, you can reserve a Beef Share with a free chest freezer here.

Your Farmer,

Josh

P.S. As always our friend Rick's dad (aka Rick Sr) is the all star of hay season. He is a retired lifelong dairy farmer who has made 300,000x more hay than the rest of us combined. Every part of our hay making operation got smoother when we appointed him Hay Dictator (which also means the cattle are getting fatter than ever).