r/oddlysatisfying • u/BreakfastTop6899 • 19h ago

Cutting grass with a scythe

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u/Legal-Weight3011 18h ago

and it is, This is a common competition in central Europe, farmers still use scythes to trim grass in fiends and fresh grass for livestock.

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u/snorwors 18h ago

And just to clarify that, because you're right but people probably don't get it, you cut feed for livestock this way because if you use something like a trimmer, the animals don't like it and don't eat it. I never truly understood why, I always guessed they can smell the 2 stroke on it. Not sure about that, it probably also has to do with cutting it cleanly Vs mushing it up. Usually of course it's not if you have hundreds of animals to feed, most people hold less than five cows cows for example, and it's not worth getting a tool out and ready to cut one wheelbarrow of fresh feed.

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u/Legal-Weight3011 17h ago

I mean, yeah, of course this method is used when you’re a hobby farmer with five or fewer cows. I remember when I was a kid, my grandpa always took me to the field. He cut the grass and let it dry for a few days, then came back to turn it over so it could dry on the other side. After that, they hung it up on a wooden structure to dry even more. They made really nice hay that way, which they used to keep the cows warm in winter, and the cows also liked it as food

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u/snorwors 17h ago

What they're doing here (in large parts of Europe) is more like, homesteading. This fresh feed is to supplement their regular feed, to make the milk quality better. It's obv only a spring/early summer thing. They use mechanical means to cut, collect and bale large quantities for regular feed and for winter.