Clermont QLDRhodes grass hayDavid and Jade Flack
Flack n Good Hay. Rhodes grass that stacks up.
Flack n Good Hay is Rhodes grass grown, cut and baled on our own country at Clermont, Queensland. Rounds and squares, shedded, weighed and stacked ready to go. Family owned, family grown, and named by someone who thought they were very funny.
- Family owned, family grown. Same as it says on the sign.
- One paddock, one shed, one number to ring.
- If we would not feed it to our own, it is not going on your truck.
- Shedded. Rain on a stack is just money turning into mud.
- Nobody should buy hay they have not had a look at first.
- Cut when it is ready, not when the calendar reckons it is.
- Flat out like a lizard drinking, most of December.
- No mystery bales. You will know the paddock and you will know the cut.
- No agent, no middleman, no mystery. Just the two of us.
Rhodes grass, cut and cured at Clermont
Good hay does not happen in a hurry.
How it goes
Cut, cured and baled without cutting corners
Hay is made in about a week and ruined in about an hour. Most of the job is watching the sky and being patient enough to leave it alone until it is actually ready.
Watch it, then cut it
Rhodes gets cut when the paddock is ready and the forecast is clear, not because it happens to be a Monday. Cutting into bad weather is how good grass becomes expensive mulch.
Cure and rake
Turned and raked so it dries evenly right through the windrow. The middle of a bale is where poor curing shows up, which is also exactly where you cannot see it.
Bale it dry
Baled at the right moisture, tight and even. Too wet and it heats in the stack. Too dry and it shatters, and you are out there feeding dust to cattle.
Shed and stack
Carted in and stacked under cover the same season it is cut, so what you pick up in August is the same hay it was in the paddock in March.
The growers
David and Jade Flack
Flack n Good Hay is a family operation at Clermont. We grow it, we cut it, we bale it and we load it, which means when something is not right there is nobody else to blame and only one number to ring.
We farm Rhodes grass on our own country out of Clermont, in the Central Highlands. Everything that leaves here has been through our own gear and our own hands, from the seed going in to the bale going on your truck.
Buying hay comes down to trust. You cannot see the middle of a bale, and by the time you work out it went up damp you have fed half of it out. So we would rather you drove out, opened one up and made your own mind up about it.
Grown here, cut here, baled here, and loaded by the pair who grew it.
Clermont, Queensland
Every bale that leaves here has our name on it.
Before you ring
The questions we get every season
The same handful come up every year, so here they are. Anything not on the list, just ring and ask.
What sort of hay is it?
Rhodes grass, grown on our own country at Clermont. It is the grass this district actually does well, which is why we grow it instead of chasing something that only looks good in a wet year.
Can I come and look at it first?
Please do. Ring first so someone is about, then come out and open a bale up. Anyone who will not let you look at the stack before you buy is telling you something.
Is it shedded?
Yes. It goes under a roof the same season it is cut. Hay left out in the weather loses colour, loses feed value and grows a crust you end up paying to throw away.
Do you deliver?
We load out here with our own gear, so bring a truck or a trailer and you will not be waiting around. Carting further afield can usually be arranged, so ask when you ring.
How much is a bale?
It moves with the season, the cut and how much you are taking, so any number on a website would be out of date before you read it. Ring and we will tell you what it is today.
Can I get small squares for horses?
Yes, when we have them. Small squares go quickly, so if you feed horses it pays to ring early in the season rather than halfway through a dry one.
How much can you do at once?
Anything from a ute load to a semi. Tell us what you are feeding and how many, and we will tell you straight whether we can cover it.
What if the season is no good?
Then there is less of it and we say so early. Nobody is served by us taking an order in March that we cannot fill in August, so if it is going to be tight you will hear it from us first.
Order hay
Ring about a load
Tell us what you are feeding, roughly how many and when you need it. We will tell you what is in the shed, what it is worth and when you can come and get it.
Where
Clermont, Queensland 4721
Covering Clermont and the Central Highlands
Handy to mention when you ring
- What you are feeding, and how many head
- Rounds, small squares or large squares
- Roughly how much you are after
- When you need it in the shed
- Whether you are bringing a truck or a trailer
- How far it has to travel
Not sure about half of that? Ring anyway. Working out what someone actually needs is most of the conversation, and nobody has ever been knocked back for not knowing their tonnages.