Curing Hay

[Creamer]

Perhaps it was like bleu cheese to them.

Does that create the blue flame?

 

[zzvyb6]

A tedder is used to fluff the hay at my place. I set my mower to windrow the cut material. This leaves two bare areas at the side o the windrow to get sunlight and dry. Then I fluff it with the tedder to break up the windrow and spread it out over the two dry areas. Maybe more than once. My rule is that you should be able to hear the crispy hay at the baler pickup.

If this doesn't work for you and cows get the hay, use a proprionic acid applicator in the bale chamber to stop the mold. Cows love it. Horses don NOT. Hay will smell like vinegar with 'acid' on it.

 

[Texasmark]

Are you getting mold in all the bales or just the ones that come from a thicker part of the field? I know it's a pain but if so can you bale the thicker areas a day or two later.

I have two spots in my field where it grows thicker. So when I bale, that area seems to not get as dry. I usually have about 10 bales that really want to mold.
I decided, when I think it's time to bale, I wait one more day. This year it worked out good.

That's funny I usually get there too early and have the tobacco colored bales Jim mentioned. This time I took my time and ran the crimper over the stems and all. The leaf loss was about 10% guessing the pile of dust and leaf chips on the ground when I dumped the bale vs the bale size. Can't win for losing.

The mold is at the joints and is light gray. Does not rub off with your finger. In a few I had grey powder that could be wiped off with your thumb. Most all of them are tobacco colored in most of the bales.

 

[sammyd]

LOL, kill a bunch of goats...Never seen a goat person that would touch moldy hay.

 

[Texasmark]

Perhaps it was like bleu cheese to them.

Yepper, once you get it (BC) past your nose, great stuff.

 

[Phillip w]

We make squares, but the same applies to round bales. We have a baler mounted Agtronix BH-2 moisture meter that gives us "live" humidity readings of the hay being baled. Coupled with that, we have a baler mounted tank w/pump and nozzles to apply hay preservative - buffered propionic acid into the pick-up. Been using the moisture meter for several years now and this fall, first time, turned on the acid. Works like a champ - highly recommend it.

Our applicator is from Paul B Zimmerman and I think is labeled crop care. The preservative I buy from New Holland, though it's called crop saver, it is the stuff labeled for CAseIH, NH, MF and JD - it is made by Harvestec. Non- corrosive, very effective, easy to apply. Smells like dill pickle chips in the bales; harmless to animals. One of my hay customers fed it out and no issues whatever - though some folks hate this stuff. I'd rather loose a customer than a crop of hay.

That's how I deal with high humidity hay when there's no other choice but to bale it or loose the crop.

YMMV

My goodness, the way it sounds this haying has gotten high tech. I never realized it had come to this. I guess I need to get up with the times. I just go by the feel of the hay in the windrow. I use a swather and then later roll it over with a rake. As far as storage you can throw up a 40X120 pole barn to store big round bales in relatively reasonable. It does not need to be enclosed, just a roof over the hay. You kind of need a tractor with a front bale spear to stack the bales. My pole barn is 14 ft, so can stack 3 high. Also, can get a semi back in there and put equipment in there when I have the room. If you are doing square bales and you are worried about it molding, rock salt is pretty effective and inexpensive. You just salt each layer of hay as you stack it in the barn.

 

[leeave96]

My goodness, the way it sounds this haying has gotten high tech. I never realized it had come to this. I guess I need to get up with the times. I just go by the feel of the hay in the windrow. I use a swather and then later roll it over with a rake. As far as storage you can throw up a 40X120 pole barn to store big round bales in relatively reasonable. It does not need to be enclosed, just a roof over the hay. You kind of need a tractor with a front bale spear to stack the bales. My pole barn is 14 ft, so can stack 3 high. Also, can get a semi back in there and put equipment in there when I have the room. If you are doing square bales and you are worried about it molding, rock salt is pretty effective and inexpensive. You just salt each layer of hay as you stack it in the barn.

If I were making hay for our own animal consumption or for cows, I wouldn't mess with this stuff. Curing hay in our neck of the woods here in the mountains of VA often is difficult because of heavy dew and frequent afternoon thunderstorms or just rain, making the window for haying narrow. We sell all of our hay to the horse market in small square bales, so quality and appearance is important. The acid is a last resort to save a crop and this year in our late cuttings, we used it for the first time and was amazed with the results. The price for the moisture meter and applicator/preservative isn't very steep. The difference between cow and horse quality squares in selling price makes for an easy return on the investment,

 

[Phillip w]

Yeah I agree with you mind set if your sell the hay to people with horses. They are usually eccentric, picky and half the time I don't understand their logic.

 

[Texasmark]

Yeah I agree with you mind set if your sell the hay to people with horses. They are usually eccentric, picky and half the time I don't understand their logic.

My take is they buy for them to eat, not the horses. Have a new customer recently talking absolutely no Johnson Grass in any horse hay he buys from me and it has to be pure and green and smell good.

I asked him what his horses were eating that very minute in his "un"-improved pasture. I used to lease the place and knew the kind of junk including JG that grew there. He just looked at me dumbfounded.

 

[AKfish]

Fed lot's of sorghum-Sudan grass round bales to cows back in the day - South Dakota. We always called 'em "cane bales".

Since they were always fed to cows, didn't care if there was some mold. They could pick at it and eat what they wanted and sleep, **** and p!ss on whatever they wouldn't eat!

I've got a Harvest Tec system with buffered propionic acid, too. IMO - if you're working with short weather windows, high humidity, and more than 40 inches avg. annual precip - and concerned about mold - get a preservative system.

Or grow a different variety of hay... Bermuda grass, maybe.

 

[Raylefarms22]

Around here, lots of people mow their sudan with discbines, (Flails do dry sudan better than rollers) then as soon as they finish mowing, they hook to the bushhog and chop it again. breaks it up more and the old timers say it knocks a day off dry down time

 

[Texasmark]

Good point! the tobacco smelling mold is not harmful - in fact it improves the palatability for cows - what does that say about them?

Shucks, I thought it was because it fermented (sorta), turned to booze, they ate it and got pleasantly got drunk. Grin. Thanks for the tip on non harmful. Feeding it to my cows is one thing. Feeding to other's cows sometimes takes some explaining.

 

[Creamer]

Shucks, I thought it was because it fermented (sorta), turned to booze, they ate it and got pleasantly got drunk. Grin. Thanks for the tip on non harmful. Feeding it to my cows is one thing. Feeding to other's cows sometimes takes some explaining.

I understand - it is not green and therefore it is not good to the non-wise.

 

[Tx Jim]

Good point! the tobacco smelling mold is not harmful - in fact it improves the palatability for cows - what does that say about them?

If you do some research you'll discover that the heat created from baling hay at too high moisture actually lowers the protein of the hay. Even though cows like the smell they get less feed value out of higher moisture hay. I'm not referring to hay referred to as baleage & wrapped. It's also possible this tobacco smelling hay could have black mold which can cause pregnant cows to abort.

 

[Jerry/MT]

I'm scrapping out a bunch of bales of Sorghum-Sudan hay I baled in the May-June time line here in N. Tx.. It appears that once again, I didn't get it dry enough and it developed some mold. I realize that SS doesn't pack as tight as grass but it does have to sit out; do not have adequate covered storage and all. This mold is down inside, well beyond of any precip after rolling. I do have and use a crimper and tedder. Don't have a moisture tester. Usually dodging rain. Dry windows usually aren't long enough.

On curing, you guys in Northern climates where your winters are longer and wetter (usually with snow and all), how do you get your hay crops cured out if you run cool season grasses and harvest in the spring.

Thanks,
Mark

So far, my biggest problem is the hay dries so fast that my round bales will fall apart if I don't bale early in the morning or later in the evening! Just the opposite of your situation. I use a Delmhorst moisture meter and pull samples from the windrow. I place them in a 5 gallon bucket and compress them and then use the meter to check the moisture content. I do this for several places in the field. I then make a bale and check it with the moisture meter. I try to get the moisture up to 10-14 % in the bucket before I start baling. By the time I finish the bales are in the 18-20 % range so I quit. All my customers this years were horse people and they have raved up the hay quality and the fact that it is virtually dust free. the closest end of the field is a quarter mile from the nearest county road so there is relatively little dust that gets to the hayfield.
We net wrap the bales and store them in long rows with space between them and they get a little damage on the bottom but the net wrapped bales shed water very well and we get very little spoilage. I tried stacking them on ead with one row vertical topped by one row horizontal and the water appears to stay attached to the net wrap below the max diameter and ruins the sides of the bottom bale. This does not appear to be the case for twine wrapped bales. I think because the outside surface of the twine wrapped bales is rougher and the water does not come around the max diameter as it does with net wrap.

I've only been making our own hay for three years now and that's what I learned so far.

 

[LouNY]

In my area upstate NY in depends on what you are looking for in your hay, grasses or alfalfa cut for high quality protein 1st cut will be haylage or wrapped baleage as the weather and ground moisture makes it almost impossible to dry bale, if you want more fiber and roughage 1st cutting won't be done till end of June start of July and with luck the weather will cooperate. 2nd cutting can usually be baled if the weather guessers and you guess right. 3rd cutting it's getting cooler and it's hard to get dry bales it's back to haylage or baleage.

 

[joeu235]

Texas A&M has reasonably priced testing services for hay if you are really concerned.

 

[Texasmark]

Thanks guys for the replies. Think I will investigate the Delmhorst. TAMU support; I use them for soil testing since I have an open time window. On moisture it can change as the time of day changes which I can detect on how the bales form and come out so if done, I'll have to do it.