Round Bale Storage

[BrokeFarmerJohn]

Hey everyone,

I was thinking of a way to store net wrapped hay outdoors, seeing if anyone had a slick way to store round bales.

The goal is to keep the bales as dry as I can, I would like to keep them off the ground and covered.

I was picturing two rows of treated lumber I had laying around 6x6 or 4x4 and layering that with pallets and stacking round bales on the pallets, this way the untreated pallets don't rot on me.

I planned on storing enough to last the winter so around 10 round bales, how high can I stack them pyramid style? Safely

Planned on tarps as cover, thanks

John

 

[unimog_jason]

I typically store 30-40 rounds in the yard to keep the horses fed over the winter. All I ever do is put a pallets on the ground to keep the hay off the ground and stop it from freezing to the ground. I put two side-by-side and one on top, throw a large tarp over everything and tie the tarp to the pallets.

The pallets freeze to the ground so I end up running over them with the tractor, some times they break, sometimes the survive for another year of service.

Usually the last bales end up lasting until May and I have found a little blackness on the top bale, but not enough to worry about. When I feed that bale to the horse I put the black part to the ground and they eat around it.

Jason

 

[Rustyiron]

I have placed parallel telephone poles on the ground about 3' apart and covered them with a 10' wide poly for the extra bales when the building was full. Not really practical for a large quantity, but 4 poles will get you about 15 bales off the ground and are easy to get to (and re-cover) VS a pyramid type stack. (4' bales on 30' poles)

 

[Farmer495]

For 10 bales?

Get 6 pallets, place them in a 2 wide by 3 long layout. Stack a bale on each pallet so the round edges touch on the "3 pallet wide side" and flat edges touch on "2 pallet wide side" Stack the remaining 4 bales on top on the "groove" Put tarp on all 10. You can empty your pile without driving on a pallet and having to move anything but the tarp.

Had about 200 stacked outside this year, rest were indoors. I don't use pallets since they freeze to the ground and I can't drive over them unless I want to gamble on flat tires

 

[Gary Fowler]

You should be able to go 3 high. SO put 5 bales on pallets or other support to keep them off the ground, then 4 on top of the 5 and then #10 on the third layer. You can put a tarp over it or just let it weather. The round bales pretty well self dry when stacked this way especially if net wrapped. You really don't need to cover the sides if you cover it, just pull the tarp over the tops. Actually where you are, you likely don't get rain in the winter like I do and snow /sleet wont hurt anything at all, so just forget the tarp.

 

[Jerry/MT]

Hey everyone,

I was thinking of a way to store net wrapped hay outdoors, seeing if anyone had a slick way to store round bales.

The goal is to keep the bales as dry as I can, I would like to keep them off the ground and covered.

I was picturing two rows of treated lumber I had laying around 6x6 or 4x4 and layering that with pallets and stacking round bales on the pallets, this way the untreated pallets don't rot on me.

I planned on storing enough to last the winter so around 10 round bales, how high can I stack them pyramid style? Safely

Planned on tarps as cover, thanks

John

For net wrapped bales, I lay them on the ground butted up against the each other. I tried stacking them two high, one vertically with one horizontally on top. What happened is that the water will run down the sides of the top bale and it seems to "stick to" the bale and run down into the veritcal bale, causing spoilage. if the bales are twine tied, this does not happen. Under no circumstances would I store them horizontally in a pyramid. they will rot at every point of compact. I would only stack them this way inside a building or under a good hay tarp.

 

[rustyshakelford]

Get some used billboard tarps. You can use them for the bottom and cover. Real thick and can be had for cheap usually

Brett

 

[powerscol]

I agree with the pallets. TSC has so good pricing on white tarps for covering hay bales.

 

[greggn]

Nine bales on 2 pallets high for the Minis

 

[BrokeFarmerJohn]

That's what I ended up with, I can do 4 on the bottom and 3 on the next tier, 7 stored plus one in the feeder should be enough to last most of the winter.

Just healed 6 more bales today for $20 a bale