Any hope for this hay?

[southernultrablack]

Long story short. I had some hay get rained on, then it looks like it got rolled with the bottoms of the wind rows wet. Any hope I can roll it out and the cows will pick through it?

 

[1982vett]

Have to wait and see if it molds…and how much. Ya might get lucky.

 

[callmefence]

Long story short. I had some hay get rained on, then it looks like it got rolled with the bottoms of the wind rows wet. Any hope I can roll it out and the cows will pick through it?

Lost a little bit of haygrazer early in the year. About 60 rolls. Got rained on several times. After around 12 days I rolled it wet ...25-30 percent. To get it of the field. ..cows don't care much for it but I'm sure they'd eat it with nothing else. If I was short I'd keep it. But I'm not. I pretty much gave it away, told the man you take it all and pay me 7.00 a bale to hang around all day and load you. He payed me the 7.00 a bale and said he'd call me to let me know what day he'd haul it.....he's never called....

 

[snoopdog]

I would feed it first, against common wisdom of feeding the best first. When are you calving, and when do you normally start feeding? Maybe feed it to some weaners?

 

[SmokinM]

Around here it gets wet late winter I just unroll it and let them pick thru it then lay on the rest. Helps to get them on dry ground for a few hrs each day.

 

[callmefence]

Long story short. I had some hay get rained on, then it looks like it got rolled with the bottoms of the wind rows wet. Any hope I can roll it out and the cows will pick through it?

You can reduce damage to the hay considerable if you leave them out and not rowed or stacked for about a month.
The hay below was baled wet and rowed up the next day. You can see where it got hot. Compared to end bale that could breath and dry a bit.
There will still be dark hay down in the center, but the damage on the ends will be about a foot inside. The outer is still nice hay.

 

[Dsth]

I feed mostly alfalfa so grassy bales may be different. cows will eat that brown heated hay like candy but the problem is that it has lost most of its feed value from the heating process. if the hay is moldy, the mold smell will be in the dry parts of the bale also and cows will shy away from it. my vet says that feeding moldy hay can cause cows to abort calves so I do not feed hay that has mold in it. plenty of neighbors have wrappers, so most wet stuff around here gets wrapped.