Hay Storage Methods

[mossy_oak23]

What are some ways you can store your round bales through the winter? Very new to this

The two methods I have seen are the bales being rapped in that white plastic and the other with the bales piled in a pyramid with a tarp over the top, completed with heavy metal rods on each side to weigh down the tarp.

 

[Jeanne - Simme Valley]

We have our dry round bales put up with net wrap. We line them up flat end to flat end, pushed up tight against one another, with a few feet between rows. Never let the round sides touch each other, unless they are covered, they will rot quickly. We rarely have any waste. Maybe an inch on the bottom, but not so bad they won't eat it. Net wrap sheds the water really well. Biggest problem is the outer edge will/can get frozen.
If you can afford the heavy tarps, weighted down, they will keep very well that way. But, we have a lot of snow, and I have fought with tarp covered bales, and I'l NEVER do that again. It wouldn't be too bad if snow stayed light & fluffy - but it doesn't.
So, depends on your weather.

 

[novatech]

Getting them off the ground is #1. A barn is the best. Net wrap as Jeanne said helps. Another idea that I read on here some time ago is to get some used billboard signs. They are made of vinyl with UV protection. They will out last the cheap tarps from TSC and the like.

 

[bigbull338]

we stack ours tightly end to end.

 

[mossy_oak23]

We have our dry round bales put up with net wrap. We line them up flat end to flat end, pushed up tight against one another, with a few feet between rows. Never let the round sides touch each other, unless they are covered, they will rot quickly. We rarely have any waste. Maybe an inch on the bottom, but not so bad they won't eat it. Net wrap sheds the water really well. Biggest problem is the outer edge will/can get frozen.
If you can afford the heavy tarps, weighted down, they will keep very well that way. But, we have a lot of snow, and I have fought with tarp covered bales, and I'l NEVER do that again. It wouldn't be too bad if snow stayed light & fluffy - but it doesn't.
So, depends on your weather.

Out of curiosity why would it cause rotting? Is it because water would pool in the V between them?

 

[dun]

We have our dry round bales put up with net wrap. We line them up flat end to flat end, pushed up tight against one another, with a few feet between rows. Never let the round sides touch each other, unless they are covered, they will rot quickly. We rarely have any waste. Maybe an inch on the bottom, but not so bad they won't eat it. Net wrap sheds the water really well. Biggest problem is the outer edge will/can get frozen.
If you can afford the heavy tarps, weighted down, they will keep very well that way. But, we have a lot of snow, and I have fought with tarp covered bales, and I'l NEVER do that again. It wouldn't be too bad if snow stayed light & fluffy - but it doesn't.
So, depends on your weather.

Out of curiosity why would it cause rotting? Is it because water would pool in the V between them?

Not pool as much as not drain so each bale keeps the other one wet

 

[Jeanne - Simme Valley]

The water follows the V right INTO the bales. If left untouched, the water follows the curve of the bale & falls off. Touching, the water soaks in over & over again, rotting them big time!
I cringe every time I see a stack of bales unwrapped. Uggghh real waste!
Whatever you do - DO NOT place your bales on wooden palets. The wood rots or just plain ole sticks to the frozen bales & you end up with wood & nails everywhere.
You can use a gravel bed to store your bales on, but more expensive than what you will save IMO.
I fed 9 bales this morning. We had some rain than severe cold (well, probably not as bad as many places) but it has been down to 0 degrees F, mostly in the low teens at night - and the two edges of the bales on the bottom had frozen water that went maybe 1/2" deep into bale edge and net wrap was frozen in. Man, are my arms tired from fighting that mess! I tried mushing the bales against the ground, but really didn't help. Ended up "chiseling" most of it out with a hayhook. ugggh!

 

[novatech]

The water follows the V right INTO the bales. If left untouched, the water follows the curve of the bale & falls off. Touching, the water soaks in over & over again, rotting them big time!
I cringe every time I see a stack of bales unwrapped. Uggghh real waste!
Whatever you do - DO NOT place your bales on wooden palets. The wood rots or just plain ole sticks to the frozen bales & you end up with wood & nails everywhere.
You can use a gravel bed to store your bales on, but more expensive than what you will save IMO.
I fed 9 bales this morning. We had some rain than severe cold (well, probably not as bad as many places) but it has been down to 0 degrees F, mostly in the low teens at night - and the two edges of the bales on the bottom had frozen water that went maybe 1/2" deep into bale edge and net wrap was frozen in. Man, are my arms tired from fighting that mess! I tried mushing the bales against the ground, but really didn't help. Ended up "chiseling" most of it out with a hayhook. ugggh!

The pallets work down south. Yes the pallets will rot but are replacable with more free pallets.

 

[LazyARanch]

xxxxxxxx

 

[chippie]

.... They are stored on END without touching the next one, in rows, and another is placed on top on its side. The top bale sheds water and protects the top of the bottom one, and the twines don't rot....

A friend does that and it works very well. He has a hay spear on the front of his tractor to move the bales.

 

[marven]

Hello dun,
Hay stored under a tarp has significantly less spoilage and commands a premium price in the market, when compared to hay stored outside. Typically hay tarps last 3-5 years and in most cases you can recover the cost of the tarp in the first year itself.
Hay is a vital component to any farm and farmer for that matter. By analyzing the benefits of these tarps, you will gain a better understanding of why farmers make it a point to always incorporate these tarps onto their farms.
Thanks.

 

[lavacarancher]

Mossy, do your homework. Contrary to what you're reading here net wrap, according to several ag university studys, indicate that net wrap only marginally increase your ability to store round bales outside over string tied bales. The cost for net wrap is higher and it is a pain in the behind to get off the bale unless you are feeding from a spear type hay mover. Oh, and don't forget to factor in the additional cost of the baler which is somewhere around $4500 to $5000. I don't know how it does in freezing weather but some folks here from the cold country will also say it's a pain.

The only advantage (IMHO) the net wrap offers over string tie is speed across the field. It takes about two minutes to tie a bale with string and only a few seconds to wrap it with net wrap. So if you're a custom baler all those wasted minutes really start to add up on a large hay field.

I suspect the "white" wrap over the bales you're seeing is a plastic sleeve and not net wrap. There are disadvantages using the sleeving too.

Best way to store your hay over the winter is in a hay barn. Again, ag college studies indicate pay back for building a hay barn is only a couple of years gained from not losing 10 to 30% of your hay to rot.

 

[johndeerefarmer]

I have JD coveredge netwrap on mine. I stack them end to end on a bed of gravel. The gravel is about 4" deep. With netwrap their is next to no waste on the top or sides and the gravel keeps them from sinking in the mud. We used pallets but found (that even if they were free) they were too much trouble. They do fall apart after a year or two and you will be picking up scattered pieces all across the hay pens and fields

 

[angus9259]

I'm wanting to get away from tarps. Looking at putting up a 3 sided barn. I'm interested in the approach of one bale on end with another on top. May try that.

Re: pallets - they are a pain. I've gone to landscape timbers. They're cheap (not as cheap as free pallets obviously), don't rot, and are easy to pop out of the frozen ground with a hammer.

 

[dun]

I'm wanting to get away from tarps. Looking at putting up a 3 sided barn. I'm interested in the approach of one bale on end with another on top. May try that.

Re: pallets - they are a pain. I've gone to landscape timbers. They're cheap (not as cheap as free pallets obviously), don't rot, and are easy to pop out of the frozen ground with a hammer.

I just use 4 inches of 2 inch rock, that way I don;t have to mess with getting things lined up on the pallets or timbers.

 

[SRBeef]

After getting a years worth of experience (this is my second season at this) I would strongly recommend the idea of wrapping bales. The idea of sleeves is mentioned in a post above. I tried the sleeves and they are a nightmare as far as getting them to fit, time to install and are not tight. I have also compared netwrap (not white plastic but std netwrap) and string and find almost no visible difference in bale condition by spring in my climate - both had a lot of waste.

Once you get the hang of this wrapping and a system of handling wrapping goes very quickly. I also find that if you put enough wraps tight enough, the bales sitting on sloping ground (not in a low spot where rain will sit) seem to last about as well as the bales I set on pallets.

Here is a picture from the other day. These are very dense 5 wide x 6ft diameter and weigh 1500-1600lb each:

The other thing I have found helps is to wrap the bales as soon as you can after they come out of the field. Last year the bales sat on the ground for 2 months before I bought a wrapper and had significant mold already on the bottoms before wrapping. Freshly baled they should be drier all around and more round. Flattened bales tend to not last as long as the round ones.

jmho and WI experience. Jim

 

[johndeerefarmer]

Questions:

If you are going to wrap them in plastic why spend the extra buck to put them in netwrap? Why not use twine? It can't be that you are in a hurry because if you have time to wrap every bale with plastic then you have plenty of time.

Which brings me to my second question: How long does it take to wrap one?

What does it cost per bale?


So if the plastic is airtight, the bale stops the drying process as soon as it wrapped? So it's not haylage but it's not fully cured hay either.




Thanks

 

[SRBeef]

Questions:

If you are going to wrap them in plastic why spend the extra buck to put them in netwrap? Why not use twine? It can't be that you are in a hurry because if you have time to wrap every bale with plastic then you have plenty of time.

Which brings me to my second question: How long does it take to wrap one?

What does it cost per bale?

So if the plastic is airtight, the bale stops the drying process as soon as it wrapped? So it's not haylage but it's not fully cured hay either.

I'll try to answer your questions:

1. I purchase all of my winter hay. I do not have the time, equipment or acres to bale my own. Netwrap is what my regular and very good supplier uses, I assume because it is faster in the field. He occasionally uses plastic twine for some of his other customers. I have bought a few of those bales also and for my purposes I see no difference so I'll take whatever he chooses to use, which is usually netwrap for speed.

2. It takes me about 2 minutes additional time to wrap, maybe 3 minutes.

3. With the open ends it is obviously not haylage nor is it airtight. I have found it works better to put a couple extra wraps on the OD (from what the instructions say) and stretch it tight to prevent most ground water from coming in on the bottom and rain from coming in at the top.

Is it fully cured hay? Well it has been several days since baled by the time I pick them up and wrap them. This has been a very difficult year to get hay dry in Wisconsin. I went back and forth between packing the bales tight end to end vs leaving a space and in the end took my neighbors advice and left about a foot between bales so they can breathe.

As far as cost, the machine cost about $2300. the plastic is about $2 to $3 per bale depending on how much I use. If we say the life of the machine is 5 years and amortize that at about 100 bales/year then the machine cost is about $5/bale or with plastic about $7 or $8/bale total not counting my time and the tractor which would be moving the bales anyway.

I have found that in my climate the wrapping saves a lot of hay in the outer foot of the bale by springtime. At the cost of good hay and since a large portion of the hay in a round bale is in the outer foot and since I don't have the space nor money to build a big enough building which sits empty half the year the wrapping pencils out well for me.

These are just in my specific situation. I'm sure in Texas the idea of not having room to build a hay storage building sounds absurd but in my hills and small farm it is not.

Hope this answers your questions. Jim

 

[johndeerefarmer]

Thanks for the responses.

I guess I didn't look at your wrapper close enough, the ones that I have seen wrap the entire bale not just the sides - that is why I asked about the bale drying in the plastic. I have also saw some that wrap a continuous row of bales.

Most balers that I know charge $1.00 or so less for twine but i I guess if you buy 100 a year, it's not gonna break you one way or the other but being of German and Black Dutch ancestry it's my heritage to be frugal.
Most of mine are currently stored on gravel but I do have one hay barn 50 x 60'. It's just that most of it is taken up by my John Deere stuff. With John Deere cover-edge net wrap, the waste on the top and sides is less than 1/4". This is coastal bermuda which has fine stems and sheds the water lot's better than the coarse Sudan/Sorghums. It does rain quite a bit here (36" on average annual rainfall) and waste on the bottom can be as much as 3-4". The bed of gravel takes that down to very little. I am mainly going to build a new barn to store hay for droughts. When I make bales for the barn I will use twine because its cheaper.

The plastic wrap idea sound fine, I just don't want to have to take the time to stop and wrap each one. Krone makes a baler/wrapper as one unit that completely wraps the bale with plastic but I am sure it is high dollar.

Anyhow, thanks again

 

[SRBeef]

The wrappers that wrap the whole bale must spin the bale about two axes and are therefore much more complex and expensive. This is simple and relatively low cost compared to the other options.

Twine may cost less than netwrap to buy the material but I think if your supplier looked into the time difference netwrap may still come out lower total cost than twine. Or so I've been told.

I would love to have a gravel bed under the bales but again that sucks up a lot of ground space year round, maybe worse than a building where bales can be stacked.

My cattle graze my hay storage area a couple times during the summer when there are few bales left (those are off limits with a hot wire around them). As you might expect, the forage there is very good. You are welcome.

Jim