High Moisture Hay

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Banker729

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:help: I have a problem on my hands. We have a hay crew mow, rake and bale our hay; been the same crew for a few years now. I'm not sure what the heck went on, but i got our hay home this weekend and noticed some of the bales seemed warm and wet. I bought a moisture/temp probe. All 135 round bales of fescue & brome are 25%+ moisture and some are off the charts on the probe (it maxes out at 45%). The majority are probably in the 30-40% range. Please fire off with what you would do with the three ranges of high moisture hay.

20-29%
30-39%
40%+

I am thinking about making haylage out of the 30% and higher ones but have absolutely no clue what to do with the ones under 30%...

Thank you in advance, and I know... the hay crew needs dealt with but that is another day. I need to deal with high moisture hay right now.
 
you can make baleage out of all that hay if you can get it wrapped asap.because dry hay is under 15% moisture.on a bad note you could end up loosing all the haydue to rotting and or catching on fire from heating up.
 
Banker729":1d42zhp6 said:
:help: I have a problem on my hands. We have a hay crew mow, rake and bale our hay; been the same crew for a few years now. I'm not sure what the heck went on, but i got our hay home this weekend and noticed some of the bales seemed warm and wet. I bought a moisture/temp probe. All 135 round bales of fescue & brome are 25%+ moisture and some are off the charts on the probe (it maxes out at 45%). The majority are probably in the 30-40% range. Please fire off with what you would do with the three ranges of high moisture hay.

20-29%
30-39%
40%+

I am thinking about making haylage out of the 30% and higher ones but have absolutely no clue what to do with the ones under 30%...

Thank you in advance, and I know... the hay crew needs dealt with but that is another day. I need to deal with high moisture hay right now.
Click to expand...

I admit to living in a different part of the world, but it would be too late up here to wrap - the damage is done.

I am assuming it has been baled for at least 48 hours now.

We make a frigging lot of wrapped hay - hundreds of bales for sheep feed. It has to be high quality as any mould can give them listeriosis - and I am only 50 - 50 in saving them if they get it.

Wrap it now and there will still be enough oxygen in it to allow mould to grow. That oxygen needs to be killed off asap and I do not think you will be able to do it. Too late.

To make "wet hay" you need to wrap within 24 hours or the mould starts. Then you cannot do anything with it.

Once it is wrapped it needs to be moved from the field within 24 hours or left untouched for about 3 weeks to a month.

Our recipe for making wrapped hay is to bale it between 25 and 40% - add one kilo (2.2 pounds) of dry preservative per tonne (2200 pounds) and wrap it and stack it immediately.

Any hay we wrapped outside 24 hours has gone mouldy.

You say it is already heating - so the process is in play and there is SFA you can do to stop it now.

How long has it been sitting?

Any preservative in it? The hay under 25% might be salavageable if it has a decent amount of wet or dry preservative added. Anything over that in my opinion is defintely toast. The 25% and under might have some salageable if you store it and salt it heavy - I am assuming big bales - so you will need "pounds" of salt per bale - not a couple cups per bale - and even that is a crap shoot. One thing I can guarantee you is that under 25% will smell - almost stink when you feed it out and it will be a brown grey colour. The animals will eat it but they will not like it - and you will have a lot of dust in it.

As I am not there I am only telling you what it is like here in my part of the world.

But around here when it comes to wrapping hay we use this saying as the rule: "Beat the heat!"

Otherwise it is too late.

Time to create a bit of havoc with the folks who did this for you.

Bez__
 
Bez--- Why should he be on the internet and listen to a complete stranger like you? He should check with his University people or county agent.
You could be leading him in a totally wrong direction. This was your advice to me a while back. When you were such a smart as-. Do you
know what country he is from or what region????
 
Don McCallum":m539ls9n said:
Bez--- Why should he be on the internet and listen to a complete stranger like you? He should check with his University people or county agent.
You could be leading him in a totally wrong direction. This was your advice to me a while back. When you were such a smart as-. Do you
know what country he is from or what region????
Click to expand...

Howdy Hick!

Actually he does not have to listen to me - I was just being nice and passing along what I know

But you are exactly correct - that would be some good info to pass on and I completely forgot - will try not to forget again and thanks for reminding me that I should have added that in.

He does not have to listen to me - I had nothing to do so I wrote it up like I would talk to my neighbour over a fence with a coffee.

As for the region - that is why I mentioned that I am from a different area than he likely is.

I notice he has not come back on to even say what he might do - so he is likely a one or two hit wonder - we get lots of them.

However in this case if his side of the conversation is correct, I would be willing to bet you a coffee that my info is pretty spot on - again - at least for my area - and that is what I made sure he knew.

Hope you do not mind, I thank you for the reminder on the expert guys in his region as I am sure they would have a forage person or two in his area and hope you have a great day.

Best to you and to your family

Bez__
 
Bez__":p2ltfnho said:
Don McCallum":p2ltfnho said:
Bez--- Why should he be on the internet and listen to a complete stranger like you? He should check with his University people or county agent.
You could be leading him in a totally wrong direction. This was your advice to me a while back. When you were such a smart as-. Do you
know what country he is from or what region????
Click to expand...

Howdy Hick!

Actually he does not have to listen to me - I was just being nice and passing along what I know

But you are exactly correct - that would be some good info to pass on and I completely forgot - will try not to forget again and thanks for reminding me that I should have added that in.

He does not have to listen to me - I had nothing to do so I wrote it up like I would talk to my neighbour over a fence with a coffee.

As for the region - that is why I mentioned that I am from a different area than he likely is.

I notice he has not come back on to even say what he might do - so he is likely a one or two hit wonder - we get lots of them.

However in this case if his side of the conversation is correct, I would be willing to bet you a coffee that my info is pretty spot on - again - at least for my area - and that is what I made sure he knew.

Hope you do not mind, I thank you for the reminder on the expert guys in his region as I am sure they would have a forage person or two in his area and hope you have a great day.

Best to you and to your family

Bez__
Click to expand...

One Hit Wonder here... I haven't responded because I am not sure what we are going to do yet. We have a wrap guy on standby, a call into K-State, a call into our extension office, and are sorting bales today into % moisture groups. I appreciate people taking the time to respond. Unfotunately, I am fairly certain that this hay crop is a waste. We will probably try to feed the low 20s stuff but the rest of it is probably going to be expensive erosion control. Too little too late seems to be the consensus from quite a few folks...
 
Banker729":342rftmc said:
One Hit Wonder here... I haven't responded because I am not sure what we are going to do yet. We have a wrap guy on standby, a call into K-State, a call into our extension office, and are sorting bales today into % moisture groups. I appreciate people taking the time to respond. Unfotunately, I am fairly certain that this hay crop is a waste. We will probably try to feed the low 20s stuff but the rest of it is probably going to be expensive erosion control. Too little too late seems to be the consensus from quite a few folks...
Click to expand...
Don't give up on it too quickly. Wait and see what you end up with but by all means keep it stored outside. I'd have the man that did the baling come over and IF he has a moisture tester have him test it himself rather than have to take your word for it. Hope you're able to salvage something out of it. Best wishes.
 
Banker, I would ask him to test it himself like Texasbred said. It sounds like he makes part of his lively hood by bailing for others.
He should be the professional in this area, but this could have been done by some of his help. He doesn't want to have a bad
reputation in the area. I feel like he will help you, but you cannot always be sure about people.
Bez__ , I don't know about the hick word that you used. I didn't choose to move out of the USA into the sticks in seclusion.
We all speak English here. Even the people that have moved here in the past 20 years. Some of them are bilingual.
 
Bez__ I have really enjoyed reading your post. You make a lot of very good points.

Have a great day, and my best to you.
 
When was it baled? If it's not rotten yet, and you can get it wrapped I would do it.
I've done it 5 days out with good results. The sooner the better of course.
 
Well we made some decisions today... We probed all 135 bales a half dozen times each. We flagged them in 3 groups. 18% or less. 19-27%. 28%+.

The 18% or less are going in the barn.
The 19-27% are staying outside and spaced out. Will be unrolled when fed.
28%+ are going to be sold for erosion control.
Everything 19%+ will be considered for K-States option if they come up with something, but pretty sure the game is over. They have been baled for 14 days now.

I appreciate everyone's input and obviously we will be taking a more active role with the baling decisions in the future.
 
Hope everything works out well for you. What did the man say that did the baling or have you had a chance to visit with him??
 
TexasBred":3fiz1g5y said:
Hope everything works out well for you. What did the man say that did the baling or have you had a chance to visit with him??
Click to expand...

We have not been able to catch up yet. We did talk on the phone and let him know what the situation was and that we wanted them to come check out these bales in person with us. Working a day job and living off the farm can sure make times like these tough.
 

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