Wet Hay

[novatech]

On another board there has been a very long debate about how to bale wet or green hay. I brought up chemical treatment,preservitive. Well in all honesty I have no clue weather this stuff works or not.
Does anyone have any first hand knowledge about this stuff?
Do you apply it to wet hay or is for just in case it gets wet?
Is it to used for hay that is baled before it is dry enough?
Does it really work?
Is it economically feasable?
Is there a web site you would suggest I go to?

 

[bigbull338]

On another board there has been a very long debate about how to bale wet or green hay. I brought up chemical treatment,preservitive. Well in all honesty I have no clue weather this stuff works or not.
Does anyone have any first hand knowledge about this stuff?
Do you apply it to wet hay or is for just in case it gets wet?
Is it to used for hay that is baled before it is dry enough?
Does it really work?
Is it economically feasable?
Is there a web site you would suggest I go to?

ive never used chemicals to dry or preserve hay.nor have i ever used a tedder to turn hay.but if your baling real green or high moisture hay.the best thing todo is have a baler wrappper wrapping the hay as you bale.thus making baleage.

 

[Rangenerd]

The dry chemicals that I have been around allow you to bale hay with a higher moisture content without your bales heating or molding. But, you are only looking at a 5% to 6% increase in hay moisture. Any more moisture and it will still cause you problems. I don't think it is worth the money.

 

[pdfangus]

I agree with bigbull.

find someone to wrap it for you. this is often easier said than done on short notice though.

We have one neighbor who has a wrapping table but our bales are too big for his table.

another neighbor has a continuous wrap sausage maker wrapper but he is pretty far from us has to move a lot of equipmnet to do the work

 

[dun]

nor have i ever used a tedder to turn hay.

You haven;t lived till you ted hay in a high wind with an ioen station tractor

dun

 

[The Bachelor]

nor have i ever used a tedder to turn hay.

You haven;t lived till you ted hay in a high wind with an ioen station tractor

dun

 

[novatech]

Thanks for the responses.

But what the heck is an "ioen station tractor"
Google don,t even know

 

[farmerjohn]

Thanks for the responses.

But what the heck is an "ioen station tractor"
Google don,t even know

he means open station

 

[farmerjohn]

I am looking into preservatives myself

http://www.harvesttec.com/john/

 

[Herefordcross]

preservative works great, check out hay gard, you use much less 2lb./ton dry 1lb./ ton high moisture bale dry up to 30% we've baled dry as high as 40% and had no mold issues.

 

[farmerjohn]

I tried google for hay gard and got hay tarps? Do you have a link or a different spelling?

 

[dun]

I tried google for hay gard and got hay tarps? Do you have a link or a different spelling?

And they are excellent tarps! They can breathe and the hay smells the same when you uncover a bale as it did when you tarped it.

 

[millstreaminn]

On another board there has been a very long debate about how to bale wet or green hay. I brought up chemical treatment,preservitive. Well in all honesty I have no clue weather this stuff works or not.
Does anyone have any first hand knowledge about this stuff?
Do you apply it to wet hay or is for just in case it gets wet?
Is it to used for hay that is baled before it is dry enough?
Does it really work?
Is it economically feasable?
Is there a web site you would suggest I go to?

I don't have first hand knowledge of hay preservative but my buddy tried it a few years back. As I recall Agriking had a granular product, looked like sawdust that was applied to the bale chamber with a gandy box. Buddy bought the gandy, drilled holes in his new baler and tried the product. Baled 1,000 small squares with the preservative, 4000 without. He removed the whole system the following spring. As I recall he said the product was too expensive for the gain of a few points of moisture. I have a hay dryer in the barn so I never tried the preservative myself for small squares.

 

[Chuckie]

We have to run the tedder here. The humidity from the ground keeps the underside wet and it looks as if you had just cut it. We run it the day after we cut it, just as the dew is drying off ,so that the top side will maintain the leaves. The dampness from the dew will make the leaves supple enough to hang on to the stem.
Chuckie