Can hay be stored directly on concrete?

[gahorseygal]

The big day is almost here! Saturday we will officially own 2 horses. I’m looking to store about about a months worth of hay in our workshop. It’s a 30x40 metal building with insulated walls and ceiling on a concrete floor. However there is a large roll up door so it’s not truly regulated as it can get quite hot or cold in the building. The hay will be fairly close to this roll up door. It has tall ceilings, I think they are just over 19 feet.

Can we stack the hay right on the concrete? Or is it better to use wood pallets and stack on those?

The workshop has a back room for my husbands wood working stuff, but we do have storage up front where the hay will be and in the loft. I also plan on storing my tack in the opposite corner from the hay. Would there be any reason to tarp the hay? Should I plan on making tack lockers to help better protect my tack? We have seen mice in there, but plan on getting two barn cats from our local barn cat program once we put in a cat door.

Any thoughts would be appreciated!

[2DogsFarm]

Stack bales off the floor.
Concrete can sweat from humidity & bales in direct contact can mold.
You can use any sort of pallet, wood or plastic, or even just 2X4s - as long as bottommost bales are not touching the floor.
Some use a tarp between the concrete & pallets.

I store 300+ bales on wood pallets in my stonedust-floored barn.
Each Spring I lift the pallets & sweep out the fines that sift down. These sweepings are damp, but rarely show any sign of mold.
Air circulating between pallets & floor keeps my hay free of mold.
In 15yrs I can count on one hand the bottom bales I have discarded as potentially moldy.

Expect your tack to get hella dusty being stored near hay. Covers help, but the dust seems to filter through anyhow.

Also be aware that stored hay can be a fire hazard.
If your husband will be working with any tools that can spark or give off heat they need to be faaaaaar away from your hay!

[js]

We do but we live in the desert with very low humidity. When we lived in the southeast we did not. We tried pallets but didn’t like them because it made a nice home for attracting critters so we ended up putting plywood on the concrete and stacking hay on it.

[Guilherme]

You can, but you will likely lose all or part of the bottom layer of bales.

Better practice is to stack on wooden pallets. Stack loosely to encourage air movement. No need to tarp and it’s usually a bad idea because if your climate is at all damp you can get condensation under the tarp and that will facilitate mold. One time you might want rid a tarp is if you have birds nesting in the barn, like swallows. That can cost you the top layer of bales due to bird guano contamination. You can suspend a tarp above the bales, leaving a generous space for air. Or run the birds off, your choice.

Do you have electricity and is your climate at all damp? If so, then set you tack area up such that you can enclose it and put in a dehumidifier. You will save a lot of time and money on tack cleaning that way!

Good luck!

G.

[Bluey]

We have for decades and have yet to lose any hay to that.
You turn the bottom bales on their side, then the rest of the stack flat.

We are in the semi-desert, but also have humid times, like today, has been raining all night and will all day.

If we would use pallets, that would be a mice palace and rattlers would come to the mice buffet, more than they do now, not a good idea at all for us.

I think you should ask people where you are, see what their experience with hay storage is.
Ask feed stores, ask about names of customers that could tell you what works best for them.

[Zu_Zu]

on pallets and knowing you still may lose the bottom layer during certain seasons ~

Enjoy your new horses !!

[Calvincrowe]

It really depends on your location and hay type. I store my hay in our shop building that sounds a lot like your situation. We have wood pallets on the concrete, with plastic tarps over them. I store 5-6 tons of orchard and haven’t had an issue with mold on my bottom bales in 16 years. And my area is damp damp damp!! I’d put down pallets for sure.

[clanter]

@Bluey

We have for decades and have yet to lose any hay to that.
You turn the bottom bales on their side, then the rest of the stack flat.

.

that is just what we do also, nothing lost to-date. Feed, we do stack on the same feed pallets the feed store use, we just bought some from them as they are plastic and sized for the bags

[Madhouse]

How to store hay should be a taboo topic on this forum… It’s almost as polarizing as politics!

Time, climate, temperature-change and hay quality have a great affect on your stored hay. You either need space (i.e. pallets) or a vapor barrier (rubber or plastic) between any floor, albeit soil or concrete, and your hay.

[gahorseygal]

Sounds like pallets is a safe bet! Thank you all!

And 2DogsFarm - great point about the hay as a fire hazard! Thankfully we have a fully insulated/air conditioned room in the back of that shop that he is using for his wood working.

[Equibrit]

I have some I don’t need in N GA. pm if you want some.

[4horses]

We made our own wood pallets - a wooden frame with a solid piece of plywood on top, raised up 8 inches on wood legs. This keeps the hay high up off the ground with no hay loss even in wet humid Florida.

[clanter]

@gahorseygal

Sounds like pallets is a safe bet! Thank you all!

.

sort of as pallets are great for breaking ankles and or knee injuries

[millerra]

It really depends on your climate. We live where it gets cold (cough -35°F air temp this year) all the way up to >90°F. Concrete will sweat in the spring under these conditions and the hay will mold. If you don’t have long term temp swings and relatively low humidity most of the time, you can probably get away with it.

[Guilherme]

@Bluey

We have for decades and have yet to lose any hay to that.
You turn the bottom bales on their side, then the rest of the stack flat.

We are in the semi-desert, but also have humid times, like today, has been raining all night and will all day.

If we would use pallets, that would be a mice palace and rattlers would come to the mice buffet, more than they do now, not a good idea at all for us.

I think you should ask people where you are, see what their experience with hay storage is.
Ask feed stores, ask about names of customers that could tell you what works best for them.

I will admit that I’m coming from a place where we get 50+ inches of rain per year (and had 70" last year and are on a path to beat that record this year ). Concur on stacking practices.

G.

[BasqueMom]

we’ve always put on pallets. We got some plastic ones we really like now, left over from a special shipment of Centaur to Brazil who doesn’t accept wooden pallets. I’ve seen this type and wooden ones occasionally on Craigslist.

[candyappy]

You can use anything you want as a protective barrier between your hay and the concrete. You will need something because most any concrete will sweat if the conditions are right. The hay itself will soak up any moisture and you will lose all the bottom bales. Hay is too expensive for that waste.

A tarp would work as well as pallets or OSB board or even plywood but those will warp over time.

[Foxtrot_s]

We definitely need the air circulation around the bales … and we have to have rat eradication system in place!

[Scribbler]

OP is talking about storing one months supply of hay, though. That is different from a years supply. I still wouldn’t stack direct on concrete. It really is rather damp and porous. Unless it is summer in the desert.

Here in the PNW I stack direct on a wooden upstairs loft and also have to tarp tighly except in July & August or in a cold dry spell. My hay delivered in February is still untarped but that is unusual.

My hay needs to be tightly stacked as well or else anything exposed to air mildews. The hay inside is fine but sometimes I lose an end flake.

Our stalls and aisles that are concrete and ground level are sometimes sweating or damp all over in wet weather.

[jbonifas]

Just put down some loose hay then stack on end. My hay man refuses to deliver where there are pallets involved, too dangerous to work around so the loose hay goes under the bottom bales and I’ve never had any moldy hay and I’m in the humid south.