We are redoing our hay storage rooms and I am looking for ideas on flooring. Concrete and rubber mats sweat around here, and we don’t want the hassle of putting pallets or wood strips down under the hay. What do you have for hay room floors that you like?
Plastic tarps under the hay bales so that they can’t suck moisture up out of the concrete or gravel or whatever they’re stacked on.
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I put pallets down and then screwed 3/4" plywood on top; made a nice, stable, easy to walk on floor–also easy to sweep before stacking the next year’s load. I sealed up the open edge into the barn aisle with boards. Rabbits, skunks can dig under the barn siding and get under the pallets, but cannot get into the barn aisle/rest of the barn, and the skunks cannot spray–no room for those tails to go up, in fact since I put the plywood down, haven’t had an issue with skunks at all.
I have had pallets down for 15yrs.
They cover a 12X24 space along one wall of my barn & store 300 45-50# small squares - my year’s worth.
I don’t find them a hassle, worst part is lifting them each Spring when hay supply is at lowest to sweep out the fines.
These have aged sitting on my dirt-floored barn & become compost for my vegetable garden.
Chore takes me maybe 2 days, 1hr/day, depending on how lazy I am.
I have yet to lose a bottom layer bale to mold.
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A good tarp on the bottom, bagged shavings bales, positioned so that air can flow freely around them, topped with lightweight fencing panels. I set it up every year. As the hay gets used, I pick up the fence panels, store them and use the shavings to bed the stalls, and I sweep up the leftover hay that’s fallen onto the tarp. Easy to put up, easy to take down, easy to clean, and usually no moldy hay bales.
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I have a raised plywood floor over a 2x4 grid, plywood sealed on the edges as described above. Pallets with plywood would work similarly. Very even, easy surface to maintain. Never have had mold issues. The inside of my barn is not sealed in this area, so I just have tarps lining the walls in the hay storage area.
Our trouble here with any set-up that has room under the hay is we get mice and rattlers come to the mice buffet.
We have that problem as is in any hay, just multiplied if we give mice a nice home under there as such would be.
Rattlers may not be a big problem where the OP is?
No rattlers (or few if any by me–too high in altitude)
Nice that.
OP is in western Washington. There aren’t any venomous snakes native to this area. :yes:
I wonder if you did concrete and coated it with epoxy? I have 2 hay storage areas, one has plain concrete with pallets and the bottom row of hay all molded. The other with the epoxy coating and pallets, I have never had any mold. IDK about putting hay directly on concrete though.
Thank you for “venomous” versus “poisonous” :yes:
My feed room has plywood over concrete raised up a few inches, making a false floor. Pallets on that. Granted I don’t buy that much hay at a time, at the most a ton, which is gone pretty quick (go through a 120# bale in about three maybe four feedings, 16-18 bales per ton). For future me, I like the pallet/plywood false floor the best thus far. Fines fall thru the pallets and just fill in, and with the false floor off the concrete, no moisture. It’s been very nice. [ATTACH=JSON]{“data-align”:“none”,“data-size”:“large”,“data-attachmentid”:10518864}[/ATTACH]
