Fresh cut & baled hay, how long before feeding to horses?

[barnmonkey]

@barnmonkey;2285291

WE always wait 5-6 weeks. I would not feed," green" uncured hay!!!
http://horsecare.stablemade.com/articles2/hay_uncured.htm

Well I’ve typed my fingers to the nub searching on Google, trying to prove my point and I can’t. It seems that letting hay sit in a bale to cure for a 4 to 5 weeks is an, “old wives tale”.

Except that the end of May 2003, the rainiest year in 100 years here, I put up, on the home farm, 4700 bales total of first cutting, alfalfa, alfalfa-orchard mix and straight orchard grass hay. The highest moisture reading on any of the hay was 15%. It then proceeded to rain for 12 of the next 15 days. The hay’s temperature throughout this time was ambient. After 15 days the hay started to heat up!! After 3 weeks it was maw burnt. I talked to local folks around here that had the same thing happen to them that same year.

If my ability to see the future had been working better, I would have taken this correctly cured hay to the auction right off the wagons.

I submit that new, correct, low percentage moisture hay, goes through a phase in it’s curing when it is more susceptible then fully cured hay to external ambient moisture.

I have NO science to base this on other then my nose. I can smell new hay, hay thats only a week or two old. It smells, “green”. I was taught not to feed, “green” hay.

I’ve had hay that sweats a little on the first day in the barn then never again. I’ve had it sit for a week ambient, then sweat for a couple days, then cool right off. Very variable cutting to cutting, depending on the heat and humidity. But I’ve NEVER had it not sweat in the bale.

I’m just a hard head I guess, I’m still going to wait to feed new hay

[Tamara_in_TN]

@barnmonkey;2285291

WE always wait 5-6 weeks. I would not feed," green" uncured hay!!!
http://horsecare.stablemade.com/articles2/hay_uncured.htm

and from the same website a warning not to use epsom salts,trace mineral salt blocks and other such things :yes:

http://horseproducts.stablemade.com/junk.htm

        Tamara in TN

[Tamara_in_TN]

[QUOTE=barnmonkey;2287606]

I submit that new, correct, low percentage moisture hay, goes through a phase in it’s curing when it is more susceptible then fully cured hay to external ambient moisture.
QUOTE]

   all hay will suffer from the affects of too much moisture in the air...it will be harder to penetrate a denser compressed bale but they too will turn "off" in the right weather...take hay from Kartina Hurricane area...it took a month but all the hay stocks were rotted and it was not matter as to when they were baled....

   Tamara in TN

[barnmonkey]

@Tamara in TN;2287626

and from the same website a warning not to use epsom salts,trace mineral salt blocks and other such things :yes:

http://horseproducts.stablemade.com/junk.htm

Tamara in TN

Yea your right. I didn’t look before I leaped when I picked that site!! :o

[Tamara_in_TN]

[QUOTE=barnmonkey;2287606]

Except that the end of May 2003, the rainiest year in 100 years here, I put up, on the home farm, 4700 bales total of first cutting, alfalfa, alfalfa-orchard mix and straight orchard grass hay. QUOTE]

  it would be interesting to note what sort of super conditioner you ran on the hay...we had brought  a macerator from Canada to deal with the waxy stems...once we cracked those, we left more moisture in the field quicker than with the 990 JD alone...

     Tamara in TN

[Tom_King]

I had never heard of “sweating out” hay either. I didn’t think that you did. It came from the linked “expert” site. I called the guy I buy hay from. He thought it was the funniest thing he had ever heard.

[Tom_King]

I’ll bet if the snake oil horse tour guys got ahold of this one they could invent a gizmo to test for proper hay sweating and sell it for a good price.

[indyblue]

I feed out the hay straight after baled and havent had a problem.I think its common sense not to feed moist ,warm hay that hasnt been let to dry probally.As long as its dry its fine as far as Im concerned.

[Karosel]

[QUOTE=vanheimrhorses;2285947]
hay has to sweat out first after being baled, we usually let it stand two days on the baling wagon if possible before putting it in the loft, hay gets hot if stacked close together right away after cutting and its not good to feed to a horse when its in a hot stage, I would wait at least a week to feed newly baled hay, round baled hay is looser and has air pockets so it can be fed right away[/QUOTE]

I’m not trying to pick on you… but your hay should never get hot. ever. if it is you are witnessing the spoiling process. Heat is produced when microorganisms ferment the sugars in damp hay. I am interested where you learned this? Perhaps you are from a overseas?

And I have never heard the term ‘sweat out’ hay before. So I made a call home to the ‘old man’ - a cranky old farmer and asked him if he had ever heard the term. He hasn’t either and agreed (along with a alot of the other posters) hay isnt supposed to heat up after being baled, if is then it was either baled too soon, or a thick spot was baled up.

He also mentioned how loose hay used have salt sprinkled on it to help pull the moisture out of the air in humid weather and away from the loose hay. Some people now even sprinkle salt on thier layers of square bales as they stack it to keep the atmospheric moisture from “soaking” into the square. Squares are such a pain - big sponges for moisture!

[TripleRipple]

Here in central Oregon, I usually expect to see a first cutting & baled product in June if the weather is very cooperative; otherwise early July. I heard a rumor of a May cutting in Idaho somewhere, but never confirmed it.

I agree with Tamara. The only hay I have been unable to feed out right away was not baled correctly - whether from stupidity (local people who are not hay farmers trying to make a bit of cash on the side from something they THINK is easy) or the weather catches good hay guys off guard, or they have to do the best they can given our freakish hail/rain/sunshine/rapid temp change high desert climate. But for that matter, this has been true since I laid eyes on horses while I was a small child, so 50 years now, between my parents horses/livestock and mine.

Last year, some of our round bales were potentially “hot” - we left them at the ranchers for two months to make sure they didn’t spontaneously combust and cause a wildfire. He uses no fancy equipment and sometimes makes “mistakes”; however, these are for the cows and work fine. But he knew he baled them too wet, and at least said something to dh, who knew better than to risk our land over that. But generally, his round bales aren’t loose and filled with air - I have never heard of that. Like everyone else with cattle, we stack them up, one on top of another, in large rows in our cow field. They don’t squish down at all.

Will be interested to find out where this hay is being “freshly” cut when you ask next week. Also interesting was that people can rebale rounds into squares - learned something new there.

ETA: those round bales didn’t need a whole two months to ensure they wouldn’t combust. But it didn’t hurt either, and having put out our own lightening fire on a ridge, I am a bi**h regarding wet hay of any sort.

[Fairview_Horse_Cente]

I am in Virginia, and my hay growers won’t be able to get hay to cure properly until mid to late May at the earliest. My favorite grower cut early June, and he had wonderful hay. Unfortunately, he does not sell any as his cows use it all.

[barnmonkey]

[quote=Tamara in TN;2287650]

it would be interesting to note what sort of super conditioner you ran on the hay…we had brought a macerator from Canada to deal with the waxy stems…once we cracked those, we left more moisture in the field quicker than with the 990 JD alone…

Tamara in TN

Just a John Deere 926 w steel flails. Seems to work good on the grass, hard to calibrate for the alfalfa, sometimes to much or to little conditioning. We only make about 32 acres here and another 100 acres of grass on a neighboring farm. Just making hay for ourselves and selling a little surplus, if we have it. Definitely small potatoes.

After the never ending rains of 2003, it seemed like we kept losing one cutting after another that needed just an hour or two more sun. Neighbors would joke that they knew not to wash their cars because we had dropped our hay!!:no: So in 05 we installed an acid sprayer on the baler. While as I’m sure you know it’s not miracle juice, in the two years we’ve been using it we have saved three cuttings.

Man, I had a chance to look at your website , awesome operation, a lot of work and a major investment.

[glitterless]

…

If we need to, we feed ours the same day. But usually we’ve got enough left form the year before that if we’re feeding hay at haying time we’ll just use up what’s left first.

[barnmonkey]

@Tom King;2287707

I had never heard of “sweating out” hay either. I didn’t think that you did. It came from the linked “expert” site. I called the guy I buy hay from. He thought it was the funniest thing he had ever
heard.

Now you can say you heard of it. Don’t be so mean dude.:yes:

http://209.85.165.104/search?q=cache:vuXq0VnxXFMJ:www.omafra.gov.on.ca/english/crops/facts/preventing.htm+hay+cure+sweat&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=4&gl=us

http://209.85.165.104/search?q=cache:fyUD6OFqCAwJ:www.cropcure.com/baled_alfalfa_hay.html+hay+cure+sweat&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=2&gl=us

http://209.85.165.104/search?q=cache:7d3Pp6PWg58J:ces.ca.uky.edu/green/anr/Images/Hay%20Storage%202003%20Collins.pdf+hay+curing+sweat&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=8&gl=us

http://209.85.165.104/search?q=cache:cOO6qJZKVhwJ:www.gov.mb.ca/agriculture/crops/forages/bjc01s01.html+hay+curing+sweat&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=21&gl=us

[Tom_King]

Eating lunch in the town where we get feed from today I ran into a couple of other farmers who grow hay. Neither had ever heard or “sweating out” hay. I guess it’s done differently in different parts of the country but around here any hay that would have to undergo that process is called “cow hay”. The farmers’ prices for cow hay is $15 or $20 a bale for cow hay and $30 for horse hay. Same rolls, just different baling conditions. They try real hard to produce horse hay but it doesn’t always work out.

[Tamara_in_TN]

@Tom King;2290601

They try real hard to produce horse hay but it doesn’t always work out.

hay does go thru changes as it goes from loose product to a baled compacted form…the controlling the changes from outside is what the farmer is responsible for…

                   too drastic a change and it "must go thru a sweat" which was nothing more than the old timers way of making sure it did not rot..something that never happened in loose hay mows in the big barns of the 1930's....

        if you are able to keep a pinpoint eye on this (we do it with computers and 10 years of adjusting things daily :lol: ) you can fare better and lose less hay....

               as a "did you know" for hay growers/buyers...did you know that in the hours before sunset even on a [B]dry sunny august day [/B]the moisture of the hay on the ground can go from 11% up to 16 or 18% in matter of 30 minutes ?  :yes: that even a tiny dip in a field can hold moisture up to 20% days after a field is dry...the solution for this is to pinpoint the dip and rake the  hay up to the higher elevation even if that elevation is just inches ??? :yes: :yes: 

      anyway more than you wanted to know about hay I am sure !!!

  Tamara in TN

[barnmonkey]

@Tamara in TN;2291606

as a “did you know” for hay growers/buyers…did you know that in the hours before sunset even on a dry sunny august day the moisture of the hay on the ground can go from 11% up to 16 or 18% in matter of 30 minutes ? :yes: that even a tiny dip in a field can hold moisture up to 20% days after a field is dry…the solution for this is to pinpoint the dip and rake the hay up to the higher elevation even if that elevation is just inches ??? :yes: :yes:
Tamara in TN

So true, another example. On our third cutting alfalfa last year, we stopped baling when the moisture dropped below 9% around 2:00 pm , ( a first for me what with Maryland’s notorious Aug. humidity). Started baling again around 5:30pm , moisture around 12-15%. Had about 25 bales to go and as soon as that piece of field went into shade, not 20 minutes…BOOM…38%!!! Choked the tractor right down. Sat those high moisture bales off to the side, thinking they’d never keep, but they did. Yet another, for me, lesson learned, ( one that the out west guys who can bale in the dark have always known) dew moisture isn’t as large a problem as stem moisture, stem moisture is what the old guys around here call, “tough hay”.

One of the gifted hay making farmers in my area told me that when his sons where little, ( to small to throw bales, so they drove the baler) the way he would teach them to know when the hay was ready to bale and when to stop because of dew, ( the old, “make hay while the sun shines!!”) was to hook the baler to a smaller tractor, in this case a 4 cylinder John Deere 3020. If the baler was on their larger 6 cylinder 4020 tractors it would just bog down a little, whereas with the smaller 3020 tractor, the tough hay would stall it. What you would call a 4 cylinder moisture tester.

[Karosel]

[QUOTE=Tamara in TN;2291606]

               as a "did you know" for hay growers/buyers...did you know that in the hours before sunset even on a [B]dry sunny august day [/B]the moisture of the hay on the ground can go from 11% up to 16 or 18% in matter of 30 minutes ?  :yes: that even a tiny dip in a field can hold moisture up to 20% days after a field is dry...the solution for this is to pinpoint the dip and rake the  hay up to the higher elevation even if that elevation is just inches ??? :yes: :yes: 

      [/QUOTE]

:yes: Yep, another thing the old man taught me. And why we always rake certain fields in a particular direction. And if we’re not done baling before the evening and there is no risk of rain we will finish the next morning.

[SGray]

oooooh - love the educational material guys!

[apprider]

[QUOTE=Sentry Chick;2286277]

I must say, I have never heard of this practice before in my life. Seems to be kinda wasteful IMO. Why on earth would a busy farmer want to bale hay twice???[/QUOTE]

Many people don’t have the equipment to handle large round bales and only want the small squares (specailly horse folks). I’ve seen it done to large squares as well.