Hay barn questions......

[Vindicated]

Hoping to get my hay barn built before winter. I need to draw on the vast experience of CotH before I start drawing up plans/budget.

1. I would like it to have at least two open sides, to be enclosed by custom tarps. This is for ease of loading, ventilation & rotation of product.
   For structure strength I was thinking of closing the two short ends (where all of the roofing ties in.

2. Currently the area I am planning on building needs fill. Would it be smarter to build a level floor, so that I can have ventilation from the ground as well? If I do this, what should I use? Just lumber?

3. How big of a structure do I need to store 1100 75# bales.
   I can store 150 in my 10x16x10 hoop building, but I lose quite a bit of storage space due to the round top.

4. Any idea how to keep snakes out of a hay shed?

I will have more questions as I go.

[buck22]

On point #4, because I despise cutting into a bale in the middle of winter only to find a huge nest and riddled with mouse droppings and stinking of old pee - I invite all the snakes possible into my hay shed.

Good luck on your build! I love the idea of custom tarp sides for ease and air circulation.

[Vindicated]

[QUOTE=buck22;8236275]
On point #4, because I despise cutting into a bale in the middle of winter only to find a huge nest and riddled with mouse droppings and stinking of old pee - I invite all the snakes possible into my hay shed.

Good luck on your build! I love the idea of custom tarp sides for ease and air circulation.[/QUOTE]

Completely understand-however, given that my fear of snakes fare outweighs my dislike of mice…

And last year I found a freshly shed snakeskin on a top bale…

[gumtree]

#1, Not sure what you mean by “enclosed by custom tarps” I assume custom made tarp doors?

Can’t see why you would want to go with this instead of just putting up sliding doors. The hardware is not very expensive and the door are reasonably cheap and easy to build. They will easily out last any kind of “tarp” and never give any trouble in high wind.

#2 depends on how much “fill” is needed. Trucking in back fill, spreading and packing and or leveling an area is not cheap to do. It may be cheaper to build a “platform” built on post, kind of like a deck or pole barn with a floor engineered to hold the weight. You will need to do the “math”. Either way “pole” construction is the way to go. Not “stick framed” like a house.
If you level the ground you will still need to put something on top of the dirt, like used pallets or build a wood floor.

#3 more detail is needed. The overall size of a 75lb bale can differ depending on how it is made. The “math” is simple once you know the bale’s dimension.
If the bale is 3’high, by 3’ wide by 4’ long the volume is 36 sq feet. If your building is 20’ by 30’ and 10’ high the volume is 6000 square feet. 6000 divided by 36 equals 166.66666666 or just 167 bales. So that size structure would hold 167 bales of that dimension. But that is if all the bales are packed in tight. Realistically more like 150+.

Keep in mind that when hay is made the producer can set 2 things on the baler, length and weight. Height and width is “preset” on just about all balers. But the same “dimensional” bale can vary in weight. Hay should be bought by weight not by size. So you might want to “over size” the structure to make sure you can store what is needed by weight.

#4. On you own with that one. Never had to deal with “snakes on a plane” in my hay loft, storage.

[OTTBs]

Related hay storage question: if you have a cement floor and put pallets on it, do the bottom bales tend to get damp on the bottom side?

I had hay stored in my extra garage and this happened. I’m not sure if the building actually flooded for the hay to get wet, or if it’s a cement phenomenon. My hay that was in my attached garage did not have this problem, however that floor has a coating on it–epoxy? Looks like granite. I do know that the area in front of the other garage flooded and I purposely did NOT open the door while it was.

Today I was changing some of the extra garage to be pallet+plastic bags cut open+pallet and then put hay on top. Any experience with this helping? Figured it would stop any “cement effect” as well as get the hay higher in case it did flood.

[gumtree]

[QUOTE=OTTBs;8236843]
Related hay storage question: if you have a cement floor and put pallets on it, do the bottom bales tend to get damp on the bottom side?

I had hay stored in my extra garage and this happened. I’m not sure if the building actually flooded for the hay to get wet, or if it’s a cement phenomenon. My hay that was in my attached garage did not have this problem, however that floor has a coating on it–epoxy? Looks like granite. I do know that the area in front of the other garage flooded and I purposely did NOT open the door while it was.

Today I was changing some of the extra garage to be pallet+plastic bags cut open+pallet and then put hay on top. Any experience with this helping? Figured it would stop any “cement effect” as well as get the hay higher in case it did flood.[/QUOTE]

Concrete sweats. Even more so in high humidity. Due to ground contact its cooler than the surrounding humid air. Concrete that is poured over a thermal bridge like ridged foam insulation tends not to.

Interesting that the “coated” area didn’t or not as much. Maybe due to a different surface “tension”? Or the concrete in that area is exposed to sun more is closer to ambient temps? Maybe the coating absorbs more heat?

If I were storing hay on concrete I would put down a layer of plastic sheeting and put the pallets on top of that.

[Blume_Farm]

#1: I would rethink tarp “doors” for roll up doors. I see you are in Michigan which I would think can get some pretty good winter weather and I would be afraid the tarps would not provide enough protection for all that hay.

#2: I have a dirt floor in my hair barn with a layer of pallets. I always loose the bottom row of hay to moisture/ mold. I have tried putting tarps down over the dirt and then two rows of pallets on top of that. Still got icky and my floors stay dry. I now have dirt, tarp, pallet and first layer of cheap straw bales. Then start stacking hay bales on top of that. At the end of the season I use the straw for mulch.

#3: Agree with above poster that you need to figure out the dimension of your hay bales to figure that out. But generally add more space.

#4: I would think the only way to not have snakes is to not have a food source for them which means strict rodent control…traps, poisons, cats, etc. IMO I hate poisons on farms with animals, hate glue traps. Knock on wood I have two barn cats and never really find droppings around my barn.

[King_s_Ransom]

#2 – this has worked for me: bottom layer of dirt, covered by geotextile fabric, covered by compacted limestone screenings, with one layer of pallets on top.

Have not lost any hay so far.

My hay barn is enclosed on three sides, open on the west end.

[ElementFarm]

Our hay barn is enclosed on three sides. We use a gravel base with a layer of plastic, and then a layer of pallets. No issues with the bottom bales yet, but we don’t get a year’s worth at a time, so the bottom row isn’t sitting so long.

[OTTBs]

[QUOTE=gumtree;8236872]
Concrete sweats. Even more so in high humidity. Due to ground contact its cooler than the surrounding humid air. Concrete that is poured over a thermal bridge like ridged foam insulation tends not to.

Interesting that the “coated” area didn’t or not as much. Maybe due to a different surface “tension”? Or the concrete in that area is exposed to sun more is closer to ambient temps? Maybe the coating absorbs more heat?

If I were storing hay on concrete I would put down a layer of plastic sheeting and put the pallets on top of that.[/QUOTE]These are two separate garages. I wouldn’t say either one gets much sun, they both face north. Though the attached garage has blacktop in front of it, the extra garage has stone–so I could see some heat radiating into the attached garage. It also may have a thermal bridge under it–is that standard in attached garages? I’ve never seen a garage floor sweat the way barn aisles do.

I’d guess the attached garage is more weathertight and that may be a factor. The former owner mentioned that the extra garage was moved onto the site, it wasn’t built where it stands now. It does have a small hole in the bottom of one side-- I had a garbage can sitting in front of the hole to block rain and snow.

[buck22]

My hay barn is a large garage-in-a-box style tent. I leveled the ground best I could and then put down 5" of gravel. Then a heavy duty tarp on that. For years I put the hay on a layer of pallets and would often loose about half of the bottom layer to dampness/must. Last year, I put down a second layer of pallets, so the bales are sitting 2x high and the bottom layer stayed fresh for a year. My area is very wet and humid.

A friend had a custom Amish made haybarn built, its a wood floor, but its raised a full 2’ off the ground with a long ramp going up to the barn.

[Wonders12]

Our shavings shed (for bulk shavings deliveries) has a canvas roll up door. After 2.5 years or so, it’s shot. Several rips and tears. I would not trust it to protect my hay.

A hay farmer told me to always put hay on top of 2 pallets, never just one. Depending on how wet things are, you still may lose some, but you’re pretty much guaranteed to lose them with only 1 pallet. It seems to work for me because that first pallet gets filled with little hay pieces, so the second pallet is actually allowing everything to breathe. This assumes you’re cleaning out under the pallets annually.

[Hermein]

If you put a bottom layer of straw bales over the pallets, and then put your hay on top of the straw, your hay should be safe–a relatively cheap solution, and I’ve never seen it fail to keep the hay mold free.

You can salvage most of the straw, too. I think you should be able to use it more than one season, depending on the flooring and humidity.

I think snakes in the haybarn are a good thing as long as they aren’t rattle snakes, but barn cats aren’t bad either.

[Hermein]

If you put a bottom layer of straw bales over the pallets, and then put your hay on top of the straw, your hay should be safe–a relatively cheap solution, and I’ve never seen it fail to keep the hay mold free.

You can salvage most of the straw, too. I think you should be able to use it more than one season, depending on the flooring and humidity.

I think snakes in the haybarn are a good thing as long as they aren’t rattle snakes, but barn cats aren’t bad either.

[King_s_Ransom]

I hope we don’t have to go to two layers of pallets … so far, one has been fine. However, like some others here, we don’t get a full year’s worth of hay at once. We get about six months. Until this year, we did not use hay in the summer at all. But now we have a pony on dry lot, so we do keep hay year-round.

I also do clean out under the pallets between deliveries. As we uncover a row of pallets, we pick them up and sweep out from under, leaving the empty pallets stacked against the wall. Before the next delivery, all pallets are picked up and swept out before replacing.

Two layers of pallets would be a lot more work. Like I said, so far, this is working.

[saffire_100]

We built a 3 sided post/pole hay shed, 32’ x 64’ and I think about 18’ tall. The trusses were engineered/pre-fab. We got them to build it with two 32’ laminated beams down the east/long side so that we don’t have much to manoever around with the tractor.

The open side faces away from where the weather mostly comes from and we had the slope of the roof made with a long side and short side so the snow has a better clearance pattern over the building.

Our climate is cold and dry in the winter and we just have one layer of pallets over a dirt floor. We also strapped the walls inside so there is air circulation behind the bales. We don’t lose any bales to moisture or mold.

[saffire_100]

Double Post.