Temperature of haystack

steveR

Member
Mixed Farmer
Interesting thread....

Happily, I have never seen a barn go up but have seen a bay sweating like a good 'un. I suspect it's why the Dutch Barn roofs rot from underneath!

Personally, I make my hay in round bales and any "dodgy" stuff is left on the field to sweat for a week or two on the field. My neighbour pushes a steel rod into a few bales to allow him to monitor the centre of the bales.
 

Goweresque

Member
Location
North Wilts
If it’s first cut and only made at the end of July, would it be better to stack it in the field and hope it catches fire? Feed value would surely be akin to straw?

You're thinking like a farmer :D

There's more to hay than pure feed value. I sell July/Aug made hay to horse customers at between £115 and £135 per tonne plus delivery all winter. As long as its green(ish) and made in sunny weather, the nags will eat it. Most of them only need hay for gutfill anyway, every horse owner is paranoid about their horses bowels and colic, a decent bit of palatable roughage seems to keep the horses regular, the owners happy, and my bank balance on the up.........
 

Agrivator

Member
If it’s first cut and only made at the end of July, would it be better to stack it in the field and hope it catches fire? Feed value would surely be akin to straw?

In the real world, most first-cut hay made at the end of July will be from a sward which has been grazed up until as late as mid May.
But even if it hasn't been grazed, hay well made at the end of July will be infinitely better than straw as a fodder for all types of stock.
 
Is it Rye hay . Don't move it whatever you do

You are right but what is the science.

I baled some too early because of rain forecast only 200 small bales so stacked in 8's in the field & put it in the curtain sider at nights back out in the day. As the bales lost weight stacked it in the barn, I thought I had done a good job. Most are good but some have dust in the centre of the bale. All are cool & have lost a lot of weight.

What happened to make some dusty?
 

DrWazzock

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Lincolnshire
If I had an overheating stack I’d leave it alone and hope for the best. Dismantling it could risk allowing oxygen in and spontaneous combustion. And if I pulled bales out they would end up mouldy for sure. Often hay here is like high temperature silage Cooked but dust free. The outer layers are dusty but acceptable to the farm livestock. The inner core is caramelised and favoured by the horsey people.
 
When I was a boy about 65 years ago, my father had put some hay in a rick (loose, the old fashioned way).
As it was smelling a bit, he pushed an 8' steel rod into it and left it for an hour or so. When he pulled the rod out it was too hot to touch.

The rick was pulled down and hand fed into a baler. the really hot stuff was black. I can still remember the smell of it now. I think that the cows ate it.
 

Exfarmer

Member
Location
Bury St Edmunds
If its first cut grass you should be fine, there will be very little sugar in grass mowed in the last week of July. Without the sugar to feed the bacteria and moulds you can never get the runaway temperature required to make it catch fire. Thats why straw baled damp never bursts into flames, no sugars. If its second cut hay then you might have more issues.

According to this info from the US, 34C is fine, its once it gets beyond 45C and rising that you need to be worried

According to the fire brigade nearly every straw stack fire in this part of the country is blamed on spontaneous combustion. I have always been dubious!
 

Exfarmer

Member
Location
Bury St Edmunds
In Denmark they say to put salt too, could it help draw the moisture out I wonder?
We used to put salt on hay which was baled a bit green and stacked too soon. When flat 8‘s came in we clamped bales into stacks of 200 put a sheet over the top. The only thing was as they dried it was not so easy taking the bals out of this temporary stack
 

DrWazzock

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Lincolnshire
They do, and they eat it like crazy but the only problem is the feed value is negligible as the calorific value has been used.
I expect it has been partially used but not entirely. It still smells sweet so I reckon it’s caramelised. It would still burn to give a good heat if you lit it so must still be a fair amount of energy in it.
I think the worst thing you can do is dismantle such a stack while it is heating. Let’s even more oxygen in and it goes mouldy.
 

neilo

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Montgomeryshire
I expect it has been partially used but not entirely. It still smells sweet so I reckon it’s caramelised. It would still burn to give a good heat if you lit it so must still be a fair amount of energy in it.
I think the worst thing you can do is dismantle such a stack while it is heating. Let’s even more oxygen in and it goes mouldy.

The caramel smell is what’s left from the burnt sugars. Those sugars were valuable energy to ruminants, the ‘caramel’ much less so, but it will at least be palatable, low feed value stuff, so they’ll eat a lot of it.
 

dowcow

Member
Location
Lancashire
We baled some second cut hay at the end of June, and was pushed by the rain to bale a day earlier than I would have liked, or two days than what I would really have preferred. Picked it up onto trailers first thing next day as rain was starting to come down, and had been with the forage wagon until late the night before while a contractor baled the hay for us. Most the hay stayed on the trailers a couple of days while we finished the rest of the second cut, and when I got around to making a stack the bale spike was so hot by the time I finished it was too hot to touch. Stack has cooled off now, but a fair bit of steam came out the top and the cat bloody loved it as a place for a snooze on a wet and windy day. Making some more hay with some of the third cut this week too.
 

Farmer_Joe

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
The North
We had a barn go years ago, I warned my late father it was getting hot but he said not to worry until there was froth on top from sweat, it did that too shortly before it fired!
It has to get very hot temps mentioned in here should be ok
 
Sorry I’m putting my work hat on here, with the technology available today it’s slightly alarming that this is a topic being needing to be discussed. It’s funny to think on a thread running in the machinery section there are Balers pulled by combines in Australia that have application equipment fitted because of the understanding of the risks to baling at high moisture (over 15%)
 

Goweresque

Member
Location
North Wilts
Sorry I’m putting my work hat on here, with the technology available today it’s slightly alarming that this is a topic being needing to be discussed. It’s funny to think on a thread running in the machinery section there are Balers pulled by combines in Australia that have application equipment fitted because of the understanding of the risks to baling at high moisture (over 15%)

To be fair (and I speak as someone who has 3 balers with your additive systems on them, so definitely a fan) I really don't think that someone baling a few acres of hay with a 30+ year old baler is going to want to spend £10k on an additive system on the off chance he may occasionally need to bale a few bales a bit damp before it rains. Not every haymaker has hundreds of acres to make that can justify such equipment.
 

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