Barn Dried Hay

Kagri

Member
Has anyone experience of barn drying hay. I have a grain store which is normally empty in June. This store has on floor aeration by means of choc bars and a big lister fan supply the air to them.

My thinking was if hay was baled a day early into large square bales, could the moisture content be reduced by placing the bales in the store

Would the air escape or would the bale provide enough resistance for the air to make its way up through the bale.

Also would cold air be sufficient to achieve the desired results.
 
Wont work in big squares as they are too tight

My ol.man used to do it in the 70s when diesel.was cheap


Bale them early (very heavy and hard work) and stack them in the barn with tunnels through ,old lister fan connected to the tunnel and wait a day or so untill the stack started warming.turn fan on for a couple of hours and stand back as all heat and steam gets blown out
Repeat as necessary for the next few weeks

It wont work in a grain store i recon
 

Kagri

Member
They would be baled for resale and I don't want to put plastic on them. Makes it harder to transport and handle them and here in Ireland haylage isn't a very saleable product. If I could spend the price of the wrapping on diesel to dry them it would be great.

I was just wondering was it possible to do it rather than looking at doing it for all my product. More like an insurance policy if the weather changed and you had to bale a day early
 

Two Tone

Member
Mixed Farmer
I'd be very cautious about trying to barn dry large square bales. I think the density of these bales will be too high to get sufficient air flow through them.

I used to do conventional baled barn dried hay using a flat 8 system. We baled the hay about a day early when it was still quite green. You had to stack it very quick or the bales would overheat and become like bars of soap. The fumes were also horrible!

The problem is getting the bales tight enough for the flat 8 grab to work, but loose enough to provide adequate throughput of air to actually dry it. Air will always follow the path of least resistance.

The other problem was that the hay would often shrink so that the strings became too loose to out-load them using a flat 8 system. Don't try loading them on a lorry to travel too far after barn drying!

Ideally I'd use a tunnel system with the tunnel dimensions being as near as possible 10% of the stack height and width. You also don't want the bales tight up against any side walls to allow the air to escape rather than be blocked by any walls.

What you often find after drying is that each end of the bale is perfect, but the middles are like cardboard. It takes a hell of a lot of luck to get it right.

The steam or water vapour coming off the stack would scare the crap out of you sometimes!. How the heck we didn't have a serious fire, I shall never know!

If you are going to try it on a ventilated floor, you'll need an enormous fan to get enough air flow through the whole stack in one go. I'd advise not building any stack as high as you would have done with grain and make sure the bales are overlapped on each layer to prevent air leakages. So your stack will end up almost pyramid shaped on the sides and ends. And castellated at each end too on each layer.

Blow it at night when the air is cooler*. As long as the air is 5 degrees C or more below the temperature of the Hay (or grain!), you cannot make it wetter, no matter how damp the air is. Even if you were blowing a fog through it! This is exactly the reverse principal of taking a can of cold drink out a fridge on a hot, humid day and watching the dew form on the side of the can. Cold wet air moisture cannot condense onto a warm surface.


Having said all of the above, you could consider using the system you describe to air assist making sure your hay is kept properly, once you have made it into normal, field dried hay.

One of the problems we had last year was hay that was stacked in very high field temperature conditions when we had that very hot weather in July (29 degrees!). Low volume ventilation blowing at night, certainly brought the stack temperature down quickly and stopped any stack deterioration. But I am again talking about using lower density conventional bales here.


*High volume (high pressure) ventilation could actually make it hotter by compressing the latent heat within the air, in exactly the same way as a diesel engine compresses air enough to (burn (**not ignite!) the fuel.

Having said that, warm air has a greater ability of carrying moisture than cold air. That is why we use it to dry grain quicker. It's a balancing act.

** Diesel engine burn fuel. Petrol engines ignite and explode the fuel.

Be careful!
 
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Kagri

Member
I might try an experiment this year with 30 bales maybe. See how I get on. I am baling 120x70 bales. I was thinking of standing them on edge, so I'd have 70cm surface area covering my choc bars on the floor. Leave them single instead of going too high. I suppose a bit of trial and error would tell a lot
 

Two Tone

Member
Mixed Farmer
I might try an experiment this year with 30 bales maybe. See how I get on. I am baling 120x70 bales. I was thinking of standing them on edge, so I'd have 70cm surface area covering my choc bars on the floor. Leave them single instead of going too high. I suppose a bit of trial and error would tell a lot
Good idea laying them on their sides.

Consider also, going 2 layers high and staggered (Overlapping) to prevent the air escaping between and especially at the corners of each bale, where they meet each other.
 

Punch

Member
Location
Warwickshire
We tried about 15 years ago. Not very successful. Sometimes ended up with brown bales but never fired.
Not a useable end product to sell.

Used to barn dry small bales in 80's and as said before can end up with lovely stuff but not transportable.
Bales like handbags.
 

Two Tone

Member
Mixed Farmer
We tried about 15 years ago. Not very successful. Sometimes ended up with brown bales but never fired.
Not a useable end product to sell.

Used to barn dry small bales in 80's and as said before can end up with lovely stuff but not transportable.
Bales like handbags.
No doubt about the fact that wrapped haylage is one hell of a lot easier and will keep perfectly if you can store it under cover.
 
I might try an experiment this year with 30 bales maybe. See how I get on. I am baling 120x70 bales. I was thinking of standing them on edge, so I'd have 70cm surface area covering my choc bars on the floor. Leave them single instead of going too high. I suppose a bit of trial and error would tell a lot

Vital to stack on edge, or no air will get through. Been there, done that.
You will get a bit of condensation on the top layer so stack 2 or 3.
 
Last year I ran out of room in the hay shed, and wrapped about 60 round bales of hay. The hay sold well at the start of the winter, but then i made a bad mistake, and asked one of the girls to try a wrapped bale. when she got the bale and the rest saw it they all wanted it, and stopped using the naked bales. It looks as though I'm going to have to wrap all the hay from now on.
 

Exfarmer

Member
Location
Bury St Edmunds
Absolutely critical to seal the stack to ensure air does not take the easiest route out. So the hay must be stacked tight with NO gaps. They must be stacked tight to an airtight wall for best results.
Large square bales can be dried if you can stack them really tight together.
they must be stacked so the joints are crossed. Hay dries very well in a suitable barn with plenty of air available.
Completely off field, since you are rebaling how about loading in with a forage wagon loose, if you had the room it could work very well.
 

Two Tone

Member
Mixed Farmer
Vital to stack on edge, or no air will get through. Been there, done that.
You will get a bit of condensation on the top layer so stack 2 or 3.
How about putting a layer of straw on top. Do you think that would prevent the condensation on the top layer?

The condensation is mostly formed by the warm damp air exiting the top of the stack, condensing into droplets in the colder air, then falling back (almost like rain) onto the stack.

The only way moisture could physically condense onto the hay surface is if that hay is 5 degrees C or more colder than the air above it. This can happen in warm muggy (Autumn?) conditions. And is often when the hay top bales will deteriorate even on very dry hay. Even without sunlight, the surface will bleach and become dusty.

I wonder if putting a layer of Straw on top would prevent this from happening?
 

cowgirl95

Member
Coolmore the big racing people in Ireland bale all their hay in little bales tens of thousands stack them in sheds and blow air through it take a look on YouTube impressive
 

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