Barn Dried Hay

[organicguy]

Friend used to barn dry for sale in farm shop for guineapigs. Used to pick up with forage wagon a couple of days early, blew it dry in the grain store and then baled in shed in small bales.
Sold well.

 

[Kagri]

If your only baling a day earlier than normal would one of the additives do the trick instead.

Ya an additive would work as well but my query was could I put the facilities I already had in place to use without any investment and if anyone else had tried it and had it been successful. It's more of an experiment than anything.

 

[NorthumberlandFarmer]

As you recognised in your question, the problem is egress of air between the bales rather than through them. The answer to this is to lay out a plastic sheet over the floor with openings about 75% of the size of a bale cut in. Space the openings apart to match the layout of the bales on the drying floor. Bale density is a problem, but you can reduce the bale density. A layer of straw on the top will catch condensation (Coolmore does this). Give it a go and don't stack the bales more than one deep. Alternatively, as organic guy says, fill it loose in which case you won't need to bother covering the floor with a plastic sheet.

 

[joe soapy]

have had great success with d1000, mini hesston and now krone bales weighing ave 500 k.
also great to condition straw baled a bit damp

 

[Sharpy]

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.

£5 a bale dearer then?

 

[Cobblers]

we barn blow our small balehay every year , the bays hold 2000 bales and even if it's baled super fit it's nice just to take the sun heat out as you would do with cereals .Have successfully dried hay @25% moisture ,but this does take time but generally only a couple of hours every 3 days is enough to keep it cool, but this will depend on the fan size. A layer of straw on top is essential else you will lose the top layer ,it also keeps the dust off.All the hay is sold for horses

 

[Devil's advocate]

We often get the odd load of little bales that are too damp to store.

When we are stacking it is also possible to find a small percentage of heavy bales, treat those too.

I just stack them like a radiator with loads of gaps on a big trailer & keep moving the trailer to the sunniest part of the field next to the dutch barn. Under the barn if it rains. Seems to take a huge amount of weight out of the bales.

 

[David.]

Seem to remember seeing a film in the 80s from Scandinavia somewhere, of a silo type building with a mesh floor, where they loaded in loose hay from an overhead conveyor, and then blew the whole lot with a big fan as the silo was filled.

 

[davieh3350]

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.

Iceland. There's a lot of these hay lifter carts

(the slatted trailers)

and the hay sheds had blowers built in.
I'll find out more and report back.

 

[andybk]

loose strings is worst problem and moving them after drying ,(and heavy bales stacking in barn , not thats a problem these days ) as above we used to do it in the 70s when diesel was cheap , like a sauna on top of stack a few days in , went like tobacco sheep loved it

 

[Devil's advocate]

Major investment, your grand children might thank you.

 

[Bob the beef]

Plenty farms in central Scotland baling and barn drying hay in conventional bales . @zman . Pretty much as said in previous posts, stack tightly, overlapping to slow down air exit, cover with a layer of straw to soak up condensation, and be careful of the air temp/ moisture content that you are blowing in.
Used lister diesel fans and tractor driven ones before, mightily expensive, and not always right result.
Most of the hay made in these areas would be destined for livestock in the far west / northwest of Scotland , rather than horses, so quality would not need to be quite as good

 

[A Sales representative]

Major investment, your grand children might thank you.

Like the idea and if you can power it with re-newable energy even better, but people complain at the price of applicators and balers choice let alone a set up like this

 

[Devil's advocate]

Like the idea and if you can power it with re-newable energy even better, but people complain at the price of applicators and balers choice let alone a set up like this

Very long term investment

Could see it been useful for logs & maybe if grain silos were attached & the air flow diverted.

Over 30 to 40 years perhaps an extremely wise investment.

 

[Devil's advocate]

I'm impressed at the science in 1947.

Off topic My Dad's agromist was very kind to me as a toddler & brought me his son's outgrown toys back in the 60's. We were friends upto his death about 10 years ago. Jack Curry if anyone remembers him.

Shortly before he died Jack brought me all his text books & some of these dated back to the 50's. Virtually all the modern pests and diseases are mentioned although some of the causes are out dated. I particularly value the crossing out and the added pen written notes as the science moved on.

What I found most staggering were the pictures & trial results of a Dutch Agricultural college taken in 1943 (during German occupation) really detailed work on trace element deficency in root crops.

 

[som farmer]

a neighbour tried drying his little bales, back in the late 70's, if every thing worked right, it was some very good feed for his 20 milkers, but, as he really didn't want to milk, anytime spent on his cows was 'downtime' for his other enterprises, so, he then found an article on baling the grass green, stacking it really tight, all wrapped up in poly sheet, using an old vacuum pump sucking all the air out. that didn't work very well at all. but, the biggest downside, no flat eight, no perry loader, and he talked some of us (he made some really good cider) into helping him, once, never again, those bales were that heavy it finished us of, he sold his cows.

 

[Devil's advocate]

a neighbour tried drying his little bales, back in the late 70's, if every thing worked right, it was some very good feed for his 20 milkers, but, as he really didn't want to milk, anytime spent on his cows was 'downtime' for his other enterprises, so, he then found an article on baling the grass green, stacking it really tight, all wrapped up in poly sheet, using an old vacuum pump sucking all the air out. that didn't work very well at all. but, the biggest downside, no flat eight, no perry loader, and he talked some of us (he made some really good cider) into helping him, once, never again, those bales were that heavy it finished us of, he sold his cows.

In the early 80's we were doing something to a roof & found a sheet of plastic.

On the sheet of plastic were all the instructions how to stack hay & to suck out with vacuum as you describe. I was told by someone who is now in his 60's how as a eight year old he helped stack wire tied heavy as lead bales in a silage pit.

 

[powerfarmer]

I recall reading somewhere about a very large estate that had coal mines on their property, in the late 1800's grass was dried for hay using a coal fired hot air system.

In Austria a few years ago I saw farmers drying round bales using hot air ducted through the bales heated with a wood chip boiler.