Hay Preservative Applicator Set-Up

Bill VA

Well-known Member
Posted a similar post on another forum, thought some might find it helpful here too....

As I mentioned in the 2017 photos thread, I lied. Weakened by potential hay sales lost due to not cutting, I made a second cut on my Timothy mixed grass hay field. Have had a buffered propionic acid applicator on my handy JD348 square baler, but never used it. With the Agtronix BH-2 bale chamber reading 20-25% moisture (including acid and some dense bales), I switched on the acid. Nasty smelling stuff - especially if you were stacking on a wagon in tow by the baler.

Very concerned about the bales heating - even with the acid. Was unable to check the bales for 2 full days and did so just a few minutes ago. The bales are completely cold! Simply amazing! No heat or musty smell and really the acid vinagar smell has diminished a lot.

This hay preservative is a game changer.

Wrestled with how to mount the nozzles when I installed the system. The JD square baler design's auger often stands the hay up on the back side of the pick-up throat just before the packer fork grabs it (nice tall charge of hay going into the bale chamber and IMHO accounts for much of the brick like bales inherent to a JD baler) and sometimes the throat of the pick-up will fill up with hay on the plunger side half way across it - again, very good for the packer fork to take a full charge of hay to be baled. Problem is - when you have a wad of hay bunching, how do you evenly apply preservative? To remedy this, I mounted the two nozzles on the pick-up guard (for lack of a better name) and pointed them downward at a slight angle onto the tines/tine guards. It works great as when the pick-up tines grab the hay, it is broken loose - the windrow fractured and greatly opens the interior if the windrow to the acid. Coverage is outstanding IMHO.

Two nozzles cover most of width of the pick-up given the spray pattern and distance to the hay. This is sort of a poor man's automation in terms of varying the acid application. Each nozzle is set for 4 lbs acid per ton of hay on this day. If I get into a wider/heavier windrow, more acid is applied as the hay fills up the windrow width. Anything not hitting the hay goes goes onto the down slope of the pick-up guards and some of it between them and to the ground. No pooling of acid anywhere. There is an on/off switch for when we don't need the acid, i.e. exiting the windrows on a turn. This scheme wastes some acid, but is many times cheaper than an automated system, which wouldn't pencil out for our hay volumes. As I said, poor man's automation.

First pic shows the nozzles and the second is from a year ago when I mounted the tank, but before I totally wired and plumbed everything.

If you are observant, the wires laying in the pick-up throat are for a bale chamber mounted Agtronix BH-2 moisture meter (display fender mointed in the first pic) and the power wires to the acid pump...🙂

I'm a bit biased, but the JD348 is a fine baler too...😎

Thought I'd share - YMMV

Bill
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We make and sell top quality hay to horse customers who pay top dollar for it; made right, which includes no dust or mold. When necessary, hay preservative is a means to that end - nothing complicated about that.

It takes as much back to lift a bale of trash as it does a bale of top quality hay, so why not do it right in the first place and make more $$$'s for the same bale weight.

But if baling weeds are your thang....
 
One big trouble with propionic acid hay preservatives is that it does have a shelf life. Meaning if you store the hay for much over 8-10 months it can then mold.

Second thing is your nice baler will not be nice for long if you use much of the acid through it. That stuff will rust the heck out of your baler. Even washing it right away will not completely keep your baler safe.
 
Buffered propionic acid is different. It has the same ph as water. Straight propionic acid - yes not good.
 
Get a copy of an old edition of Morrison's Feeds and Feeding and you'll see that many of the common 'weeds' that show up in hay fields in Virginia like Lamb's Quarter,Pigweed,
Beggars Lice,Honey Suckle etc have more nutrition for livestock in them than common hay grasses do.Timothy on the other hand was what we used to feed heavy producing milk cows
to dry them up.So which is 'trash hay' as far as the animal eating it is concerned? I'd much rather have hay with a variety of plants in it than hay with a bunch of chemicals
that have been applied to it.Joel Salatin says a good pasture will have around 25 plant species in it so I guess the same would apply to hay that's going to be fed to livestock
would it not?
 
(quoted from post at 02:30:35 09/20/17) We make and sell top quality hay to horse customers who pay top dollar for it; made right, which includes no dust or mold. When necessary, hay preservative is a means to that end - nothing complicated about that.

It takes as much back to lift a bale of trash as it does a bale of top quality hay, so why not do it right in the first place and make more $$$'s for the same bale weight.

But if baling weeds are your thang....


My horse hay customers will not buy any hay if there is any type of a preserve on it. Some say the hoses don't like it and others say they don't want it in there horses system as they race and get tested.
If the hay is not ready I don't bale it.

You have a lot of nice equipment for a few bales of hay.

I also think your making it too complicated, just my opinion.
 
We are making hay for the horse market, which in of itself is an odyssey. I can argue all day long that hay with 25 different grasses and weeds in it is good for their "baby", but to them it is trash and fact is - it doesn't bring much of a price or repeat customers. If I thought 25 different grass/weed variety hay would bring the price as straight timothy, orchard grass or just a clean mix, I'd be on it - much less work and expense on my part. Funny thing is - we sell out, so we must be doing something right. We just have to agree to disagree on the definition of trash hay.

BTW - all I did with my original post was share what I had done - maybe others would be interested for a potential set-up of their own. Wasn't looking for any debate or negative commentary. It is a big problem with YT in that different folks post, like - my JD baler isn't doing whatever and some helpful wisearse chimes in with something like - get a New Holland. Really helpful.
 
I keep thinking about all that nice equipment for those few bales of hay. The 40 year old rake, the 50 yr old sickle
mower, the 30 year old mower conditioner, the 50 year old MF50, the 45 something year old Farmall 756 - the list goes
on and on. Two things we have on our farm is lots of rocks and lots of unreliable old equipment. Can't fix the
rocks, working on the old equipment...

I get it some horse folks don't want any part of hay preservative. That's their problem, not mine - we sell out. I'm
opening more ground and wish I had more. No way am I going to let a bit of higher humidity hay get rained or bleached
due to rain coming or in our case this time of year, heavy dews and high humidity. Buffered porpionic acid (and other
preservatives) is a viable option and really not that complicated - a tank, pump, pressure gauge/regulator, hose and
nozzles. If that's rocket science....
 
glad it works for you. when i went that route,lost buyers period. do you now charge more for hay! that stuff was not free. i no longer do any baling. when i did i could get way more for clean dry straw than any type of baled hay. i took it to grocery stores and flower shops. i do miss that part of business. if its working for you that all that matters, when you made comment about baler issues, i owned deere 327 and new holland 570. they could both give you fits, but overall i like the 327. all my hay stuff went to state of Ohio.
 
Iam looking about doing the same thing with the crop care applicator I purchased it a few months ago and should of had it on, we had great 7 days of sun and warm weather cut 20 acres. Guess what no rain for that 7 days is correct. We had 5 mornings of heavy fog hay did not dry very good with fog lifting at 11 each day. by day 7 had to bale it front was moving in and brought an inch of rain bales tested at twenties in moisture,have lot of steer feed now. Having that applicator on would of made a difference between selling hay versous feeding hay right away to the cattle. The hay preservative has come along way,some people understand how it works and have no problem feeding it too their animals.. Thanks bill for sharing,that excaultly what I was hoping to comeup with some day with a mounting system.
 
(quoted from post at 14:26:34 09/20/17) I keep thinking about all that nice equipment for those few bales of hay. The 40 year old rake, the 50 yr old sickle
mower, the 30 year old mower conditioner, the 50 year old MF50, the 45 something year old Farmall 756 - the list goes
on and on. Two things we have on our farm is lots of rocks and lots of unreliable old equipment. Can't fix the
rocks, working on the old equipment...

I get it some horse folks don't want any part of hay preservative. That's their problem, not mine - we sell out. I'm
opening more ground and wish I had more. No way am I going to let a bit of higher humidity hay get rained or bleached
due to rain coming or in our case this time of year, heavy dews and high humidity. Buffered porpionic acid (and other
preservatives) is a viable option and really not that complicated - a tank, pump, pressure gauge/regulator, hose and
nozzles. If that's rocket science....


We Sell out, you keep saying that.

There are many reasons why people sell out of hay; a lot of horse people will buy on price, so cheap hay will sell out quick. If you have a 1000 bales of hay to sell it is easy compared to 10,000 bales compared to 20,000 bales...

I have read your posts for the last couple of years and your just way to complicated. I have been making and selling quality hay for 40+ years and for the most part sell out almost every year, yes some years we have hay left over. You must have an unlimited budget to spend on a few bales of hay.
 
Maybe complicated for you. Pretty simple from my point of view.

We sell out at - but not at trash hay prices.

I'd like to see some pics of your hay, the test results for your "quality" hay. If I were a deep pocketed customer,
could you provide me any of these details? What is your definition of quality hay? We have folks buy hay from us
that have IR horses, horses with potassium issues as well as iron issues. Our hay is good on all these counts and
the price reflects.

Everything we do is geared towards the best bale we can make. Sure you aren't one of those guys that have been
making hay 40 years, but in reality, have made hay 40 times?

Again - show me what your "quality" is. Else - your perception of our hay making is an interesting OPINION.

Honestly - I'm sorry I made the original post. I never dreamed it would stir-up so much crap. I'll think twice
before posting again.
 
Don't worry about it Bill - I for one enjoy your posts. I've only been doing it 7-8 years myself, and I'm continually trying to make a better product each year. The one thing I have learned, is that it costs the same amount of money to go over a given field, whether it's producing $3 hay or $5 hay. There will be some difference in the input costs, but it costs just as much to make the product, so it pays to make it of the highest quality you can. Along with that goes the pride you get from doing something that isn't the easiest thing in the world to do right.
Pete
 
(quoted from post at 18:25:12 09/20/17) Maybe complicated for you. Pretty simple from my point of view.

We sell out at - but not at trash hay prices.

I'd like to see some pics of your hay, the test results for your "quality" hay. If I were a deep pocketed customer,
could you provide me any of these details? What is your definition of quality hay? We have folks buy hay from us
that have IR horses, horses with potassium issues as well as iron issues. Our hay is good on all these counts and
the price reflects.

Everything we do is geared towards the best bale we can make. Sure you aren't one of those guys that have been
making hay 40 years, but in reality, have made hay 40 times?

Again - show me what your "quality" is. Else - your perception of our hay making is an interesting OPINION.

Honestly - I'm sorry I made the original post. I never dreamed it would stir-up so much crap. I'll think twice
before posting again.


Yup...
You got me figured out. I made hay 40 times!
As requested

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Bill, I'm with Part Time Pete. Keep posting. You have some interesting ideas and I for one think you do all of this to improve not only you knowledge, but others here. Keep it up and don't worry about the "Naysayers".
 
good post. I have seen the perservitive tanks on the large square balers around me but did not realize it could be that easy to do on my small square baler. I have a IH 435 that has a similar feed auger that the John Deere has. It looks like I could arrange the nozzles like you have on mine. Late in the season we get fog and heavy dew that last till lunch time and it is hard to get started baling till the end of the afternoon and then it gets tough early in the evening. The perservitive would add more chances to get everything baled up.
 
That's some fine looking hay. Very green too. What was the moisture of the hay when you baled it? Any dust or
mold or chance of it - how would you know for sure and convey that to a buyer that has a clue? A complicated bale
chamber mounted moisture meter tells-us what's going on and all we have to do is look at the complex read-out - one
line. Orchard grass? 48 inches tall hay - wow! Stemmy too, lots of heads. That hay isn't overripe is it? What
is the crude protein number on that premium hay? What about the ESC and starch levels along with potassium and iron
level - nice and low? Got any test data from somewhere like Equi-Analytical on that quality hay or are you like a
lot of folks on craigslist that type "horse quality" regardless?

Really - a kicker wagon? Share with me your uncomplicated way to unload those twisted bales as a one man operation.
We're thinking about adding one of those complex Kuhn accumulator grapples so we don't touch the "few" bales we do
make.

I don't begrudge anyone's way of making hay - it's all hard work and honorable IMHO, but when they are the pot
calling the kettle black, I take offense. We work our arse off making hay and making sure we know what we do and
why at every step of the way.

A few picks of your hay don't tell me much...
 
I have had a Kuhns accumulator for several years and I like it. I couldn't do small squares without it.
 

Anyone looking to get into acid application? I have a slightly used set-up including moisture tester. It has been on the shelf collecting dust for probably twenty years. I should list it on Craig's list. My 2018 hay is already sold at $7.00/bale.
 
Yeesh! I just wanted to comment that your windrows looked fluffy.

:)

If you have second cutting that isn't molding, and you've read the specs on what you're applying; and the specs say that it won't hurt your equipment or the animals eating the forage; then that's just doing some homework.

That, and....how DARE you show some other people how you solved the problem of even distribution of preservative with your John Deere baler.

I have a NH276, and I don't use preservative...but I still read to learn a little bit. No harm in learning how the other

I saw some quotes from the honorable Joel Salatin. Now...don't get me wrong. He has some great ideas; but let's remember that he makes his money more by selling books, movies and how to farm lectures than from selling hay.

I say that while also being an aficionado of weeds myself. Around here, spotted knapweed is reviled as the devil. Myself? I call it poor man's alfalfa.

BUT! I know exactly what you mean, when it comes to selling to horse buyers. People with horses worry about their horses. They don't want to study twenty five different types of forage and figure out which ones are good for their horses and which ones are bad. Many of them just know that timothy is safe. It's also easy to identify by the heads in the hay.

They also know that mold is a horse killer.

So, in the few minutes that you have to interact with them; you give them hay that has timothy and no mold, and they buy it. You make money; and their horses don't die from founder. It's win-win.

But...you could always consider making more money by going around and giving seminars on various weeds that people could feed their horses...

I'll make you this bet. As soon as anybody TRIES to grow weeds; then they'll figure out that it's probably easier to grow timothy...

Just ask Thomas Edison and Henry Ford about "The Goldenrod Rubber Project"

Nice, fluffy windrows from your simple, old rollabar rake, by the way.
 
I've known Joel Salatin since he was a teenager and he developed a farm plan that is very successful.That's the reason he can sell books and people pay to hear what he has to
say is is because he has been so successful.Now if kissing up to a bunch of crazy horse owners to sell a little hay is your farm plan then more power to you if that's what you have to do to make it farming.
But Joel's plan is much the better route as far as I'm concerned.
 
How much did the set up cost? I have never tried it yet but need too. I am tired of losing hay too. I was wondering if anyone sprayed the windrow itself BEFORE baling so the extra moisture actually had time to dry off? Would that still work?
 
"I've known Joel Salatin since he was a teenager and he developed a farm plan that is very successful.That's the reason he can sell books and people pay to hear what he has to say is is because he has been so successful.Now if kissing up to a bunch of crazy horse owners to sell a little hay is your farm plan then more power to you if that's what you have to do to make it farming.
But Joel's plan is much the better route as far as I'm concerned."

Stalatin's methods are subject to debate. They are without a doubt labor intensive and IMHO only practible for small scale farming. He does have one thing in common with those who "kiss-up" to horse folks, just like those "crazy horse owners", the crazy organic crowd pays a premium for their foods like horse folks pay a premium for trash free hay. In the general ag market, it is doubtful his methods would be profitable, just like selling trash hay. If I were making and selling organic foods and/or trash hay, I'd probably write a book or two too. Why not - organically wipe out a few more trees for some obscene profit.

Clean hay for horses, regardless of the cost. Organic food, regardless of the cost. Crazy horse owners, crazy organic consumers....
 
I just want it to be clear that I mean Joel Salatin no disrespect.

I'm just expressing a dose of healthy reality pertaining to the expectations of copying his success by copying his methods.

I use old tractors and have lots of weeds in my fields and pastures, just like Mr Salatin. I havn't touched a chemical or herbicide stronger than bug soap for my land...ever.

However, I don't farm in Virginia. My farm isn't in the epicenter of approximately 150 million urban customers. I also didn't think of his ideas first. He did. So he's the one to make the money off of the books, movies and seminars.

Myself? I can only apply so many of his ideas, here in NY. Otherwise, I would have dead animals during the winter snowpack.

You know...the first person to make diesel from the grease at McDonalds does OK... the people reading his books and trying to copy the idea run out of places to find grease...
 
In actuality. I respect Mr. Salatin; so let's put the personal aspect aside. The actual point that I was getting to was that I couldn't understand how a post about hay preservative application devolved into demonizing a field of timothy for not having weeds in it.

Once timothy is established, proper cutting and fertilizing can maintain the stand for a long, long time.

One could argue that it was a waste of time to seed it in the first place; but that's water under the bridge now, isn't it?

There's nothing wrong with it as a forage, contrary to the comment made about using it to "dry cows off".... Well sure, but that's not the selection of forage variety; that's the maturity at which it was cut.

Total Digestible Nutrients (TDN) per acre is maximized for timothy in the boot stage. If you have timothy either baled or ensiled at or before the boot stage of development; you have excellent forage for a dairy cow.

One also has to remember that most (most being the operative term) horses aren't being fed at anywhere near the calorie requirements of a modern high producing dairy cow. Most modern farmers wouldn't be caught dead feeding timothy hay with heads on it to a cow giving 80 pounds of milk per day; while most horses, unless they are racing or competing in athletic competition do just fantastic on that same kind of hay.

Old time farmers used timothy to dry cows off; because (if they were like my grandfather) didn't cut the timothy until the heads fell off to re-seed it for next year. Heck. Half of that generation didn't even milk cows during the winter. They hay they put up was for maintenance, not maximum production.

At any rate. To me, it would be a somewhat non-Salatin-esque endeavor to purposely screw up a a stand of timothy so that it now has more weeds in it. I think that even he would say, once it's there, maintain it in sustainable fashion.
 
I like the 2 nozzle set up. For several years I ran a 3 nozzle set pointing straight down (tank mounted like yours is) on a JD 336. It made a believer out of me, in that it works. Down sides I found were even buffered, where the nozzles dripped in storage it corroded the bale chamber. Your angle change should remedy that.

I stopped using the acid more from a cost benefit standpoint for me that anything else. It added about $1 per bale (20 years ago). With the addition in cost I decided to just roll, store outside, and feed any that was marginal. Its worked well for me. May go back to it, may get out, lol.

Very nice looking hay. What I've got, timothy hay made for me, don't listen to the debbie downers. Per dollar, per acre, and per hour I've never found anything to replace it. I was doing some farm business analysis this summer with the accountants. Something on the order of 2 million small squares and 500,000 rounds out of here the past 40 years. All types, all kinds, all species. Timothy beat everything else, year in and year out. But now I'm old, fat, and lazy... custom harvester makes the beans go away... :)
 

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