Wrapping hay question

Keith Molden

Well-known Member
I know if you wrap round bales 100% the hay will turn into haylege. What I'm wondering is there a wrap to protect the bales from the weather that I can use. I sell to horse people & there just isn't anyone except a couple of dairy farmers that wrap their hay that I can ask. Keith
 
If the hay is dry dry dry , it will not ferment , and turn into silage. It will come out just as it went in , but if it is damp at all , and would heat under normal conditions. It will ferment and become a silage bale. And might be still quite dry inside , but be a little damp/ slimy on the outer wrap of hay. Hope this helps.
 
Round bales were not yet in the picture when I was making hay. Is it not moisture level in hay that makes it haylage or just good old hay? Would not haylage moisture be midway between dry hay and silage?
 
You used to be able to buy something with the name of Bale Sleeves or something like that. They just slide over the bale and cover the outside while leaving the ends open. That might be the kind of thing you're looking for. Seems like the last time I looked at Family Farm and Home for plastic sheeting to cover silage,they had several boxes of those sleeves.
 
Unverferth makes a bake wrapper that just does the round part. Leaves the ends open. Dad uses one to wrap the hay he bales for me.
AaronSEIA
 
I have a neighbor that tube line wraps bales for his neighbor with a lot of horses and loves the bales. No dust no mold no rotten on the bottom they eat it all. If feeding a whole bale at 1 time they don't pull it out and walk on it like dry bales. He like 18 to 20 percent moisture.
 
Keith YOUR wrong on your original statement "I know if you wrap round bales 100% the hay will turn into haylege". There are is lot of DRY hay bales wrapped around here. Usually inline wrapped and not quite as many wraps per foot of bale as you use with higher moisture hay. We wrap some real good dry hay each year. The key we found is to make good TIGHT bales and let them go through the heat before you wrap them. IF you wrap them right away the outside inch or so can get slimy. Wrapping them after the heat cycle seems to negate them getting slimy on the outside.

We also wrap some dry corn stalk bales each year too. So when you have freezing rain/ice on everything you can easily get some bedding bales out without damaging the mesh wrap.
 
Thanks so much for the information guys. I hate to leave hay bales outside & have my customers only get a part of a bale that is useable. Consequently I loose money because I can't charge for a whole bale if it isn't good. I think I'll look into getting a bale wrapper. Thanks again, I know I can always get good and accurate info from this site. Keith
 
Keith How many bales are you talking about each year? If it not that many say 100-200 then you can buy a individual bale wrapper that you manually run for a few thousand dollars. It take some time but maybe 2-3 minutes per bale. Remember your only wanting to wrap dry hay so you do not have to wrap the ends. Wrap the sides and set in a row pushed tight into the next bale and there will be little spoilage. Several fellows had these type around here years ago. They work fine just take time and some labor but they are ideal for smaller hay producers. This is an option over the more costly inline wrappers or the full wrapped wrappers like Bruce's.

Here is a video of one of the small single bale wrappers. They are doing high moisture hay but many fellows around here used these type wrappers on dry hay and corn stalk bales.
Bale wraper video
 

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