OT - Salting Hay

Bill VA

Well-known Member
Probably going to hit the hornet's nest with this one.......

I read about salting small square bales of hay.

Does it work, how does it work?

If the salt pulls moisture out, where does it go? The salt is between layers of hay, so it would seem to me the salt would accumulate a
collection of moisture to one area of the bale and dust/mold would occur there.

Help me understand the mechanics/chemistry of salting hay and how it works. Or if salting is a big myth when it comes to preventing dust and
mold in hay and with it another unnecessary expense.

I use marvel mystery oil in the lawn mowers and garden tractors, don't know why it works, if it works - but enough folks swear by it that I see no
harm in using it - inspite of no university published data that I can find showing it is beneficial. I have the same impression of salting hay - have
yet to find a Penn State or UKY study recommending the benefits of salting hay, but do find info on buffered propionic acid. However, just like
marvel mystery oil, salt has many many advocates, so there must be something to it?

Just curious.

Thanks,
Bill
 
Don't know why it works but it seems to draw the moisture out. I've used it a lot over the years plus spread preservative on top. Had a neighbor his hay always smelled like tobacco he used that much. Backed off a lot when I got a moisture tester it was amazing the difference between what you thought it was by feel versus what it actually was.
 
When I had really lousy/poor hay that cows had no interest in, I could salt it when I put it out & get them to eat it.
 
Ever cured a ham? Works basically the same with hay it'll help the hay cure out and not get hot we used to use it sometimes if we needed to bale hay a little green like a big
storm or hurricane headed our way.We'd stack a layer of hay and then spread salt on it and then do it again.
 
Grew up in WV where it is hard to get hay dry. High humidity, heavy dew in the morning, etc. So we usually had to bale hay that was not ideally dry. Dad always kept some 50# bags of salt at the hay barn, and we would stack a layer of hay then throw a few handfuls of salt across it, like you would spread grass seed. Didn't take much, I would guess that we used about 3 to 6 pounds per pick-up truck load of hay. I remember thinking at the time that it didn't seem like enough salt to really do anything, it was just enough so that you could say there was a little salt on every bale. If the hay was not very dry, he would use more salt, but probably never more than twice the rate he usually used. If the hay was good and dry, and was good quality hay, he usually didn't bother with the salt. But he claimed that it helped draw moisture and reduce the risk of spontaneous combustion, and besides, the cows liked it and it was good for them. I never saw any indication that it caused any storage problems.
 
I well remember when when I was a little kid the old man used to put up hay loose and he always put salt on it in the mow. Not sure but thought he said it was something to do with fire ? After we got a JD baler it was 116 W we never used salt. So I also wonder what good it did. Those wire bales were tight and heavy so it there was a danger of fire I would think the bales were worse than the loose hay ?
 
When we still milked cows we didn't have a round baler or any thing . Every now and then we'd end up some alfalfa not quite dry and rain was coming . We'd stack it cut edge up one layer by layer and salt it and it worked . Made baleage basically , cows loved it . One of our older neighbors recommended it for tough hay that you want to put in.
 
We used more salt when we had the Case hand-tie wire baler than we did after we got a 14T baler. The cows liked the salt, even though it wasn't iodized salt.
 
We use to salt hay if it was a little tough and it stopped it from going through a heat that at times had set barns on fire.
 

I don't see how a few ounces of salt on the outside of a few tons of damp hay is going to do anything, but some people swear it works. Of course, some people swear those deer whistles really work and that putting Vicks on your feet will clear your head.......
 
Well Jesse, maybe it saved them from having to go to the salt block. Since they like salt seems sensible that they'd for that. I have sprayed
diluted molasses for the same reason and it works.

Mark
 
"............even though it wasn't Iodized salt." Second good laugh on this thread tonight. Keep em coming guys!
 
My dad always salted hay that was a bit damp, like from a shaded area or if it needed to be baled a little damp due to rain approaching. I still do the same thing. If you go into the mow a few days after salting some hay, you can smell the sweet smell of hay curing. If you have salted a bunch, you can smell it when you go in the barn. The other advantage is the cows like to eat it. My neighbor, a dairy farmer, buys some from me sometimes for his dry cows & heifers. He says that he has to keep it away from his dairy cows or they will eat it before they will eat the high quality western alfalfa he buys for them.
 
Going from a twine baler to a wire baler was an education for me. I had to learn the hard way with 100 bales of hay that I could make a much denser bale with wire versus twine and hay had to be comparatively drier to bale or lessen tension applied.
 
Doesn't work. Makes you feel better about putting wet hay in your barn.

The salt is at a balance already, it can't absorb huge amounts of moisture.

Sprinkled into the layers it can't get into the bale cores in any even manner especially if it's the usual rock salt coarse stuff.

It's been tested and disproven.
 
my dad and uncles both did and I do now, help with hay heating up lessen chance of fire my dad always told me and the cows and horse's love it. I get the mineral salt and spread it on each layer.
 
"Who said anything about a few ounces? Try 50 pounds or so on about 500 bales."

50lbs salt x 16ounces/lbs = 800 ounces salt.

800 ounces salt / 500 bales = 1.6 ounces salt per bale......

Wouldn't be the first time my math was wrong..... ;-)
 
What's your criteria for a successful test? The barn doesn't burn down?

How many times have you tested with no salt, and burned a barn down?

Is it because the cows eat the hay better? You would too. Everything tastes better with salt on it. 1/4 of your taste buds are dedicated to tasting for salt.
 

If the hay was at all damp,loose or small squares, and was going in the hay mow it got a real good dose of salt on it. In NNY anyway.The cows really tore into it.Not a good idea to get between the cow and her hay.
 
When making hay with my uncle he would make me salt the bales as we stacked them in the mow. He was big on putting salt on the heavy green ones. He said it would dry it out and stop the internal combustion with a damp - wet bale.
 
More info - FWIW....

From the University of Missouri and Making and Storing Quality Hay, Jimmy C. Henning and Howell N. Wheaton
Department of Agronomy:

"Farmers in the past often applied salt to hay as it was stored in the barn to prevent mold and heating. This practice had some merit, but the amount of salt needed for hay of very high moisture content would be so great that the salt would be extremely expensive. In many cases, the salt would lower the palatability of the hay."

See the link below
Salt in Hay
 
Old wives tale, ventilation will cure hay in the barn or in the wagon before putting in the barn.
 
There we go. We can get the government to fund a study of the effects of salt on hay to see if cows get high blood pressure ! All of us can be in on it and then we will have plenty of money to go around.
 
Yes we used to do it because the old fellow I worked for did it. Then I tried leaving some hay unsalted and low and behold it turns out exactly the same.

Think of it like this, if I wanted to fertilize my field, would I drive haphazardly around and toss 50 lbs onto 50 acres in a few spots and claim to have fertilized the field?

If I want to treat the hay with an actual preservative such as proprionic acid, it needs to be sprayed evenly on the loose hay going into the baled uncompressed so it can get to all the surfaces. Thats a liquid that is far more mobile than a solid, it can actually vaporize and move around.

Salt just stays as salt. I can leave a bucket of rock salt in the corner for 50 years and it will still be there, just stuck together as a big lump. It won't have magically migrated to the surfaces around it.
 
No, packing something that is a continuous product at uniform moisture is not the same. A wet ham will dissolve salt and the salt can diffuse into the meat.

Hay, even at 30% average has areas of high and low moisture content and even a chunk of salt touching a wet stem can't transfer that salt to the next stem over, its stuck in the one touching the salt.

The salt has little to no ability to absorb water unless it was stored desiccated, which no one I know who salts hay does.

If the hay is wet, you need air movement around it to take away the moisture. Don't pack damp hay multiple layers deep in a barn and expect salt to prevent your hay from catching fire! You are literally playing with fire at that point.
 
The question still remains, "where does the moisture go if you salt the hay?"
I have not seen an answer to this.
We normally throw a little salt on the bales but I still think it is a old wife's tale more than anything else.
 
(quoted from post at 00:43:02 07/26/16) Who said anything about a few ounces? Try 50 pounds or so on about 500 bales.

50 lbs of salt is 800 oz, 800 oz on 500 bales = 1.6 oz per bale. End of lesson.
 
(quoted from post at 15:28:34 07/26/16) The question still remains, "where does the moisture go if you salt the hay?"
I have not seen an answer to this.
We normally throw a little salt on the bales but I still think it is a old wife's tale more than anything else.

The moisture does not go anywhere different from where it goes without salt. It goes slowly into the atmosphere, the rate depending on daily humidity, tightness of bales, and depth in the stack. The difference is in the amount of bacterial action and resulting heat during the dry-down. The salt kills the bacteria, just like on the salted meat.
 
Except the salt in the mow does nothing as it can't get in
contact with the bacteria. If you ground it up to powder and
used an inoculator on the baler to evenly spread it into the
hay you might have s chance.

New hay makers be warned, salt will not stop your barn from
burning down.
 
(quoted from post at 09:43:46 07/27/16) Except the salt in the mow does nothing as it can't get in
contact with the bacteria. If you ground it up to powder and
used an inoculator on the baler to evenly spread it into the
hay you might have s chance.

New hay makers be warned, salt will not stop your barn from
burning down.

As we all know, a "wet bunch" here and there is normal, and inevitable, and of virtually no concern. If hay is significantly higher in moisture, to the point that it shouldn't have gone into the barn, then during stacking and after, the decision can be made to throw some salt in on a few of the worst ones, where it will be in enough contact with enough moisture to stop the mold from growing from one bale to another. Of course no one reading this forum would EVER do this, every one of us would NEVER put those bales in. Remember we are talking about the way it was done many years ago.
 
The moisture is still there it just is absorbed by the salt and them makes a sort of preservative. I myself have never really tried it. Though I know of people who do and swear by it. We have tried the proprionic acid before. I thought it was a waste of time. We sprayed it on the windrow then balled it. A big pita.
 

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