How many times can hay get wet

mikewood869 · May 29, 2020

Ended up mowing Sunday, then it rained Monday, fast foreword to Wednesday, everything was in rows and we thought we were ready to bale but then the knives went. Thursday morning, we realized that the haybine did not crimp the hay, so everything is still green. On top of that it was misting to drizzling all day and most of the night. There is a chance of rain tonight and Saturday night. The plan is to ted it out Sunday morning and hope and pray that I can bale it Tuesday. I'm thinking that it would still be good for the cows or am I wrong. We did some test bales Thursday when the hay felt dry (it stopped misting for four hours) and we got 80 pound block that were wet and green.

centash · May 29, 2020

One rain on fresh cut hay will do little damage.....but it washes off the waxy
coating on the stem, making subsequent rains more damaging since they can soak in
and leach out the minerals within. Heat with rain is the worst thing, since the hay
will mold in the swath, whereas cold wet weather is far less damaging. Yours sounds
borderline, if rain is imminent and it's not dry, do not turn it...only when there
is a good forecast, then rake or tedder it and bale asap

Ben

rrlund · May 29, 2020

Depends on what you're feeding it to I guess. I never baled anything that the brood cows wouldn't eat eventually, but some of it was far from ideal. I remember our vo-ag teacher telling us one time that a cow could starve to death on a full stomach, and they certainly would have on very much of the stuff that they've eaten when it was all they had.

Robert (ID) · May 29, 2020

I have seen rained on hay dry and get baled with a black could of dust following the baler... It was then mixed in the cow feed slowly over the winter... I was told along time ago any kind of hay looks good to a cow when its on top of 2 ft of snow...

Traditional Farmer · May 30, 2020

For me if it gets rained on the afternoon or night after I cut it its fine,after its dried a day or so gets wet then dries out the quality is down but is pretty good.Rained on and dried out the 2nd time if I need straw I'll bale it,if not I figure its worth more as mulch in the field than it'd be to feed to anything.

JCCWI · May 31, 2020

I've baled rained on hay that has been rained on more than once or twice......the key for me is as soon as it starts to dry on top , ted it sooner rather than later.....keeps in from getting musty. I always pile rained on hay separately. I sell all my hay and most years by Spring
everything is gone. This year I have about 30 bales left and will carry over to be sold with 2020 hay. A fair amount of Winter kill around here for 2nd year in a row and expect hay demand will be good.

Leroy · Jun 3, 2020

Question of "How many times can hay get wet. So open no answer possible. First you need to tell us what kind of hay, legumes or grass and variety's as some of either can stand more rain than others. Then how long after cut was made before rain. Then duration and amount of rain, how long between rains. More factors that I cannot think of now.

SVcummins · Jun 3, 2020

Fed some pretty skanky stuff over the years never starved a A
beef cow yet . The worst thing you can do is rake then get
rained on again seen hay go through a lot of rain never turned
and still look pretty good but if you turn it and it rains again it
makes a mess

mikewood869 · Jun 4, 2020

I don't know what kind of grasses that are in there, but the bales came out good, there were a few that were heavy, but a lot better than the first time we tried to bale and dryer than other people's hay. We flipped the hay over Thursday. We ended up baling our field last Friday last afternoon, Saturday afternoon and Sunday afternoon. The bales didn't turn out so bad. The bales are going to be for the cows and goats. There are no 70 pound wet bricks in there.

mikewood869 · Jun 4, 2020

I don't know what kind of grasses that are in there, but the bales came out good, there were a few that were heavy, but a lot better than the first time we tried to bale and dryer than other people's hay. We flipped the hay over Thursday. We ended up baling our field last Friday last afternoon, Saturday afternoon and Sunday afternoon. The bales didn't turn out so bad. The bales are going to be for the cows and goats. There are no 70 pound wet bricks in there.

mikewood869 · Jun 4, 2020

We raked the rows once before it rained, then let the top of the rows dry for a few days and then Flipped the rows to dry the bottom then baled a day later depending on what row was dry enough. We got 200 bales off a 7 acre field.

mikewood869 · Jun 4, 2020

How many times can hay get wet

mikewood869

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centash

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rrlund

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Robert (ID)

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Traditional Farmer

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JCCWI

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Leroy

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SVcummins

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mikewood869

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