Wrapping dry round bales

We plan to make haylage for ourselves and a couple of our customers who raise beef, but was wondering how we could store & market dry rounds.

Our barn space is taken up by small squares that we sell to horse people, so here's the question: Can you wrap dry rounds and store them outside? Will they sweat & mold? Is there a downside to this hare-brained idea?

We have fed wrapped hayage that we have bought and I noticed a few that were put up too dry and they didn't ensile, but looked, smelled and fed out great. Would this happen with dry (15 -25% moisture) bales?

Any advice will be appreciated.

Thanks,
Scott

Scott

If you're wrapping round bale silage, you want the moisture at around 50 %.... and probably as low at 40%. Somewhere in that range. Wetter can work. Drier can sometimes work.... but you often sacrifice something. Too wet and they get slimy and rancid. Too dry and they entrap too much air... and carmelise rather than ensile. So do try to hit around that 50 % range, and wrap them right away. Wrapping them soon after baling is one of the biggest factors to success with that system.... I've wrapped a lot of bales over the years, and few things have consistently produced poor results as late wrapping.

Rod

We started wrapping a little hay two years ago, so im trying to get better at wrapping myself. First year we baled too wet and it came out a soupy, moldy mess. What was put up during 2006 was at the other end, probably between 20-25% moisture. The hay was dry to the touch, and the outside six inches or so of the bales had a little mold, but the bales smelled sweet like silage, and the cattle really licked it up. This year, we have wrapped around 150 bales so far and it has been all over the board, from probably 20% moisture up to 60%, so I will see how it all turns out.

Hopefully after seeing how it turns out this year I will have a better idea. Everything I have read says dont wrap below 25-30% moisture, but then ive heard neighbors who wrap everything, from dry hay right on up to 65% moisture and they dont seem to have any problems.

I dont know if there is any difference in using a tubline wrapper like we use, or individual wrappers.

Also, ive heard that you need to wrap round bales within several hours of baling. Unfortunately because of my work schedule, we usually get the hay baled in the evenings, moved off late that night, and not wrapped until the next morning when my custom wrapper shows up. This could affect quality some also.

I would also appreciate any advice others out there have to offer.

Haylage will have it's best results when baled between 40-55% moisture range. If you are above or below this range you risk having Botulism and other harmful bacteria in the halage and that will eventually kill your livestock.
Too much moisture waters down the sugar content and the curing process in this situation will not kill all the harmful bacteria. Too little moisture limits the ability for sugar to promote the anaerobic bacteria to react and totally cure of the package of haylage.