Rained On Hay

showcrop · Jul 3, 2017

Well what do you think? Which is more likely to get dusty? Hay that is baled without getting rained on or hay that does get rained on? This is assuming that the hay did not get wet through, and still had good green color after drying down again. Warning, this could be considered to be a trick question.

rrlund · Jul 3, 2017

Must be a horse hay question. I never did understand "dusty" hay. It's all dusty when you're baling it.

Leroy · Jul 3, 2017

I am with you rrlund.

dhermesc · Jul 3, 2017

Hadn't thought of that - I could tell them I washed all the dust off of it..............

rrlund · Jul 3, 2017

Hey Leroy,Larry said you wanted a scanned copy of that Oliver mower brochure. I can scan it when it gets here. Did you just want me to email it to you,or print it and mail it? Email should be open on Classic.

tomstractorsandtoys · Jul 3, 2017

Years ago I sold hay to a fancy horse farm and no matter what hay the took each bale apart and washed each slice with a garden hose before feeding it. You could have fed several beef cows off the hay they dumped in the manure pile. They overfed each horse and whatever was not ate at the next feeding went to the pile. Tom

fixerupper · Jul 3, 2017

I don't know the exact answer. The old timers said clover hay was very dusty if it was rained on. They would be black from the dust after baling it.

rrlund · Jul 3, 2017

Forget it I guess. The wife went out and got the mail. The envelope came. Larry said he put a newspaper in with the brochure. The paper was in there,but the brochure wasn't.

flying belgian · Jul 3, 2017

Exactly. It better be dusty when you bale it or it is going to mold in the barn.

jon f mn · Jul 3, 2017

When I was still a welder I would make 2 or
3 tumblers for hay each year for horse folks
to get the dust out of hay. Each customer
that wanted one would have to provide a
contractor size cement mixer, I would cut
the tub off and fabricate a new one fro m
expanded steel large enough to hold a square
bale of hay. They would tumble the hay with
a fan on it to blow away the dust. Made
quite a few of those over the years for
horse people.

Mike(NEOhio) · Jul 3, 2017

FIL had an old hay customer that would pour a bucket of water on a bale the night before he would feed it. No dust.

showcrop · Jul 3, 2017

Yes, it is a horse customer question. Many seem to have the idea that no matter how many days sun and times turned you can never get rain out of hay on the ground. I am fortunate to be selling to customers that I have been supplying for perhaps 25 years, and when I get hay rained on we just see how it looks once dried down and baled and I allow a discount, provided that it is good feed. Of course if it is wet for too long it becomes mulch. My main point is that it is better to let it get rained on rather than bale it before it is dry, and have a lot of dust. One's reputation should suffer little if one is honest.

JD Seller · Jul 3, 2017

Showcrop If you ted the hay ASAP after it is rained on it will not get dusty and the color will be fine. The dust comes from the hay laying wet. The bacteria starts to break the hay down. High moisture and heat make a great breeding ground for it. Then you get dust regardless of what you then do. IF I get hay rained on I try to ted it the very next morning before the sun gets very high. I run a light smaller tractor that will not track unless you get 3-4 inch rains. The key is to get that hay up off the ground and separated so it will dry rapidly. Wet does not make as much difference as doing it when the hay is still cool.

Truthfully the majority of horse people have little scientific/factual knowledge about feeding horses. They operate off of what other horse people tell them and those horse people don't know much either. Feeding a horse is not rocket science. You need to know what levels of nutrients the horse needs and what your feed contains.

Dick L · Jul 3, 2017

My horses like wet hay. Not washed but wet from rain when I stack three or four bales out where I feed. They clean it up faster when wet. I have read where people will wet down hay when they feed their horses. I have not heard of washing it though.

Cliff Nelson · Jul 3, 2017

Clover hay is dusty before it gets rained on. BTDT.

Dick L · Jul 3, 2017

A lot of mold dust is not supposed to be good for horses. Dry hay dust has never given me any horse problems. I have fed some pretty crappy hay to my horses. They pull out and drop what they don't want to eat onto the ground and crap on it. Horses sort thru the hay and eat what they like best first and if they are still hungry they sort for second best and so on. They can be as picky as you let them.

Andy Martin · Jul 3, 2017

I was bling for an elderly neighbor one time several years ago and some horse people showed up to buy his hay. They were trying to talk him down on price so he chased them off. He said:

"What happened to horses? When I was young we worked with horses and they ate the crappy hay. We made money off the cows so they got the best hay. We worked our horses hard and they never got sick. What happened to horses?"

I suspect it is that they don't really have to strain and work. But he was asking a rhetorical question and it was funny as all get out. He ranted for quite a while. I bought all his hay that year.

Bill VA · Jul 4, 2017

I think of rain and hay like tea leaves. If they are green (fresh cut hay) and get rinsed, no tea. If they get dried out (hay that is ready to bale),
and rinsed, then you got tea (hay with less nutrients).

As far as dust, there is dirt/ash from getting into your hay from your tines, disc mower, etc into the dirt which I'm told can increase the hay's iron
levels. I have a horse customer that has an IR horse and issues its high iron. So low ESC+starch and low iron levels are important. Our high
stubble cut helps eliminate the iron issue. However, soaking the hay will bring down the sugar and iron levels, but is a pain for the owner. If
you are testing your hay, you get some rain and can keep it from dust molding in the windrow, you might have hay suitable for an IR horse.

Mold dust - you can smell it vs mechanical/dry hay.

As far as baling early avoid to rain, without having dust or mold issues, I'd highly recommend a hay preservative/applicator on your baler. We
have a buffered propionic acid system on our baler ready to go, but haven't used it - yet. Also recommend a baler mounted moisture meter.
We have an Agtronix BH-2 moister meter and it gives live readings so we know exactly where the moisture levels are throughout the day.
Since we installed it, where the humidity levels of the hay were in range, even though I would have guessed it might be dusty, zero dust. If the
levels get borderline we stop baling or have our preservative applicator we can use if we choose. Our Hesston 1110 mower conditioner - the
conditioning effect has been a game changer here in the mountains of VA.

Bottom line - I think you can make horse quality hay, even with rain or the threat of it.

Good luck,
Bill

Leroy · Jul 4, 2017

Just hope he simply forgot it or dropped it without realizing it and will find it still laying on his floor. Was the envelope damaged when you got it like it could have got lost in the mail? That was a valuable piece. I am a manual collector with close to a thousand manuals for everything. For some shows a manual display is what I take.

showcrop · Jul 4, 2017

(quoted from post at 04:16:03 07/04/17) I think of rain and hay like tea leaves. If they are green (fresh cut hay) and get rinsed, no tea. If they get dried out (hay that is ready to bale),
and rinsed, then you got tea (hay with less nutrients).

As far as dust, there is dirt/ash from getting into your hay from your tines, disc mower, etc into the dirt which I'm told can increase the hay's iron
levels. I have a horse customer that has an IR horse and issues its high iron. So low ESC+starch and low iron levels are important. Our high
stubble cut helps eliminate the iron issue. However, soaking the hay will bring down the sugar and iron levels, but is a pain for the owner. If
you are testing your hay, you get some rain and can keep it from dust molding in the windrow, you might have hay suitable for an IR horse.

Mold dust - you can smell it vs mechanical/dry hay.

As far as baling early avoid to rain, without having dust or mold issues, I'd highly recommend a hay preservative/applicator on your baler. We
have a buffered propionic acid system on our baler ready to go, but haven't used it - yet. Also recommend a baler mounted moisture meter.
We have an Agtronix BH-2 moister meter and it gives live readings so we know exactly where the moisture levels are throughout the day.
Since we installed it, where the humidity levels of the hay were in range, even though I would have guessed it might be dusty, zero dust. If the
levels get borderline we stop baling or have our preservative applicator we can use if we choose. Our Hesston 1110 mower conditioner - the
conditioning effect has been a game changer here in the mountains of VA.

Bottom line - I think you can make horse quality hay, even with rain or the threat of it.

Good luck,
Bill

I had a preservative applicator on for a few seasons back maybe 25 years ago. I still have the moisture tester. After awhile it just seems that it was not telling me anything that I didn't know and the spray system seemed to use way too much. As I said above, to me the bottom line is: don't bale before it is ready, even if you can see that rain is coming and you could get it baled.

rrlund · Jul 4, 2017

I wouldn't have thought Larry wouldn't have mailed it in the shape it was in. It had been opened and just had two strips of some heavy narrow tape around the end holding the flap shut. It was a big Priority Mail envelope with a tracking number. I wonder if I took the envelope and a picture printed from the one's Larry posted of it,if it would do any good? Does USPS put out an APB?

cannonball · Jul 4, 2017

and my theory on horses are because they don't pull their head out is why they breath mold in hay if it moldy, as you said a cow takes a bite and pulls their head out...

El Hombre · Jul 4, 2017

Went horse back riding on the Big Island of Hawaii. Woman that ran it told me they had to import alfalfa hay from Cali. When they tried to grow it locally, the near constant rain would produce mold and get the horsies sick. They needed most of a week to dry it, and never got that....

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