Making Hay Indoors - No I'm not joking!

Broomcroft · Post by **Broomcroft** » Fri Jul 24, 2009 2:35 pm

Davidw (or anyone else)

David - You used to design balers didn't you? I used to run an engineering company. So my mind has been trying to work out how to make hay indoors undercover (most likely wrapped).

At the moment we take the equipment to the field but I'm thinking of taking the grass to the equipment indoors, but I don't know enough about agricultural equipment and what's available.

Someone I know brings his grass inside, and bales it into small bales and then puts the bales manually to a static wrapper.

I'm not thinking of bringing in soaking wet grass, I'm thinking of some sort of system where you can take a small window of dry weather, cut, wilt for a while if you can, with or without turning/spreading it, and then getting it indoors and bale / wrap there. But it must be affordable. I have a big open barn that stands empty from May to November every year and it's bone dry in there.

I can think of a system to do it but not one that won't break the bank and involve a team of engineers. There has to be a way.

Duncan MacIntyre · Post by **Duncan MacIntyre** » Fri Jul 24, 2009 2:51 pm

Clive,

have a look at http://www.hillmeadow.co.uk aimed at horses of course but they will be using the sort of set up you are thinking about.

Duncan

Saffy · Post by **Saffy** » Fri Jul 24, 2009 3:03 pm

In Norway the dry the hay indoors, or outdoors on a sort of fence system.

Maybe look at Norwegian webpages?

Stephanie

Edited By Saffy on 1248444268

Woodmagic · Post by **Woodmagic** » Fri Jul 24, 2009 4:09 pm

I have made hay dried on tripods in the past, but it is very labour intensive.
Beryl (Woodmagic)

bjreroberts · Post by **bjreroberts** » Fri Jul 24, 2009 4:26 pm

Take a look at http://www.kenmills.co.uk/ I think they are the people that make the machines to re-pack small bale haylage.

I can understand the problem you are trying to solve, but doesn't the solution already exist in round bale plastic wrapped haylage/silage?

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Broomcroft · Post by **Broomcroft** » Sat Jul 25, 2009 12:16 am

Hi Ben

We have had little more than just a few 24 hour periods of dry weather, so not time to wilt. By the time the ground has dried out sufficient not to make a mess, it is only possible to mow and then the rain is here again or it will be by morning. I suppose another answer is to mow and bale immediately. We use an all-in-one baler/wrapper so we can do hundreds of large round bales in an afternoon. Then I have to get them off the field immediately (which takes a lot longer than baling) because we have thousands of crows, and doing that when it is raining is horrible.

I just wonder what silage is like if you do not wilt at all. I know it's done, but what's it like?

Digressing, the last time we tried to mow, the contractor had to stop because his mower was ticking. He told me that the last time it ticked, a disc broke off, came through the closed back window of his tractor and out through the front one!!!

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davidw · Post by **davidw** » Sat Jul 25, 2009 7:51 am

Dear Clive,

Like you, I am tearing my hair out. I was away for the only two week period of dry weather in late june and so missed the chance of making hay. Now the grass has fallen over and its so humid in the bottom of the sward that its rotted off.
There are several industrial balers available for waste paper etc, but they are either very expensive or laborious.
The only way I can think of to date is bale and wrap, but the price of second hand wrappers has shot up - I wonder why?

davidw · Post by **davidw** » Sat Jul 25, 2009 7:57 am

I just looked at the Hill Meadow equipment. A friend has a similar system - it cost him around £90,000 plus forklifts etc to feed it. It also uses more power than his farm mains supply can handle so he runs it off a massive generator. Not cost effective for my few Dexters.
A system that was around some years ago was to bale the hay when it was almost dry, stack it in the barn and use a fan to finish drying it. Not always a fool-proof system and stacking heavy green bales is no fun either.

Broomcroft · Post by **Broomcroft** » Sun Jul 26, 2009 7:57 am

"I have made hay dried on tripods in the past, but it is very labour intensive."

Hi Beryl - When you made hay like this presumably it was just loose. Was the quality good? We're all brought up now that a bale should be as tight as possible. Is it that it just lasts longer if tightly packed?

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Woodmagic · Post by **Woodmagic** » Sun Jul 26, 2009 8:17 pm

The idea of tripod hay was to enhance the quality. It was before the days of hay bales. When it comes to baling tightly the aim of hay dealers is to save on transport. As a buyer my response is split - loose light bales are usually good quality, but buying by the bale and not weight makes them expensive. However if it is not well dried it won’t make in a tightly packed bale but almost certainly go mouldy.
Beryl (Woodmagic)