Best way to store hay outside?

[spotty_pony2]

What’s the best way? I know on pallets but best way to cover it? Currently having out hay barn built but I’ve got 50 new bales on pallets in my field next to my field shelter to save me carting it down there in the winter. It’s meant to rain tomorrow and I have a tarpaulin I’ll put on it just for tomorrow as I want it to breathe for a bit anyway being only baled last week.

My main issue is last winter some of the bales sweated and went mouldy under the tarpaulin and had to be thrown away. Is there a certain way of wrapping them to prevent this?

I think the rain made the tarpaulin heavy on top and weighed it down and made it sweat but want to prevent this happening again… what do you all do?

 

[ElleSkywalkingintheair]

I've never managed to store hay out side under a tarp.

The only way I think it might work is if you can make a sort of pitched tent over the top leaving a lot of space for air flow all the way round and no flat top for water to pool on. Also if possible stack on two pallets rather than one high.

The only way I'd really trust would be to wrap the bales individually with bale wrap

ETA is it possible to put them inside the field shelter to store? I know you probably need to use it as a shelter but I've thrown away hundreds of bales over the years that I thought were safe, trying all sorts including pallets on top for airflow etc but it's very rarely worked when it has seems to have been more luck because of weather than my covering skills

 

[Poingsettia]

You need an air gap over the top bales - tyres, another few pallets, poles or square straw bales that you can afford to bin. Then tarpaulin over the top, lashed down in a tent style.

 

[spotty_pony2]

thanks both, hmm I may end up bringing them up to the hay barn after all when it’s finished if there’s room!

 

[The Xmas Furry]

You need an air gap over the top bales - tyres, another few pallets, poles or square straw bales that you can afford to bin. Then tarpaulin over the top, lashed down in a tent style.

Yes, this.

Before I got haybarn sorted, we used to stack on pallets, then a layer of pallets on top, a few scattered tyres and then a decent tarp over the lot with sides out a bit to let air round.

 

[PurBee]

I did it one year as I had bought large round bales. It was a success to keep them in the condition I bought them in.
Usually hay outside just covered in tarp will mould as tarps condensate underneath, due to warmer temp inside than outside. So hay will get wet slowly and mould as the winter weeks progress.
I put the hay on pallets on hardcore ground. I also laid breather membrane on the pallets before stacking the hay onto the pallets. I wrapped the entire stack all close and tight in house wall breather membrane using baler twine, (rolls of b.m. are fairly cheap) ,then brand new thick good waterproof tarp over that.

I used dry tyres between the breather membrane and tarp layer, so the tarp wasn’t laying directly on the breather membrane.
For the ‘roof’ so it wasn’t a flat roof allowing rain to sit on it, I stacked tyres in the centre of the stack to create an angle for fast rain and condensation run-off.
The tarp is stretched over like an outer tent skin - braced tight with twine, wrapped around heavy rocks or tyres. Allows airflow and fast run-off of water.

The breather membrane is so handy for hay - even in a barn stack to prevent the outside of the hay getting mouldy.
Breather membrane is designed to let air and moisture out, and not allow moisture in. It’s important to wrap the stack with the membrane with the correct side facing out - most membranes have that stamped all over it so we don’t forget!
It’s a days work for a large stack, but worth it when January/feb comes and the hay is in fab condition.

It’s the only method I used out of countless attempts to keep hay as fresh as the day it was stacked.

Others I read had attempted various methods, some use large bags of silica gel balls hanging around their stack - but they need re-drying too often to be re-used and will soon get full saturation being outside in winter - you’d forever be drying bags of silica gel in the oven!
Silica gel bags could be used to remove any excess moisture from the bales while they’re stacked, underneath the breather membrane. But you’d still need a heck of a lot of them for a hay stack.
£80 for 25kg of silica gel was the price I last paid (for some other project) and you’d need a few bags of that to make a difference to a hay stack…but just mentioning in case you have a cheap source of silica gel.

 

[Sanversera]

We put down pallets then a straw layer. Stack hay on top, another straw layer then tin sheets, pallets on top to hold them down then cover it all with a tarpaulin.