How is our hay made these days

ozpoz said:
I am not ashamed to admit I do blame Monsanto for quite a lot of evil in the world Popsdosh.
I would class myself more as a humanitarian than eco warrior, and I am horrified at the exploitation, degradation and misery this company cause, without mercy.

Enough said. I don't support them.
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I am afraid from a farming point of view half world would not be fed today if it was not for glyphos.
We could not farm without it to produce food for the price it is .
It saves a lot of weed control that could only be carried out by cultivation otherwise . These then burn up fuel and produce CO2
 
nianya said:
I've never seen that done in the US either. A quick look around on ag sites suggests that weed killer (round up or something else) is sprayed at least 4 days before cutting to limit the weeds in the hay. Every hay field I've seen in the US and now in Lux was cut, dried, then baled.
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Its not to kill weeds within the hay it is so the grass itself is killed so another crop can be sown. If you dont do that you need to wait 3 weeks for the grass to green up again before you can kill it off.
 
Good evening, reference to "Round up" hay - if you spray grass with Glyphosate then the entire grass plant would die.
Moving on to Balers choice, I have a good knowledge, BC is made of propionic acid, this is an organic acid that is naturally occurring in the horses Caecum which is part of the large intestine, it's other ingredients are citric acid and distilled water, all the ingredients are on the approved European animal feed ingredients register.
BC is used to control moulds and yeasts, when applied correctly at the correct application rates it will do this effectively up to 30% moisture.
BC will allow the user to bale hay on average 1 day sooner while reducing tedding passes, this allows more leaf to be retained which means a higher quality feed, by baling at around the 20% moisture there is greatly reduced dust exactly like haylage but without the inherent risk in haylage bales of Salmonella, Botulism and Listeriosis, that can be caused by insufficient plastic wrap or baling haylage too dry.
On feeding BC treated hay, my O/H feeds treated hay to her horses and livery yard, we did a taste test, by placing tubs of hay in stables one treated the other their normal ryegrass hay, the result......the horses actively chose the treated hay, holding good body condition whilst reducing concentrate use, the hay did not need to be soaked as it wasn't dusty, so we were not having to add additional nutrients. Incidentally a thoroughbred that had been notoriously hard to keep winter weight on, reached the highest consistent weight of its life.
If anyone has any questions on hay preservation by using Balers Choicethen please do ask. ( I am one of the UK products specialists for The BC brand )
Admin if this post is not acceptable please remove, I was only trying to introduce factual information into this discussion
 
Borderreiver said:
We make our own hay in the traditional way. Haymaking is a nightmare because of the vagaries of the British weather and the amount of effort, blood, sweat, tears not to mention diesel involved is largely undervalued I think.
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We used to make our own too, and I totally concur with this. Its a nightmare - very worrying indeed (with the weather that is ). Much rather buy it in like I do now, and let someone else worry about it :-) But in answer to original question, we always made our hay in the traditional way with no chemicals
 
popsdosh said:
Its not to kill weeds within the hay it is so the grass itself is killed so another crop can be sown. If you dont do that you need to wait 3 weeks for the grass to green up again before you can kill it off.
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Which might explain why the ag forums were talking mostly about using it in alfalfa fields :D
 
nianya said:
Which might explain why the ag forums were talking mostly about using it in alfalfa fields :D
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Can I ask haymaker then why most of the large hay producers in cambridgeshire are well aware that some horses will not eat hay that has been baled with it. They are very reluctant to use it on hay destined for horses.
 
popsdosh said:
Can I ask haymaker then why most of the large hay producers in cambridgeshire are well aware that some horses will not eat hay that has been baled with it. They are very reluctant to use it on hay destined for horses.
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Firstly there is more than one hay preservative on the market and they are not all made equal and I can only speak for ours. I know of Cambridgeshire hay producers that use and that don't. I know of hay treated with our product being used by the "happy hacker" all the way through to the top.
I can only speak from my own experience at home, where we have seen no reluctance to eat treated hay, the only problem we have found is trying to wean a horse back onto untreated hay. Sorry I can only speak of what I know.
 
Hay Maker said:
Firstly there is more than one hay preservative on the market and they are not all made equal and I can only speak for ours. I know of Cambridgeshire hay producers that use and that don't. I know of hay treated with our product being used by the "happy hacker" all the way through to the top.
I can only speak from my own experience at home, where we have seen no reluctance to eat treated hay, the only problem we have found is trying to wean a horse back onto untreated hay. Sorry I can only speak of what I know.
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Which is the same as me !
One local contractor was supplying hay to several yards and they all had issues feeding it he then changed it for hay he had from the same field that did not have any applied and hey presto they were eating it . However talking with several people locally they all have had the same to some degree or other they all us BC. That is why I wont!!
Whether its because with BC the hay still gets warm I dont know ,because how I understand it BC does stop the formation of moulds etc but it does not stop the hay heating up in the stack.
I saw some baled at 25% moisture and it would have frightened me to have it stacked,I believe a few spontaneous stack fires have been attributed to its use!
Its all been a problem brought about by dense large bales that do not naturally breath in the stack. The conensus is for large square bales it need to be fit for longer than conventional ones before you bale. We make any hay we make in large round bales that can stay in the field and breath for a while if there is any doubt about it being fit
 
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Morning popsdosh,
if you are hearing of BC treated hay heating, there will normally be three possible reasons, the hay is being baled at too higher moisture for the amount of BC being applied or the bale weight that the automatic system is being programmed with is too low and the operator is tricking the system into under applying. The hay is being left outside and not stacked under cover so will take in moisture from the ground and potential rain falling on them, again adding more moisture compared to the amount of preservative applied.
On baling you would normally see a few degrees temperature rise over ambient temperature and the the hay going cold.
 
Ok, I'd never heard of treated hay before. Having looked it up, there's nothing scary about it. It's propionic acid and citric acid. PA is used in foods humans eat as well as a mold inhibitor, and CA is obviously also a preservative (lemon juice essentially). Both are metabolized by the body normally. It looks like it's used more in places where hay is more likely to have moisture issues or where bales are larger (so often with cow feed), which explains why I hadn't heard of it as we were still mostly using very small bales and cut/dried in dry areas of the country. I could see an issue with over-application of it and horses turning their noses up though.

Are really large square bales the common method for haying in the UK? That's the only kind I've seen here in Lux and I understand from my mother that it's getting harder to buy the small square bales back in the US now too.
 
Haymaker are you suggesting that to use BC at 30% moisture will leave sweet smelling hay that would be fit for horses. I supect with big bales there may be issues filling haynets? Most contractors at that moisture I am sure would wrap it to be safe and its cheaper.
 
Also found this that probably sums up my thoughts on it.

A study conducted at the University of Illinois found that yearlings receiving hay treated
with a mixture of propionic and acetic acids consumed just as much and gained just as
much over a 1 month feeding trial as yearlings consuming untreated hay. Clinical
measures of well-being of the horses, such as serum enzyme levels, were not affected
by consumption of preservative-treated hay, indicating the hay had no negative effects
on the horses. A study conducted at Cornell University showed that when given a
choice, horses preferred alfalfa that was not treated with a preservative over alfalfa that
had been treated with a mixture of propionic and acetic acid. However, when only given
the treated hay, daily consumption did not decrease. Thus, after a short conditioning
period, horses will consume acid-treated hay.
 
popsdosh said:
Also found this that probably sums up my thoughts on it.


A study conducted at the University of Illinois found that yearlings receiving hay treated
with a mixture of propionic and acetic acids consumed just as much and gained just as
much over a 1 month feeding trial as yearlings consuming untreated hay. Clinical
measures of well-being of the horses, such as serum enzyme levels, were not affected
by consumption of preservative-treated hay, indicating the hay had no negative effects
on the horses. A study conducted at Cornell University showed that when given a
choice, horses preferred alfalfa that was not treated with a preservative over alfalfa that
had been treated with a mixture of propionic and acetic acid. However, when only given
the treated hay, daily consumption did not decrease. Thus, after a short conditioning
period, horses will consume acid-treated hay.
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Well found, the research was commissioned by Harvesttec to compare intakes, in North America the product is regulated as fungicide, so extensive testing was carried out to prove both it's efficacy and safety for all livestock.
 
popsdosh said:
Haymaker are you suggesting that to use BC at 30% moisture will leave sweet smelling hay that would be fit for horses. I supect with big bales there may be issues filling haynets? Most contractors at that moisture I am sure would wrap it to be safe and its cheaper.
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On round or small square you can bale up to 30% but normally people will not go over 26%
On large square maximum moisture is 27% and from personnel experience hay stored at 26% with the correct preservative levels will feed out like dry but without the dust.
On cost talking to a farmer last year he told me it costs him £35 per tonne to wrap his horse haylage bales. That's 5 bales per tonne with 8 wraps of plastic, on a large square are at our 4.7 litres per tonne application rate which will treat up to 27% costs £11.75 / tonne.
 
nianya said:
Ok, I'd never heard of treated hay before. Having looked it up, there's nothing scary about it. It's propionic acid and citric acid. PA is used in foods humans eat as well as a mold inhibitor, and CA is obviously also a preservative (lemon juice essentially). Both are metabolized by the body normally. It looks like it's used more in places where hay is more likely to have moisture issues or where bales are larger (so often with cow feed), which explains why I hadn't heard of it as we were still mostly using very small bales and cut/dried in dry areas of the country. I could see an issue with over-application of it and horses turning their noses up though.

Are really large square bales the common method for haying in the UK? That's the only kind I've seen here in Lux and I understand from my mother that it's getting harder to buy the small square bales back in the US now too.
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The Equine market has led to a resurgence of the small square baler market, there is a lot of hay made with large square balers as this is the most efficient for road transport
 
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