to stop mushrooming haylage/hay bales

Bosworth

Bosworth

Well-Known Member
Joined
10 February 2006
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5,268
Location
devon
www.ballhillequestrian.co.uk
we all hate it, bales that are pulled from the top, people who don't simply unwrap. Well its a dead easy problem to solve. Lie the bale on its side, split the wrap, (I remove all the wrap except the bit it is lying on) and then just simply peel of what you want. No way can it mushroom, it is easy to use all the way through. No more pulled backs, really fast to get the amount you want. How many years have we been struggling to cope with mushrooming bales. When the answer is soooooooooo simple.
 
What is this mushrooming bale business? Are there any photos of it? Assume this is a round bale shared by many liveries? I once shared a haylage bale with 2 other liveries, we all agreed to use 5kg each night and one evening I caught them weighing my haynet! Sharing promptly ceased after that.
 
We find the best way is upright so that there is less mess. Put it upright cut the top on 3 sides then cut vertically down the sides of each corner so the haylage can breathe and doesnt get 'stuck' still easy to use and you dont get the slices trying to fall over and collapse as they do when sideways unless im misunderstanding how you do it! The farmer told us that you should always cut the plastic away from the haylage so it breathes & lasts longer as doesnt get mouldy but it still has a 'lid' to protect from rain. Works well for us :)
 
Lol. I don't know if that would work as they're outside and have bale covers on. However, I'm just about to move and thinking of getting my own in so looking on tips!

At work we have it on it's side and you can fill loads of nets in minutes. That's in a barn though.
 
Thankfully now i'm on a small yard only me and my friend share a bale (she has the same anti-mushrooming views as me!) we have no problems :)

But it used to drive me insane at work!
 
Ours are upright (kept inside). We cut away all the plastic on arrival (as we only get one bale at a time). Each time we fill nets we pull down sufficient for the next fill, shake it out and let it breathe for a few hours. Our worry is that we only have three horses and we have to watch that the haylage doesn't go off.

It used to be so much easier when we fed hay, but ours eat as a herd and my mare is hay-intolerant, so haylage it has to be. But we manage to keep the mushrooms at bay. And one thing about haylage, they;re only fed a small amount, adore it, so there's never the wastage there was with hay.
 
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