Questions: wrapping DRY hay (round bales, single cutting, grass w some legumes)

[WI Dan]

I've done some reading here on YT and other websites, but I am curious what others experiences have been.
-not silage bales- this would be DRY hay, less than 18% moisture.
Made from field grass, some clover, some triticale, some other stuff

When do you wrap it? Immediately after baling, or wait a day?
How many wraps/layers of plastic? What thickness plastic?
Individual bales or tube/line of bales?
How do you store them? stacked or spread out or in a North-South row?
Does it matter if it's pre-bloom cut or cut after going to seed?

 

[deere4040]

I’ve never seen good luck with wrapping dry. If feeding it yourself and dont mind slime/mold/spoilage try several methods and let us know what works. I personally would wrap them as you would baleage. For 4x4 I use 21 revolutions with 30” wrap wrapping individually.

This year I had to buy hay and bought dry wrapped bales and all had some issue and had lots of plastic on them.

 

[Absent Minded Farmer]

I've done some reading here on YT and other websites, but I am curious what others experiences have been.
-not silage bales- this would be DRY hay, less than 18% moisture.
Made from field grass, some clover, some triticale, some other stuff

When do you wrap it? Immediately after baling, or wait a day?
How many wraps/layers of plastic? What thickness plastic?
Individual bales or tube/line of bales?
How do you store them? stacked or spread out or in a North-South row?
Does it matter if it's pre-bloom cut or cut after going to seed?

What would be the purpose of wrapping it? Just a different means of storage?

Mike

 

[flying belgian]

What would be the purpose of wrapping it? Just a different means of storage?

Mike

I was wondering the same thing.

 

[jhwis]

I've done some reading here on YT and other websites, but I am curious what others experiences have been.
-not silage bales- this would be DRY hay, less than 18% moisture.
Made from field grass, some clover, some triticale, some other stuff

When do you wrap it? Immediately after baling, or wait a day?
How many wraps/layers of plastic? What thickness plastic?
Individual bales or tube/line of bales?
How do you store them? stacked or spread out or in a North-South row?
Does it matter if it's pre-bloom cut or cut after going to seed?

I don't see any advantage to wrapping dry hay.

 

[Davidj]

I think anything gained by protecting the bales from the weather would be lost to wet slugs caught in the bale becoming mouldy. Even if you wait for the bales to cure properly, the bottom would pick up moisture from the ground and I’d be afraid it would taint the rest of the hay. Not sure about triticale, but clover is slow to dry in the windrow. If you store the bales outside, high and dry and at least a foot apart, you minimize your losses. Dunno what your market is like there, but around here, $40 for a dry 4x4 grass bale is about the going rate and wrapping would take up about 20% of that. Likely better to cut and wrap the clover and triticale early enough for the dairy market if you’re thinking of wrapping anyway. Around here in eastern Ontario, the dairy guys usually start cutting the last week of May. Wrapping works with wet bales because the cost is offset by not losing the outer few inches to the weather and way less leaf loss in raking and baling. Best of luck and I hope my long winded epistle is a help to you….haha

 

[BarnyardEngineering]

What would be the purpose of wrapping it? Just a different means of storage?

Mike

Most dry hay is left out in the weather because buildings are expensive. People get all worked up over "waste."

I've tried stacking and tarping dry hay and it grew mold and mushrooms. There was less waste leaving it sit out in the weather.

I did look into wrapping dry hay but the information I found was that you use BLACK bale wrap.

 

[deere4040]

I did look into wrapping dry hay but the information I found was that you use BLACK bale wrap.

That didn't make a difference on the hay I bought. Wrapped with both black and white.

 

[Bruce from Can.]

Ok I used to have an Anderson brand inline wrapper. And once my inside storage was full I would wrap some dry hay and also wheat straw. I live where winter comes in November and sticks around unomid April some years. Bales left outside with have a frozen crust on them making it dam nearly impossible to remove twine or net wrap from this frozen mess. Bales of dry hay or straw that are wrapped at easy to use with no issues of frozen twine or net to remove and no waste. I would always leave dry bales to sit for at least one week to ten days to allow them to cool out. When you bale dry hay in the hot sun , the inside of the bale will stay hot for several days. If you wrap one of these hot bales right away. , that heat will creat condensation inside the plastic wrap, and the result will be slimy bales that can have mold on them. If the bales go in dry and cool, they will come out perfect. I have stored hay in plastic stretch wrap for 3 years and it’s still perfect. I used the same amount of plastic on dry bales as I did on silage bales because the cost isn’t a big deal and I wanted good results, not half right , some were good some were junk. The cost of building a storage structure isn’t worth while and the cost of the wrap wouldn’t be much more than the annual cost of insurance and property tax on the hay storage building. And if you quit doing hay, you aren’t stuck with a building you no longer need

 

[2290]

I am with Bruce I have wrapped round dry round for 4 year or more. I wait 3 to 4 weeks and test it every couple days. Storage is the problem and I am not putting up another building. I wrap my dry bales the same as my wet ones and use white wrap. I have yet to have a bad bale, some are close to 2yrs old. They are around 65 to 75 degree and around 9 to 12% moisture. I net wrap all of them with 2 1/2 wraps and make them approx. 50'' in diameter. I use a Mchale single wrapper.

 

[deere4040]

Ok I used to have an Anderson brand inline wrapper. And once my inside storage was full I would wrap some dry hay and also wheat straw. I live where winter comes in November and sticks around unomid April some years. Bales left outside with have a frozen crust on them making it dam nearly impossible to remove twine or net wrap from this frozen mess. Bales of dry hay or straw that are wrapped at easy to use with no issues of frozen twine or net to remove and no waste. I would always leave dry bales to sit for at least one week to ten days to allow them to cool out. When you bale dry hay in the hot sun , the inside of the bale will stay hot for several days. If you wrap one of these hot bales right away. , that heat will creat condensation inside the plastic wrap, and the result will be slimy bales that can have mold on them. If the bales go in dry and cool, they will come out perfect. I have stored hay in plastic stretch wrap for 3 years and it’s still perfect. I used the same amount of plastic on dry bales as I did on silage bales because the cost isn’t a big deal and I wanted good results, not half right , some were good some were junk. The cost of building a storage structure isn’t worth while and the cost of the wrap wouldn’t be much more than the annual cost of insurance and property tax on the hay storage building. And if you quit doing hay, you aren’t stuck with a building you no longer need

I am with Bruce I have wrapped round dry round for 4 year or more. I wait 3 to 4 weeks and test it every couple days. Storage is the problem and I am not putting up another building. I wrap my dry bales the same as my wet ones and use white wrap. I have yet to have a bad bale, some are close to 2yrs old. They are around 65 to 75 degree and around 9 to 12% moisture. I net wrap all of them with 2 1/2 wraps and make them approx. 50'' in diameter. I use a Mchale single wrapper.

Question then. I'm assuming you are leaving them outside before wrapping them so they are still exposed the weather? After the sweat out period what is your protocol for wrapping after they get rained on. At least my area the odds of weeks of dry weather does not exist.

 

[Bruce from Can.]

Question then. I'm assuming you are leaving them outside before wrapping them so they are still exposed the weather? After the sweat out period what is your protocol for wrapping after they get rained on. At least my area the odds of weeks of dry weather does not exist.

I use net wrap on my bales, so a rain doesn’t really soak into the bale as much as with a twine bale. As I stated the bale needs 7 days or so to reach its cooled off temperature internally. After a rain shower, one day of bright sunshine should dry off the rain. The longer a bale sits in the field, the more damp the bottom will get. If I find the bales are wet on the bottom, I try to pick them up in a off center fashion that will make the bottom of the bale roll upwards when I am loading them on a wagon. You will be surprised how gas the bottom can dry once picked up and loaded onto the wagon. Experiment and experience will guide you.

 

[2290]

I keep them in the barn until they are ready to wrap. I do not have room for all them so I start wrapping them as they get ready or I have the time. I wrap mostly wet bales and feed all my bales

 

[DanielW]

I was going to respond in a longer reply, but Bruce said everything I was going to say. I'm also less than an hour from Bruce so have the same weather here. At our Southern farm, I do it for some rounds I sell to horse folks who don't have a bale barn to store it. I'm always quite happy to do it: I can charge a premium for doing it, and they hay doesn't take up space in a barn. I can keep it right by the road - easy to access and load/sell in winter. This year at our Southern farm, for the small number of rounds I do there that are pretty much all sold to others, I'm thinking I might dry-wrap all my rounds. As Bruce noted, you need cool, dry hay. I don't have a hard/fast rule about how long after baling to wrap it - really depends on the weather and moisture content when baled. Plus the soil moisture. If the hay was uber-dry when baled and/or the soil is sometimes moist in the morning, I might wrap right after baling. If the hay was on the higher end for moisture and the ground doesn't hold much water (no risk of the bottom of the bale soaking up ground moisture and creating a wet slug in one spot) I might wait a few days until wrapping - if the forecast looks good.

 

[EX Deere Farmer]

I have wrapped dry hay for close to 20 years now. The key is like Bruce said" let it go completely through the heat/cure cycle. What little rain you will get on the top does not effect it as much as the internal heat and moisture during curing. I have some really dry third crop orchard grass hay that was baled five years ago. I only feed it to sick smaller calves as it is really fine and 100% dry. The bales look just as good as they did when it was bailed.
The fellow that are having issues are wrapping too soon for dry hay or too late for high moisture hay. If the weather is drying quick. I mow one day rake the next morning and bale after lunch and wrap before dark. As long as the moisture is in the upper 20s or higher it will ensilage. If it is in the low 20s it will spoil.

 

[INCase]

in the early 90's when I was in the Ag Engineering dept at Penn State I saw a paper Dennis Buckmaster did on the topic of hay storage costs.

I cannot find the original paper from PSU but here is an summary from the paper from goooglee. with inflation/commodity prices the math may need to be redone. "your mileage may vary. " I think the original paper had cost breakdowns in it. Later on someone from U of Wisconsin did more work and referenced the PSU paper (1998)

SUMMARY:
Penn State agricultural engineering studies—including modeling by researchers like Dr. Dennis Buckmaster—show that proper hay storage yields a high return on investment (ROI), often paying for the cost of a barn or tarp cover in 2 to 4 years. Storing hay indoors reduces dry matter (DM) losses to just 5% compared to losses of up to 30% for uncovered outdoor round bales.

The Economics of Hay Storage

• Outdoor Uncovered Losses: Unprotected round bales frequently suffer 20% to 30% or more in dry matter and nutrient losses due to moisture, mold, and rot.
• Indoor Storage Benefits: In-barn storage drops typical losses to less than 5%. Even after factoring in capital depreciation and annual ownership costs of a new barn, the added financial benefit usually outpaces the extra cost by $10 to $22 per ton
• Tarped/Plastic Covered: Utilizing reusable or one-use plastic coverings dramatically reduces outside weather damage, providing similar ROI with lower upfront capital costs compared to building a permanent structure.

Managing Storage

• Bale Density: Maximizing bale density limits oxygen penetration and improves the fermentation and bunk life of baleage.
• Fire Risk: Wet hay is highly susceptible to spontaneous combustion. Temperatures above 140°F require immediate action, and hay reaching 160°F poses a severe fire risk when exposed to outside air.
• Site Preparation: Indoor or tarped hay should always be stored on a dry, compacted stone base to prevent ground moisture from wicking into the bales.

To estimate costs and evaluate storage scenarios tailored to your farm, it is recommended to use the Penn State Extension forage resources to help calculate optimal inventory management and forage quality retention.