# Round bales and being exposed to the elements?



## elieugene6 (Sep 19, 2011)

Ok, I see it all over the place and I just want to understand.  

I see square bales being stored inside but I am constantly seeing round bales just sitting out in the field until they are used, or stored outside until use.  Why can round bales be stored outside?  Is it just for cow hay?  I am fairly certain horses can't have hay stored outside but what about other animals.  For example goats, cows, pigs, sheep, llamas, alpacas, etc?  

I would much rather have round bales but don't have an indoor storage area to accommodate them.  I had always assumed they needed to be stored inside but after looking around most places store outside and I have only seen 2 local that have them covered, one in a shelter and the other wrapped.


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## Teeah3612 (Sep 19, 2011)

It has been my experience that you can use round bales from this summer all winter long for horses, even ones that are stored outside. Horses seem to be the most sensitive animals out there as far as the quality of hay goes. Just make sure that someone doesn't try to pass off last years hay and check them over real good for signs of mold/mildew. I'm not even storing hay this year. I am in WV and everyone has had at least 3 good cuttings, so round bales will be inexpensive this year. I'm also only feeding two horses and two really small goats so I will buy as I go.


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## shawn MN (Oct 2, 2011)

Round bales shed water better than square bales!   If you want to get round bales and keep them outside and your worried about rain or snow just go to your local Fleet Farm or Tractor Supply Store or somplace similar and buy a large enough tarp to cover what bales you want. Then just throw some old tires aroud the bottom and on top of the tarp.


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## sawfish99 (Oct 19, 2011)

Here in CT, the round bales stored outside are for cows.  Cows will eat hay that is moldy and bad enough to cause a horse to colic.  A farmer I buy round bales from stores the horse round bales inside.  Even then, we have problems with the moisture in the bale causing the middle to be moldy.  That is a baling problem/error, but once you have a $50 bale in the field, it becomes my problem.  We just did another round of trying round bales, but the horses waste so much looking for the best parts, we are using square only.

A round bale that is out for the animals needs the twine removed.  Once that happens, it won't shed water.  Unless you have enough animals to eat a bale in under 2 weeks, stick with square.


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## 77Herford (Oct 20, 2011)

I only use round bales for my cows and thats in the winter.  Storing round bales outside is only real practical way unless you have a large building for it.  If you want to keep the Bales in decent shape there are a few ways I've seen that work well.  1. A bunker of sorts with concrete floor and three walls, then a large tarp to cover said hay and some sort of weight to hold it down like spare tires.  2. Stored outside on wood pallets and covered with a tarp. 3. and possibly the best way is to keep them in a long tube of plastic wrap of sorts.


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## animalfarm (Nov 20, 2011)

If storing round bales outside, they must be in long single rows end to end if uncovered. You will lose about 2-3 inches worth of hay on the outside due to weather damage over the course of winter; animals can use this for bedding. If they are uncovered, and they get wet and then freeze, you will have to spend some time cursing in a blizzard while trying to get the strings removed. After that, you need to use an electric chain saw to cut through the frozen crust on the outside. If you are forced to go this route, just peal off the outside layer from the top half of the bale (standing on end) and leave the crust around the bottom. This turns the bale into a feeder of sorts. Also note, that without a putting a round bale in a feeder, you will lose up to 30% or better due to wastage by the animals picking through and tromping it into the muck. If only a few animals are eating from the bale, then devising a "lid" will keep the moisture out until the bale is finished.

If you stack  round bales out side,  3 or 4 high in a pyramid, they must be covered with a bale tarp. If you do not cover stacked round bales, the water will run off the upper bale and get between it and the bale it sits on. Your hay will then start to mold and compost between the bales as it cannot dry out and that is when you cannot keep the hay for more then a year or so. If the hay is properly covered with a tied down tarp, it will last just as long as hay stored inside. The only loss you will have is a few inches off the bottom of the stack where it makes contact with the ground. This being said, the hay stack must be located on the highest point of the ground so water does not pool around the stack. There should also be 4 feet between stacks for water runoff and snow piling up.  I have kept hay for 3 yrs. without loss of quality using tarps. The draw back is that you need more tarps for next years hay and they are expensive and it is an art keeping a tarp on a stack in a stiff wind.


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## mytarps (Jan 27, 2012)

I use hay tarps to store hay outside. There is no problem to store hay outside with using hay tarps because there are made from robust and water proof material so it provide good storage option. It protect hay in every possible way and are ideal in terms of storing them for a long time without the fear of damaging them.


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## kuntrygirl (Mar 6, 2012)

I was wondering the same thing about round bales being exposed outside.  I see that a lot.


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## goodhors (Mar 7, 2012)

You may want to check with your Vet, because some areas in the Southern States have 
some problems with Salmonella in the ground.  I have heard from horse owners that have
the horses vaccinated regularly to prevent them getting Salmonella from the ground.

Big round bales with lots of wasted hay around them, bales that are partially damp, can be
an excellent ground for Salmonella to the animals using those bales.  I expect that cattle, 
goats, sheep, pigs, can all get Salmonella also.  Your local Vet would be your best information
source about needed vaccinations.

Seems like certain weather situations, can just be perfect to get the disease going.  Same 
field, same feeding practices another year, animals have no Salmonella issues then.  Bales
with any small animals that went thru the baler, could be a source of Salmonella contamination
if CONDITIONS ARE RIGHT to let the germs get going.

Salmonella is just there, nothing you can do to remove it from the ground.  This is why
having an effective vaccination program in place will prevent bad thing happening to 
surprise you.

Tarping over big bales here in MI, is a great way to get molds going.  Tarps sweat to wet the 
bales under them, sunshine on the tarp keeps that moisture cooking even in snow.  So you 
can get a lot of nasty stuff going from the ground and the covering tarp, to make the bale
a total waste to be a food source to any animal.  Rots from the inside out.

But big bales take a lot of space to store inside, so people do leave it out in the weather.  Not
what I would want for my horses or even the cattle.  Then you get to deal with the wasted 
stuff as it turns into muck.  I will just keep fighting with my small squares as hay.


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## redtailgal (Mar 7, 2012)

We use round bales mostly.  We do keep a few square bales around for convenience. 

FIL just built a large shed, three sided, to keep round bales in.  They are stack five bales high (we usually put up several hundred, with a good hay season yeilding over a thousand round bales).  Before we had the shed, we would row them, end to end, with a second row stacked in the "rut" on the top, again end to end.  They would be covered with a large heavy tarp and weighted with tires, in direct sunlight.  We never had a problem with mold, and our hay stayed nice and clean and without mold.

If you start with good quality hay that is properly cured, and properly stored, you wont have any issues.

A few of the pastures dont finish a round bale very quickly, only needing a new bale every month or so.  For these pastures, there is a covered hay area, with a roof, and the bale is rolled open in front of the hay stanchions.  

Pastures that go thru a bale a week, have an exposed hay feeder.

As for the Salmonella, good husbandry, a clean farm and good vaccinations go a long way.  Barns are kept clean, and outside hay feeding stations are rotated as needed.  
Feeding areas with a lot of wasted hay are cleaned and those critters are given lass hay.  

With a large herd, and large amounts of hay field, square bales are not an option for us.  We do sell alot of the hay that we produce.  Our method must be working pretty good, because we always run out of hay before we run out of buyers. ALL of the people we sold to this past season were repeat customers.


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## kuntrygirl (Mar 7, 2012)

redtailgal said:
			
		

> We use round bales mostly.  We do keep a few square bales around for convenience.
> 
> FIL just built a large shed, three sided, to keep round bales in.  They are stack five bales high (we usually put up several hundred, with a good hay season yeilding over a thousand round bales).  Before we had the shed, we would row them, end to end, with a second row stacked in the "rut" on the top, again end to end.  They would be covered with a large heavy tarp and weighted with tires, in direct sunlight.  We never had a problem with mold, and our hay stayed nice and clean and without mold.
> 
> ...


Can you post a pic of the shed that you built?  We just built a VERY small cover to protect the hay from the elements.


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## redtailgal (Mar 7, 2012)

Yeah, I'll post a pic, but gimme a lil while.  I'll have to go out and feed later, and I'll try to get it then.


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## kuntrygirl (Mar 7, 2012)

redtailgal said:
			
		

> Yeah, I'll post a pic, but gimme a lil while.  I'll have to go out and feed later, and I'll try to get it then.


Sounds good.  In the meantime, here is what we built a couple weeks ago.  It's not big, not much but it keeps the square bales protected from the rain.


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## redtailgal (Mar 8, 2012)

Sorry it took me so long.  Its beginning to act like spring around here.

I was able to get pic of the shed while it was empty, just hauled the last of last years hay the other day.  It's time to fill her back up!

ANyway, the newest hayshed.  We have several scattered about, but this is by far the nicest and most practical.  The red tractor attachment in the back is a seeder, the long slanted dark thing is the hay slider that we use to get square bales into the hayloft.  The yellow thing is an open livestock trailor, and then of course, the gooseneck trailor.  The main shed is the upper level.  This lean-to was built as an addition, next to the retaining wall, so that when the shed was full, there would be a place to park the semi and trailer.






This pic is the front, and main part of the shed.  For a size perspective, the large trailor attaches to a semi (18 wheeler) , and you can see the one bale of hay that ended up with busted twine in the very back.  The roof is regular roofing and the sides are panels from a large greenhouse.


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## kuntrygirl (Mar 8, 2012)

redtailgal said:
			
		

> Sorry it took me so long.  Its beginning to act like spring around here.
> 
> I was able to get pic of the shed while it was empty, just hauled the last of last years hay the other day.  It's time to fill her back up!
> 
> ...


WOW!!! That is totally awesome!  

You must have a lot of hay to store.

Thank you for taking the time to post and share.  Everything looks great!


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## Bunny-kids (Mar 8, 2012)

I may have missed it, but in case you are putting round bales out for your animals, or storing them outside, make SURE you have them standing on the round side. They should not be lying on a flat side with the round making the outside "wall" (I hope I explained that well enough) or rain can get down inside and ruin it very quickly. You want the water to run off the outside. 

I used a just put out a round bale at a time the first year, and there was too much waste. So I used a hayring the next year, and my goats would get inside and mess up the hay, and still wasted a lot. So I welded on some extra bars. Two of them still managed to squeeze in, and the kids can still get in, and they like to climb on it and sleep in it, all the while pooping and peeing, and it still wasted too much. Hay is SO expensive here this year due to last year's drought, that now I'm just storing the hay and pulling off flakes to take to them. I can store about 6-7 round bales in the main passage in the old barn, but I keep one tarped next to the pasture fence so I only have to carry it a few feet to dump it in a feeder for the animals. The tarp isn't REALLY necessary, but this hay is so light and fluffy compared to what I'm used to that I think it helps hold it together as I peel it off, too. It does make for extra work, and I take them hay 2x a day, which is turning out to be plenty now that the pasture is greening up, but I am not sure I'd want to do that in winter with the hay in a separate barn and the animals inside most of the day.


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