Damp hay

[mysunwolf]

We salt our hay as well, it gets very moist here (usually, we have wildfires right now, low humidity, and no rain in sight) and we often salt the barn floor, then salt between stacks of bales. It also makes your animals eat a little more since they like the salt taste, which is useful if the hay is a lower quality.

 

[misfitmorgan]

We salt our hay as well, it gets very moist here (usually, we have wildfires right now, low humidity, and no rain in sight) and we often salt the barn floor, then salt between stacks of bales. It also makes your animals eat a little more since they like the salt taste, which is useful if the hay is a lower quality.

haha dont you love when you pull a bale down and get salt in your eye

 

[Sean A.]

Can you post pics of your setups?

 

[misfitmorgan]

Can you post pics of your setups?

i dont think mine would help you any...we have an old diary barn with a hay mow above the livestock. I can try to get pics if you like though.

Our loft looks very similar to this...but of course we have a lot of hay in it and no stacks of wood.

 

[Devonviolet]

Hi Sean! Welcome to BYH from the big, beautiful state of Texas!

You came to the right place for advice. You have some great neighbors there in Northern California. As a kid I lived in Fresno and then moved to San Jose. It's been more decades than I care to admit. But I still remember the fog! UGH!

We have a 10×17' canvas garage, that we got from Harbor Freight. After reading lots of reviews, we took some of their advise & used self tapping screws to hold the metal tubes, in the framework together. We also used anchors, to hold it down & have had no problems with it blowing apart when we have occasional 50-60 mph winds.

Here is the garage right after we put it up

We have been storing our hay in it since a year ago last August & it has stayed nice & dry. We put cinder blocks on the dirt & then put pallets or some kind of lumber on the cinder blocks. That allows for air circulation under the hay. There is some air flow under the canvas walls. But, we also unzip & roll up the door, on sunny days, so there is plenty of air flow.

we just bought 30 bales . . . (approx. 60-70 lb each) of chemical free coastal hay.

We still had 17 smaller bales left over from last year. We pulled them out & stacked them, and they will go back in, now that the newer hay is stacked, so they can be used first.

We covered the stack of old hay with a tarp, because we were expecting rain. We did get 3/4" of rain, so were glad we covered it. Now the tarp is off, so it can air out before we restack it.

 

[Sean A.]

Ok thanks. that's a great idea

 

[Devonviolet]

We got the old hay stacked now. 47 bales of hay! What a job!

Btw, congrats on your two sweet ND's! We have 4 wethers & just love them. I want to get 2 dairy goats (MiniMancha). But, I may end up getting LaMancha's to begin with. We have to wait, to get anymore, though because DH gets overwhelmed if our To-Do list gets too long. So, I've agreed to wait to get any more goats until we get fencing in, so the goats can start clearing out the woods.

 

[Sean A.]

How did you anchor it down?

 

[Devonviolet]

It came with 4 blade type anchors (one on each corner), with rachet straps, that go up & over & hook onto the anchors. We added 2 screw in (dog tie down) anchors - one in the middle of each side. We tossed another rachet strap over the frame & attached both ends to the side anchors.

If you look closely, you can see the red strap we put over top of the framework.

You also might see the screws we used to keep the metal tubing together. They did not come in the box. People who didn't do that said the garage came apart in high winds.

We bought two when we bought this one. But, haven't put the second one together yet. Rain tends to get under the cloth sides & back. So, we are planning to build a deck, to keep things dry. We will anchor the deck with wood fence posts on the corners & then anchor the structure to the deck using eye bolts.

 

[Bruce]

...
As a kid I lived in Fresno and then moved to San Jose. It's been more decades than I care to admit. But I still remember the fog! UGH!

San Jose was a lot nicer back then, now it is an overcrowded overly expensive xxxxhole. From 200K in 1960 to over a million now.