- Thread starter
- #111
misfitmorgan
Herd Master
Thank you @OzarkSerenityAcres and @Dani4Hedgies
Perhaps there wasn't enough detail earlier on in the discussion. Mine are stacked on pallets, per Al's recommendation (and like you he's been haying for decades, probably 6 of them starting with helping his dad) so their is air underneath. The pallets are on the wooden drive bay floor.I stack about 100 tons of hay per year for 50 years, so what do I know. I always stack the bales onto wooden pallets and always leave about 2 inches of air space between the bales. I stack between `10-`15 bales high. I have a metal roof over my barn, so during high humidity / fog in the winter, moisture condences onto the roof bottom and then drips onto the hay below, so I always cover the hay stack with a plastic cover . If you stack the bales directly onto the ground inside the barn, moisture will wic up into the hay then Mold grows and / or starts to ferment when the hay gets wet and possibly spontaneously cumbust. I have seen 3 barns burn down in Cal. over the years. The latest was an open sided barn last fall in Ore. after 3 weeks from the last rain due to one side getting wet , then fermentation followed by spontaneous combustion . 30,000 bales and the structure burned down to the ground. I would hate to see this happen to anyone.