kuntrygirl
Overrun with beasties
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.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.
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.