saltin hay

I just posted to the question this morning about molding hay. Like I said in that post my Grandfather used rock salt puttin up hay. Ive done it for many a year now..I dont have mold on the bottom layer either.. Wondering how many out there still use rocksalt on their hay stack???

Yup, we do!

we go if there are some bale with moisture

We used to, then read some of the studies, did some math. You'd need truck loads of salt have it evenly distributed in each bale to make any difference. At the rates folks sprinkler it on its mostly to make the hay more palatable to the animals. Watch the old timers up there in the loft, slinging one 50 lb bag into 40 tons of hay.

Take that bag of salt and dump it in a trash can, then add water, it won't hold a gallon of water. 1% high in moisture in 1 ton of hay is 20 lbs of water, you bale hay 3 or 4 points high thats a fire risk and you're up to 60-80 lbs of extra water in each ton of hay.

Next experiment, pour a 50 lb bag of salt into a pile on the floor in a dry hay loft. Come back in a year and its still in the same spot. Why people think flinging a few scoops is going to magically propagate through the pile I don't know.

If it helps you sleep, go for it, if you really want to put up quality hay that won't heat and lose nutrition or catch fire, get a moisture meter and a probe type thermometer.

From probing bales that were baled too wet over the years, it takes a pretty wet bale to heat enough to get really dusty, and that bale has to be in a stack just so to heat enough and catch fire. We bale very light 40-50 lb bales for horse owners and it is wet, wet wet here. There is a lot of bad hay put up due to dusting (mould).

When we get a 50-60 lb bale it is immediately kicked off the side of the conveyor at the bottom or if it gets up it comes back down. They are stacked spaced out an extra section of conveyor so all sides can breath. The first day they stay at the temp they were baled at, day 2 they will climb 2-3 C above the baling temp and hold for a couple of days then fall to 20 C (68 F I think) by a week after baling. There won't be any visible problems with the bale but we don't sell them, use them on the farm.

When we get a 60-70 lb bale it goes back on a wagon spaced out and gets backed in an old shed. If you watch the temps, it will stay at the baling temp for a day, then it will go up 5 C above that and come back down. If it is packed in a load, it will climb 10-15 C above baling temp. So baled at 90 F, it will hit 105-110 F or so and stay that high for a few days. If you open this bale it will be dusty as all get out.

i still salt every layer,if nothing else horse and cows like it. dad and my uncles all did and i think it does help some,sure can"t hurt.

I use trace mineral salt. I figure it will add a little more to the hay. I don't think the theory is that the salt absorbs the water so much as acting as a preservative and preventing the mold spores from multiplying. I am no expert but that is the way I always understood the process.

As with many things farm-related, there is the old wives' tale reason for doing it, and there's the real scientific reason for doing it.

You don't salt the hay to "absorb the moisture." That's a myth that's been perpetuated over the years, mostly because it's an easy concept to grasp for someone who hasn't taken a bunch of science classes in high school and college.

Heard of guys around here doing that back in the days before round baling(when we made 6-ton stacks)....

The explanation I was told was that with the salt added, the cattle would still eat the hay.