Year old hay

Russ from MN · Jun 29, 2021

With all the talk about hay, I have been wondering about last years hay. With the extreme drought in MN there is predicted to be a shortage of hay, but in our area there is left over hay from last year, some bagged, some wrapped, some open. Is it any good? When I was growing up we put most of our hay in a shed, it held about 10,000 small squares, so the left over was OK, I think. Anything piled outside was fed first or sold.

72supr · Jun 29, 2021

Very dry here. Year and two year old grass hay here is bringing $125.00.New grass $175.00 .

Michael Soldan · Jun 29, 2021

Cattle will eat it , no problem. I had some hay out of an old barn that could have been 10 years old. I would throw few bales out into the yard and they would eat it. It may not have had a nutritional value but they ate it. A friend said we eat pretzels and potato chips , those dry old bales were like that to the cattle.

JMOR · Jun 29, 2021

This is the facts only! In 2000 I stopped fooling with small square bales and went to large (~1000#) round bales. At that time there were about 20-30 square bales still in barn from 1999 and they just sat there taking up space, until I needed that space in 2007. Cleaned out barn of that 8 year old hay and the cows ate it better & before the last seasons round bales that were in front of them!. All cut and baled off the same land. Maybe hay is like wine & whiskey & improves with age.

Tx Jim · Jun 29, 2021

I think hay baled last yr will be more palatable to livestock than snow flakes. I think if hay was stored correctly it should be fine.

Roger Tomfohrde · Jun 29, 2021

In the year of the drought in SE MN we sold a lot of hay. One farmer asked for some of our oldest hay. Dad had built the Quonset in 1950 and the hay in the back never was fed out. We cut an opening in the back of the building and dug out several loads for him. He said the beef cattle ate all of it and it was still green. The twine was almost falling off. Dad said it was baled with a pile driver New Holland which the only baler I could remember was bought in the 60's.

rrlund · Jun 29, 2021

I've generally always got hay left in the fence rows. This year was an exception, but I've fed bales that were starting to cave right in on top from deterioration and they ate it just fine. I've fed hay that's been sitting out for four or five years.

Gary Mitchell · Jun 29, 2021

Just for reference,,,, where is here? gm

paul · Jun 29, 2021

Stored right hay keeps a long time, decades. It may lose a bit of mineral/ vitamin but generally folk feed a balanced ration of several products not just old hay, so it will be fine.

Paul

Texasmark · Jun 29, 2021

Maybe hay is like wine & whiskey & improves with age.
Darn, you took the words right out of my mouth. It fermented and turned into whisky and they got sloppy drunk....with a grin on
their faces.....LMAO.

Really I do feel that there is some fermentation taking place. I noticed it in my hay feeding areas if you dug down several years
worth of layers.

Bret4207 · Jun 30, 2021

I'm sure there are some places where it would be heresy to feed old hay, but up here in Northern NY we have a saying that the worst hay in the world feed out better than cold wind and icicles!

JMOR · Jun 30, 2021

(quoted from post at 08:46:04 06/30/21)

I'm sure there are some places where it would be heresy to feed old hay, but up here in Northern NY we have a saying that the worst hay in the world feed out better than cold wind and icicles!

..........or beats a snow ball!

Year old hay

Russ from MN

Well-known Member

72supr

Member

Michael Soldan

Well-known Member

JMOR

Well-known Member

Tx Jim

Well-known Member

Roger Tomfohrde

Member

rrlund

Well-known Member

Gary Mitchell

Well-known Member

paul

Well-known Member

Texasmark

Well-known Member

Bret4207

Well-known Member

JMOR

Well-known Member

Similar threads