Need old farmers advice on wet hay

marvintj · Jun 19, 2009

Have hay down in the field when it started to rain last night and does not look like it will let up for four or five days. What to do?
This is western Washingotn and June so rain is the norm and sunshine the exception even though we just had 30 days of sunshine and no rain.
I guess I would be called a hobby farm since I work in the day and farm at night. So the hours of cutting, raking, baling and repairing are limited.
So what do you do with wet hay and how long is too long for the hay to be wet? This is grass hay.

GeneMO · Jun 19, 2009

It's not winrowed yet is it? It's much harder to dry if it has already been raked up.

Try to pick it up first chance you get a window of sunshine.

Small windrows.

Course we always had access to an regular old New Holland side delivery rake.

When it is dried on top, we would just touch the windrow with the rake and flip it upside down.

Then if you are still sunny, maybe flip it again.

try to avoid making windrows too big, even if it is a pain to bale.

My dad always said that with hay that had gotten wet, wait till you think it is ready to bale, then wait another day.

Doesn't sound like you have too much hayin' weather though.

Anonymous-0 · Jun 19, 2009

When the weather is right it's hard to screw up hay. When the weather is wrong nothing you can do will get it fit to bale.
If it is still green and fresh cut it can take some rain. When the sun comes out ted it out to get the air through it and get it up off the ground. You might have to repeat that when it gets dry on top to stir it up again. Then you can rake it to get it ready to bale. If you get a number of days of rain and it starts to get black and musty smelling you have to decide if you have a market for mulch or not. I don't mess with it when it gets that bad because I don't want to put the time and effort into a low return product. At that point I wait for it to dry rake it and burn it.

showcrop · Jun 19, 2009

Well I'm sixty years old, and I have been making hay for about thirty years so maybe I qualify as an old farmer. but I have never had any hay rained on. Sorry, I didn't think you would believe that. Any way, you need to evaluate how deteriorated it is once the sun comes out. As others have said rain doesn't ruin early hay unless it dries and gets wet again or if it is a long wet spell. I once got half of a field baled and then it rained and the rest of it got thoroughly wet. we got it dry again and baled. Then we took samples of both and got them tested. It lost only about 20% of its feed value. I have found that once hay is driven down by a heavy rain you need to tedd it at least twice to get it all up.

Need old farmers advice on wet hay

marvintj

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GeneMO

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Anonymous-0

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showcrop

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