| wbstofer - 2/18/2018 07:06
I experimented this year, basically because I didn’t have the barn space, and I thought I would loose more than the $3ish/bale it costs for plastic. I own my wrapper. 6-7 layers. Wrapped WITHIN HOURS of bailing it.
I used a dry bale that had cured for a plug. It was a slimy miserable mess. But my wrapped hay, the next bale, was perfect. I just sold a bale to a non-NAT approved horsey girl, and she loved it. “Best hay” she “has bought this year”
Edit...it smelled sweet, no spoilage, no dirt on bottom, and I attribute that to the fact that the ‘bag of chips’ hadn’t had an opportunity to get stale because it was in the tube. Planning on wrapping more next year.
I have had similar experience to you Bill. I've been wrapping hay of varying degrees of moisture from balage to bone-dry but usually somewhere in between. It's pretty rare that I find any spoilage or mold on the outside of the bale unless it's near the end of a row or a hole got put in the plastic. Sometimes there will be some water soaked hay at the bottom of the bale, but they hay is not spoiled. I'm not sure why so many people on here seem to have a problem with doing it, but I'm guessing it has to be not enough plastic or not wrapping them the same day they're baled.
I had a row of 16 bales of wrapped marsh hay left over from 2016. The cows were turning up their noses at in last year so I switched to feeding something else. Last month I figured I would start putting some out in rings for them to chew on while I was unrolling good hay and they loved it. They would eat those swamp hay bales down before the other hay I was putting in rings (grassy 1st crop bales that put up dry, but overmature). Not sure if they just liked the taste of something different, my 1st crop bales were that bad, or if wrapped hay ages like a fine wine :)
Edited by tjdub 2/18/2018 21:10
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Wrapping dry hay
