Can you bale wet hay

Horses are highly sensitive to mold in hay, with danger of both respiratory and toxin issues. As such, keeping moldy hay away from horses is advisable. Mold can also be a health risk to the producer. To protect against this, wear a dust mask when working with hay that may have high amounts of mold. Last and arguably most important, hay testing is going to be especially critical this year. Determining actual, as-fed hay quality is important to meet animal nutrition needs through the winter.

Mold and mycotoxin tests can be a bit expensive and not all labs even offer these tests. Your local Beef Extension Educator would be happy to help with finding a lab and determining a cost effective sampling strategy. To make sure we are getting an accurate assessment of hay quality, sample by lot hay harvested from the same field within a 48 hour period a few weeks before you plan to feed.

This should give you an accurate idea of what the quality of hay will be while still giving the lab time to get results back to you. Knowing the quality of your hay allows us to make better decisions about how to use low quality forage and prevent animals from being under fed. Subscribe to BeefWatch. Develop an understanding of beef production as a system and be exposed to alternative production practices that may enhance profitability and stewardship.

Skip to main content. Hannah Greenwell, Nebraska Extension Educator. You can reduce this risk by not stacking the bales. All that means is you're waiting for the heating to stop, because individual bales have more surface area, whereas a stack insulates itself and gets hotter," he says. Another strategy is to make smaller bales. Because they have more surface area to volume than larger bales, they will transfer more heat to the air and not get as hot.

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