# Good horse hay ..after rain???



## Edd in KY (Jul 16, 2009)

I am just looking for practical experience. All my hay is used by me for my horses, or sold to others for horse hay. There is a strong belief among horse buyers that hay that has ever been rained on is useless as horse hay. I am a little in the middle, thinking that a little rain does not automatically turn hay into garbage, if it is properly re-dried and baled after rain to minimize mold and dust. Mold and dust are a result of damp hay in the bale. But, can hay be re-dried enough to bale without mold/dust problems? I know there are nutritional losses and DM losses from rain, but can mold and dust be minimized after a dampening.???


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## HayMike (Mar 22, 2011)

Sure it can. Lose a little color, though.


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## VA Haymaker (Jul 1, 2014)

Think about hay as tea leaves. When green and you rinse them with water, not much tea is made, it’s still in the leaf. Let the leafs dry out and rinse them, you’ve got tea and the leaf is empty of tea content. Same with hay. Rain right after cut, you can still make good hay. After it dries and you get rain, you’ve lost a lot of nutrients.


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## chevytaHOE5674 (Mar 14, 2015)

But do most horses need all the nutrients? I have 2 horses in with my cows that could stay fat all winter eating a handful or two of weeds everyday.


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## 8350HiTech (Jul 26, 2013)

Absolutely it can still make horse hay, assuming you keep your mouth shut and just let the hay speak for itself.


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## Edd in KY (Jul 16, 2009)

Thanks guys. Actually most horses especially working horses( jumpers, or race horses) do not need much nutrition in hay. We give them plenty of calories and nutrients in their grain ration. But they must have hay, (or grass) roughage to keep their gut moving. If they get a blockage in the gut, they often die. So horses need a good tasting hay that they will eat readily for their intestinal health. So if a batch of hay gets a little rain, I want to be sure that I get it re-dried enough to avoid the mold and dust which are really bad for performance horses (breathing issues), but preserve the good taste so that horses will dive in and eat it.

Do you have any ideas or tips (besides more tedding and letting it stand in the windrow longer) to insure that it has re-dried sufficiently? I do not want to go to the expense and hassle and chemicals for an acid system.

I know this topic sounds naïve, but it is a really serious issue with more frequent rains and fewer long hay making periods in my area.


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## Tx Jim (Jun 30, 2014)

I think how long hay lays on ground after rain will have a large bearing on quality of hay. Green color has eye appeal to prospective hay buyers but is no guarantee of quality. All other things equal I think rained on hay laid out flat has a less chance of having mold/mildew than if being in windrow but laid out flat hay will loose color quicker than when in windrow


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## RockmartGA (Jun 29, 2011)

leeave96 said:


> Think about hay as tea leaves. When green and you rinse them with water, not much tea is made, it's still in the leaf. Let the leafs dry out and rinse them, you've got tea and the leaf is empty of tea content. Same with hay. Rain right after cut, you can still make good hay. After it dries and you get rain, you've lost a lot of nutrients.


I never thought about hay in those terms. Makes perfect sense though.....


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## Tx Jim (Jun 30, 2014)

Most of the hay that I sell to horse owners is only really needed for a ""filler"" as the horses are only looked at by owners not rode.


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## Trillium Farm (Dec 18, 2014)

One more thing is how high is the stubble! if high enough (4") this will let air flow through underneath as well as on the top, it's in situations like this that a rotary rake pays for itself.


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## Troy Farmer (Jul 31, 2011)

A wise old person once told me fishing lures are for catching fishermen. I have discovered the same to be true with hay.


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## Dan_GA (Dec 29, 2015)

Trillium Farm said:


> One more thing is how high is the stubble! if high enough (4") this will let air flow through underneath as well as on the top, it's in situations like this that a rotary rake pays for itself.


Rotary or not, I find that most cut too low and cause issues for themselves. I cut at max height on my disc mower (just under 4"), and fluff every day it's down with a tedder. My hay dries fast, baler leaves very little in the field, 2nd/3rd/4th cuttings are faster, and I don't have to put down as much fertilizer. Most grasses store the nitrogen in the lower 3" of the plant. When you don't cut it lower than that, you use less N and less nitrates are passed into the hay, which is healthier for the animals that eat it. I read an article in Progressive Forage (I think Vol posted it) a few years ago. I stopped cutting so low and started getting a lot more hay in later cuts plus added another cutting for the season, AND reduced fertilizer input costs. Not to mention the quicker dry down. I made 2 day hay last year with perfect moisture readings on the meters.


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## rjmoses (Apr 4, 2010)

I've said this before, and I'll say it again: "Most horses are over-fed, over-weight and under-utilized."

A grass that measures 6-8% CP is adequate 99.999999% of the time. Hay that is rained on in the first 24-36 hours after cutting can be OK if dried down appropriately. Of course, this depends on the amount of rain, the ground moisture before and after, temp's immediately after, and approximately 10,467 other factors, one of which is just plain luck.

Ralph


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## FarmGirl (May 13, 2019)

Like you, I also only grow hay for horses (and my own cows).

Like you, I'm dealing with rained-on hay.

There is a LOT of incorrect info out there about rained on hay. Yes, it's BEST if it's rained on RIGHT AFTER A CUT. However, even if rained on RIGHT BEFORE YOU BALE, it does NOT automatically dictate bad hay.

ONE BONUS: it washes a lot of the sugar/carbs out, which can be GREAT for horses, especially laminitic ones. It does NOT wash out the protien, but rather seems to concentrate it more.

It MIGHT be higher in ash,

It MIGHT be higher in non digestible fiber and lower in digestible fiber

It MIGHT (most likely) be lower in vitamin A, which also is lost through longer dry times on the field and overtime in the barn in general.

Experts cannot agree on wehther a quick hard rain is best, or a slow light rain.

Bottom line is, dry it best you can, buy a moisture probe (about $200, well worth it) and stick the bales soon as they are out. We shoot for 16% moisture or less (they will continue to dry once stacked. if moisture is too high, bale looser.

And finally, get a hay feed anylisis done on it just to hand out to your customers and show them where it stands.

For the record, I had mine SOAKED this year (and it was AMAZING orchard grass right before the rain hit out of nowhere). I dried it and both my picky cows and my picky horses gobbled it right up.


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## SwingOak (May 19, 2014)

I don't worry about a light rain right after it's cut, but a hard soaking rain? You can't make dry hay on wet ground.

I also cut high (around 4"), ted it immediately, and ted it every day until I can bale it.

I alway say I need four good days to make dry hay. I had hay that got rained on, and I ended up baling it 7 days later. The hay smelled like frogs and I stacked it up in the hedgerow.

A couple of years ago the stars aligned and I was able to make hay in two days, thanks to perfect weather (85º, full sun, 10-15 mph wind and no humidity) using a haybine, tedder, and a rotary rake. Having the right equipment helps a LOT.

A little rain isn't the end of the world as long as the ground doesn't get soaked. If the ground gets soaked, you can't dry the hay out until the ground is dry.


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## Buford (Oct 12, 2016)

Hey neighbor...baling for 18-20 horses here and rained on other than day of cutting and I pretty much give up on it, roll it and give away. I only have to work on my field so I'm not trying for good hay, I'm trying for great hay. Its my only job, why not.
The wheels seem to come off if dealing with any rain after day one. 
We have a real pro here...I watch him like a hawk. When I see his mower head into the field I run home and hitch up mine. He's been right the 5 years I've been here...even when the weatherman said rain likely.


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## Buford (Oct 12, 2016)

Hey neighbor...baling for 18-20 horses here and rained on other than day of cutting and I pretty much give up on it, roll it and give away. I only have to work on my field so I'm not trying for good hay, I'm trying for great hay. Its my only job, why not.
The wheels seem to come off if dealing with any rain after day one. 
We have a real pro here...I watch him like a hawk. When I see his mower head into the field I run home and hitch up mine. He's been right the 5 years I've been here...even when the weatherman said rain likely.


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## R6Farms (Jun 24, 2019)

This is a question I receive by a lot of horse owners and 99 percent of them are internet educated and nothing more. Rain has an effect in some way on cut hay but it is minimized on freshly cut hay that has plenty of moisture in it already, it gets more harmful the longer the hay has laid, 1st day...... not so bad, 2nd day...... gets worse...etc...... the problem is that moisture that has already left the plant is introduced again and then leaves the plant again. The protein levels drop out drastically and the color is horrible.... as someone else on here said.... green is appealing but does not mean anything for quality. You can bale “bad” hay green.


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## rjmoses (Apr 4, 2010)

Think of it this way:

In the first 24 hours, hay drops to about 60% moisture.

In the second 24 hours, hay drops to about 30% moisture.

In the third 24 hours, moisture drops to about 16%

Of course, there's a lot of play in these numbers because local humidity, temperature, sunshine, wind, soil moisture, windrow size, shape and density, etc. all affect drying time.

Using the tea leaf analogy, if you pour water over green tea leaves, the leaves don't absorb much water, but, if they're drier, they absorb more water. The drier the leaf, the more nutrients can get washed out.

Ralph


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## Troy Farmer (Jul 31, 2011)

View attachment Effects of Rain on Forage Quality.pdf


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## rankrank1 (Mar 30, 2009)

Well my 2 cents is similar to some and yet different from some and really only relates to what many consider the lower end on hay crop spectrum of a grass mix hay.

If a light rain happens early in the curing process then you will likely be fine as long as you tedder (or rake flippy the windrows) to air it out good so it dries normally. Heck I have cut in the rain before or cut immediately right after a rain. The horses will never know.

If even a miniscule rain spritzing happens near the end of the hay dry drying process then the hay can certainly be salvaged by teddering but a horse may turn its nose up at eating it as they can be finicky. That has been my experience anyway. Last year, I got a crop that was almost ready to bale and it got a light spritzing on it right before baling and I am talking so little rain that dew overnight was nearly more moisture. I rake flippy'd the windrows and fluffed extra with my rake to make sure there were no wet clumping issues. The hay baled great and was not dusty at all but I will say it admittingly lacked that pleasant smell that my hay always has. One of my customer's horses would not eat it. Thankfully I only delivered a small pick up truck load there and I even offered to buy back what little I had delivered. Her horses always flat tear up my hay. Delivered the remainder of that crop to another customer who had cows and they flat tore it up. It was okay hay just finicky horses would not eat it. Her horses have since torn up my hay from the same fields with no issues at all.

Now if we talking mega rained on hay then all bets are off. That said, my 2 cents is keep all hay for yourself that has seen any rain for your uses (or alternatively sell to cow, goat, sheep customers) and sell the non-rained on hay to your horse customers as it will be less headache in the long run. I say this as a guy who sells hay on the cheap side of the scale not the usual premium end of the scale that people can charge for horse quality hay.


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