# Has anyone check out a hay dryer?



## jasonk150 (Sep 24, 2011)

i just got the chance to check out a hay dryer just wondering about everyone elses thoughts on these


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## downtownjr (Apr 8, 2008)

Have a link to what you checked out?


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## jasonk150 (Sep 24, 2011)

www.alfalfahaydryer.com i got to see a 36 bale unit on a farm. looks very interesting


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## downtownjr (Apr 8, 2008)

The dates are a few years old, they still have these around. The active one goes back to 2010, nothing afterward? Just curious. Never seen one personally.

Actually starting to think I may get a wrapper.








Pretty optimistic of me considering the year I had...actually believe I will see wet hay again. 
One thing for sure this Issac rain and wet Aug may get me enough hay for the winter after all...just nothing left to sell. But i will take what I can get.


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## mlappin (Jun 25, 2009)

Still thinking about a wrapper myself, buildings are full and looks like we have crap weather ahead for finishing up this year. VERY humid with dews lasting till at least noon or even 1 o'clock and rain every three days again. Who would have thought 6 weeks ago I'd wish it stop with the rain thing?

Far as a dryer goes, if you absolutely have to invest in a hay dryer to make quality alfalfa, then maybe you should be looking at making grass hay instead, Not to be a smart*ss but if you are already making grass hay then either you've really had some bad weather as of late, or you need to seriously examine your procedures to get it dry. I may be wrong, and my opinion is from experience in MY area of the country, by time you buy the dryer, pay for electric and gas to run it, your losing money.

Again I may be wrong unless you're in an area that alfalfa ALWAYS brings a premium. Race horse, alpaca's, etc is what I'm thinking. In our area with the standard flea biscuit, milk and beef cows it just doesn't pencil out.


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## somedevildawg (Jun 20, 2011)

I sure have bounced around a few ideas, in this otherwise empty cranium, this year where it concerns drying hay, what a dismal year for trying to get hay to cure here!


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## jasonk150 (Sep 24, 2011)

in northern mn this year was not a problem getting dry up. i also have a mchale fusion 2 so that is my backup if i cant get dry hay. but a lot of our hay gets shipped a long distance. it being a dry yr last year no problem getting rid of it. i' ve just been throwing the idea around. rights know though the round baler is the way to go for me


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## rjmoses (Apr 4, 2010)

somedevildawg said:


> I sure have bounced around a few ideas, in this otherwise empty cranium, this year where it concerns drying hay, what a dismal year for trying to get hay to cure here!


One man's feast is another man's famine. This is the first year were weather hasn't been the number one cause to take Tums. Three times this year, I was able to mow today, bale tomorrow! I really had trouble getting used to it!

But I keep thinking there has to be a better way. I watch these shows like "How It's Made" and "How do they do it" and see these factories and machines turning out thousands of things at a time. Then I wonder how could I mow, dry, haul, store and deliver hay easier, cheaper and more profitably. Ideally, all in one pass!

Come on New Holland, John Deere, and Hesston engineers--put your thinking caps on and give us something really cool, like a 30' combine, but for hay. I'll volunteer to be a guinea pig.

Ralph


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## swmnhay (Jun 13, 2008)

rjmoses said:


> One man's feast is another man's famine. This is the first year were weather hasn't been the number one cause to take Tums. Three times this year, I was able to mow today, bale tomorrow! I really had trouble getting used to it!
> 
> But I keep thinking there has to be a better way. I watch these shows like "How It's Made" and "How do they do it" and see these factories and machines turning out thousands of things at a time. Then I wonder how could I mow, dry, haul, store and deliver hay easier, cheaper and more profitably. Ideally, all in one pass!
> 
> ...


There was a proto type machine that cut and dryed the hay going down a conveyor using micro waves.I think it was in Farm Show paper.It had a self contained generator to run the microwaves..IDK what ever became of it?Not fast enough?Or not feasible to build?$$$


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## rjmoses (Apr 4, 2010)

I looked into micro wave drying a few years ago.

My memory is a little fuzzy on the numbers right now, but as I recall, it would've cost about $2.5 million to take a crop from 65% moisture down to 16%. And it needed a one megawatt service drop!!!

Per the engineer I talked to, a 100KW unit removes about 250 lbs/hr of water. A ton of hay at 65% dried down to 16% would have about 1000 lbs of water removed. But if I waited a day so that the moisture was at 40%, then the amount of water to be removed was reduced to about 500 lbs/ton and the cost would drop to about $1 million.

I also checked into a "pastuerization" process of raising hay to 180 degrees, then wrapping it. Microwave costs dropped to about $400,000.

This was based on rough numbers of 100 acres producing 400 tons/year with 50% on the first cutting and 50% over the next 3 cuttings. Just talking numbers.

Ralph


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## steve in IN (Sep 30, 2009)

I am still sold on acid. Cost is a few dollars a ton. You have to get hay under 30 percent. In my opinion instead of drying hay from 65% why not wrap? I am trying to wrap sudan next week and if it works I may look into a wrapper for some of first cutting.


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## jasonk150 (Sep 24, 2011)

that proto type dryer i think was able to dry 8ac. a day i. the farm show mag.


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## SVFHAY (Dec 5, 2008)

rjmoses said:


> I also checked into a "pastuerization" process of raising hay to 180 degrees, then wrapping it. Microwave costs dropped to about $400,000.
> 
> Ralph


So your theory on pasteurization is that once the plant is sterile you could wrap and it would keep at whatever moisture level and come out the same as a fresh cut plant? Interesting.


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## SVFHAY (Dec 5, 2008)

I've looked at a couple over the years less exotic than this one. They work. A lot of added cost, labor and management. The end product will test better and packaging will be loose, making handling tough. Most owners are unable to get a higher price for dried product and argue that the value is in saving a crop that would have been lost otherwise.


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## rjmoses (Apr 4, 2010)

SVFHAY said:


> So your theory on pasteurization is that once the plant is sterile you could wrap and it would keep at whatever moisture level and come out the same as a fresh cut plant? Interesting.


Yepp! That's the thought. Just like milk. Heat it, kill the bacteria, take the oxygen away and seal it up!

I've also checked out the idea of putting hay in a sealed container and flooding it with nitrogen to purge the O2. But I don't know if what causes mold is aerobic or anaerobic bacteria, fungus or what! If it's not aerobic, nitrogen wouldn't work. But, I'm guessing its aerobic because of balage.

I've also thought about using a air drying plant, like the ones used on submarines, to dry out a nitrogen filled shipping container loaded with square bales.

The whole thought process is to get the hay out of the field and into storage within 24 hours and have really high quality hay, minimal sun bleaching, no mold and maintain feed quality.

All it takes is money.

Ralph


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## Grateful11 (Apr 5, 2009)

I showed my wife a video of a Krone CombiPack baler/wrapper and said she would like to have one until I told her the price ;-)

http://www.krone-northamerica.com/english/krone-produkte/round-balers/combipack/


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## mlappin (Jun 25, 2009)

I've thought of placing bales under a vacuum with the theory it'd pull the water out of the hay just like in a AC system. Would take a mighty powerful vacuum pump though.


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## rjmoses (Apr 4, 2010)

mlappin said:


> I've thought of placing bales under a vacuum with the theory it'd pull the water out of the hay just like in a AC system. Would take a mighty powerful vacuum pump though.


Yeah. I thought about the "freeze drying" process as well. Heat it up, pull a vacuum and let sublimation go to work. The problem is handling a high volume of material.

Ahhah! I got it! We have Monsanto genetically engineer a forage crop that is harvested dry! They could triple stack roundup, leaf hopper and drying genetics all in the same plant!

Ralph


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## steve in IN (Sep 30, 2009)

Seed- $1000 a bag, Tech Fee- $500 an acre per year Monsanto stock value- priceless


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## endrow (Dec 15, 2011)

When i was a kid we had a hay dryer . My grandparents had it built in 1960 .You would bale the hay up to 30%you pulled these wagons that were basically a tin box behind the baler could stack 130 small squares in each wagon . The dryer called a sun -o-matic came as a package it was a 70x 50 building it could dry 5 loads at one time for the era it was amazing . A track in the building guided loads in place then a hood from the overhead duct attached to the top of the wagon air air blew threw load from top to bottom the oil fired hot air unit was the size of a 16' chuck wagon.. 20 horse electric motor on huge fan ..Duct work big enough a man could walk threw . It could dry and cool 5 loads in 6 to 8 hrs It had its own automated fire extinguisher system we never had a fire . It took alot of oil had a 5000 gallon oil tank Probably would cost close to a million $ to build today . We tore it down in 1980 to make room to expand our dariy operation as it was to inefficent with rising oil prices. I wonder if anyone older ever seen one of these .


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## knud (Sep 12, 2010)

see www.climair50.com or www.haydryer.com


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## Shetland Sheepdog (Mar 31, 2011)

Ayup! A farm in my home town had one of those setups. I think that the components might have come from New Holland. Don't know how well it worked, or how expensive to operate, but he gave up on it in a short time! That farmer was very foreward thinking in that respect, but never did get into the Harvestore thing. He had all tower silos, and all he built were Unidilla wood stave silos. Interestingly, the drier building is still there, and is still used as a pull through to get loaded kicker racks under roof.


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