# Hay dryers



## Hayboy1 (Jul 19, 2008)

With all the horrible weather we have been having in the Northeast and the immense time in between cuttings I got to brainstorming on a way to dry damp hay in the barn. Does anyone really do this? Profitably?? 
My thought was to erect a barn that had an aerated floor in it with drying vents coming in from underneath, and then using large dehumidifiers to suck out the moisture. We are making our own bio-diesel this year and thought that I could use some sort of an oil burner for the forced hot air, and eliminate a lot of the overhead by using our own fuel. I also thought that I could pick up a decent diesel generator to run the dehumidifiers. 
Just a thought, wasn't sure how feasible it is. But after looking at the counters on the balers and then looking at the weather or lack there of, this may not be so far fetched? Any ideas or input is appreciated as usual!! Thanks again


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## ecofarmer (May 29, 2009)

I know some one about an hour away that caters to the horse markets. He uses a drying barn for almost all of his hay. There's a huge amount of man power in stacking and restacking. A few years back they started to stack onto pallets as it came out of the drying barn.

He made his out of a hoop building and uses has it set up like this.
Barn Hay Drying

The uk uses round bail dryers.?


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## deerrunhaycp (Oct 17, 2008)

Were in the process of building a dryer. It's designed by Fritz Trauttmansdorf of Dunlea Farms in Canada. He designs plans to fit your operation and a pretty minimal cost. All the parts of the dryer are just duct work and grain dryer headers and fans, built into a building. The economics aren't bad, at last winters fuels prices, it would have cost us about 35 bucks a ton to dry, not bad when you think of how much you lose when it get's rained on. We are loading with a stack cruiser, and unloading with a fork lift and grab. If you had to do it by hand, your costs will really go up, but it do able if you need to get the hay in.

However, I don't think a dryer would really help this year, just way to much rain. Like preservative, 25 to 30% is about your max to bale at, and we didn't even have enough windows to even to that. Were hopeing to us it to really extend our day without haveing to us preservative, starting earlier and ending later would really ramp up production.

Our dryere will be able to dry 1600 bales every other day, or 800 bales a day. Each bay holds 5 cruiser loads, and it takes about 24 hours to dry down depending ot the moisture.

Check out Fritz's site at Premium Horse Hay from Dunlea Farms Ltd.

Hope this helps.
Kit


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## Hayboy1 (Jul 19, 2008)

I checked their site, looks pretty basic. I think the advantage that I will have if I do this is making my own fuel. We are awaiting our new bio-diesel processor in the next few weeks along with our press. I also agree, earlier and later baling is the key, only get so much time in a day to bale.


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