# hay storage in tension fabric building



## chewbacca2264 (Feb 11, 2009)

Hey guys,

We lost the storage barn we used to use and due to cost we decided to go with a tension fabric building from farmtek. The building was built on a footer on a bed of gravel. Thought all was well, we baled some decent first cut that needed to be stored, we broke open some bales of old mulch and covered the gravel and then stacked. After about 7 days I noticed the hay was turning color. It was baled at 15-18% moisture with silo guard at 2lb a ton, upon checking the hay was all in the low 20 moisture wise and ruined. The same hay that was sold to a client and stacked in his barn is fine, in fact he is a total convert to silo guard as he feels it is the best first cut he has ever had. After removing the hay it became clear that the 11 plus inches of rain since June 1st caused water to come up through the gravel and it basically created a sauna inside the barn. Now we have 400 ruined bales and I am not a happy camper. Wondering if anyone has stacked hay in this style barn or if anyone has any advise to prevent a futher disaster if it ever stops raining long enought to bale again. I was thinking about using two large tarps and then stacking pallets on the tarps to create air space and hopefully prevent moisture from coming up through the ground again. Any ideas? Thanks.

Tim


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## mlappin (Jun 25, 2009)

I might be the guy to answer this, not only am I a dealer for Farmtek, we have four of the buildings our self, two 38'x72's and two 42'x96''s. We use the 38's and one 42' for hay storage and have been very pleased with the results so far. In my opinion it was the fact that you used a 'mulch' to stack the hay on. With the amount of rain you had, what happened is exactly as you described it, water level rose, mulch got wet and with hay stacked on it, it could not dry out. You didn't specify, but I take it you stacked small squares in the building?

We have ours sitting on 6-8 inches of railroad rock from the abandoned right a way we bought behind us that split the farm in half. I only make round bales, but I stack those on pallets. a 54"x56" or 56"x56" pallet works very well for a 5' diameter round bale as I stack em on their sides (shown below). We also set the grade of our buildings at about a 1 1/2 or 2 percent grade as with our ground we knew if it ever got wet enough, it would never dry out once they were full of hay if they were set level from end to end.

I would suggest one of two things to prevent this from happening again.

1: stack the hay on pallets to allow some airflow under the hay. In a really wet year the bottoms of our bales are a little dusty, but my main horse customer still feeds em to his horse's as he sets that end on the ground anyways. Might not be the most convenient thing to stack small squares on, but I'm sure it will work regardless.

2: It might be difficult to do now with the layer of rock already in, but run several 4" tiles under the building, add a few more inches of rock after the tile is in and do not add a mulch layer again.

I've had the exact same thing you describe happen once to about 230 round bales I had under tarps after a very wet August thru December period. I even had this hay stacked on pallets, but it was so wet that some of them sank right into the ground. This hay was all dry when stacked in June and kept well right until the wet spell started, by the end of December the bottom bales were almost completely garbage and my beefcows wouldn't even touch em and the layer above was slightly better. All in all, over half of it was wasted. I say it was due to the extremely wet weather as the two years before I had done this were either normal or even dryer than normal and that hay was as good coming out from the tarps as it was going under them.


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## chewbacca2264 (Feb 11, 2009)

Thanks for the reply, yes it was small square bales and I guess I screwed up by putting down the mulch hay. We actually put the building on railroad ties, with treated 2x4's screwed to the railroad ties for a base. We did not add drainage but it is on a nice slope, and raised so the sides funnel water away. I guess the combo of so much rain and the fact that the barn was just finished in the spring never allowed the ground to dry out. I guess I will go pallet hunting and stack on pallets to get the hay off the ground. Thanks for the advice.

Tim


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## mlappin (Jun 25, 2009)

If you can find some good stout pallets that will certainly help, they don't need to be seed corn pallet heavy, but beware of any freebies you may find as some of those are so light if you step on them wrong you'll bust the slats right off.

I usually get 3-5 years out of a good pallet, so if you have to break down and buy some, its not like its a yearly thing. Think the last ones I bought were 54x56's and were $5.50 a piece delivered from a pallet recycler. About time the bottom slats rot thru or fall off, its a good indication that one has had it, I've tried using those one more time, and you run the risk of them collapsing sideways. Bought time they have had it I rip em down with the chainsaw and run em thru the outdoor woodboiler (gotta get my last penny out of em )

Never heard of the railroad tie ideal before, should work well. I put the second 42x96 up last August and set in on those 2'x2'x6' one ton concrete blocks with a foot of gap between each one for air flow.

Problem I see with laying tarps on the ground then the pallets is it will make a rat/mouse heaven under it.


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## hunt2r (Dec 4, 2008)

Just curious why on their sides?


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## BCFENCE (Jul 26, 2008)

I dont know for sure but i believe it takes the pressure off the sides of the building and probaly holds their shape better.
THOMAS


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## rank (Apr 15, 2009)

I have a bunch of those buildings. Ours are "Coveralls" though. Had a whole whack of large squares caramelize last year and this year too. I figured they were put away too soon before they had time to sweat.....never thought of blaming the building.


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## mlappin (Jun 25, 2009)

BCFENCE said:


> I dont know for sure but i believe it takes the pressure off the sides of the building and probaly holds their shape better.
> THOMAS


Correct. I've sold nothing but round bales at the auctions for about 6 years now. People are funny sometimes when they buy their hay. If they see a misformed round bale, first thing they think is it was baled wet and most likely is dusty.

Second of all, while we were still milking cows and making over four hundred acres of alfalfa, the small squares almost always seem to keep better if stacked on edge (strings on the side in the mow). seems like the moisture moves out the edges of the bale better than the sides for some reason, in other words, small bales seem to breath better when stacked on their edges and I believe this holds true with round bales as well.

I've never tried stacking them the other way in the buildings, but if they shifted they would put wall pressure on the buildings I'm sure.

One thing I've found over the years, even with round bales, if the hay was made right, if the bales are round as the day they were made, and you have a very good reputation at the auctions (been going to the same ones since before I was out of high school hauling my Dads hay, I'm almost forty now, and little kids that were with Dad then, are now bringing their little kids along and buying hay) several times this last winter I topped the sales, it may have only been by $5 a ton, but it still sold higher than the small squares.


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## mlappin (Jun 25, 2009)

rank said:


> I have a bunch of those buildings. Ours are "Coveralls" though. Had a whole whack of large squares caramelize last year and this year too. I figured they were put away too soon before they had time to sweat.....never thought of blaming the building.


How are you stacking them? We have a guy around here that is making 700 acres of hay and another guy I talk to alot at the sales is making 800, they both stack their big squares on the edges (strings on the sides).

All three of my hay buildings also have the roll up sides and we have the 12'x12' roll up doors in the west end. Stack tough hay in them, open the door, roll up the sides and their is enough air movement its almost like leaving them sit outside.

I've had hay caramelize as well and even had it happen with each bale being treated with acid, sitting on its own pallet in the pole barn with plenty of space around them and the all the doors left open on the barn for a week. Sometimes it just seems if its meant to turn, nothing can be done about it.

Several university articles I've read and the local distributor for the acid everybody uses around here both claim if it caramelizes then not enough acid was used. Personally I don't believe that, but its what they claim. I tend not to put my complete faith (and my pocketbook) on what experts say and that distributor is out to sale product as well.


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## nwfarmer (Jun 16, 2009)

Out here they stack on gravel quite a bit. We cover hay with tarps. We use a stack wagon so hay (small bales) is stacked 3 wide and 7 high. We get our tarps from Inland Tarp, Moses Lake, WA. One of the problems we find is many tarps on the market won't hold up to the wind we get out here. 80 or 90 mph wind is not unusual in this area. We use 25 by 50 ft tarps. They come with all hooks, chiches and ropes, fan folded ready to go. This size tarp allows breathing space on both sides near the bottom for allowing bottom bale moisture to disipate. We have had 120 mph winds, and 60 below zero weather. Haven't lost a tarp yet. Some of our tarps are 5 years old, a little chaffed but still in good condition. They come with 3 ft pieces of PVC along the bottom edge. I pound 30 inch lengths of 1/2 inch rebar beneath the bottom bales and cinch them as tight as I can pull on the rope. Sometimes in high winds the 1/2 rebar will bend and a hook will loosen, thus some chaffing of the tarp.


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## nwfarmer (Jun 16, 2009)

I'm not suggesting you buy any particular brand of tarp. Just check out their web site and see how tarps are made. 
Inland Tarp & Cover - Home


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## Ridgerunner (Jul 10, 2009)

hunt2r said:


> Just curious why on their sides?


When I was growing up, my dad always stacked his round bales on thier sides. It was because his barn was a pole barn with vertical sides and he could get more in the barn that way. We stacked them three high, on the ground, no pallets. His bales were all twine wrapped. The biggest problem I saw was trying to turn the bales over without them falling apart. We used pallet forks on the tractor which worked great once the bale was on its side, but broke alot of stings when the bale was in the "normal" position.

Do you guy just stick a bale spear though the bale when it is on its side? Does it go in easy enough?

Do you have a special trick for flipping the bales on thier sides? I would imagine the net wrap is pretty robust and holds the bale together well during the flipping process.


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## TooFast4U (Aug 5, 2008)

> and the local distributor for the acid everybody uses around here both claim if it caramelizes then not enough acid was used....

I tend to agree with your local distributor. The first year we used acid and before we had the rate figured out (manual rate controller) we small square baled some good alfalfa in the face of impending thunderstorms. The hay was damp and we poured on the acid, afraid of not using enough. (We later figured out I'd gotten on *plenty*.) Got rained out baling--actually baled until the baler wouldn't tie knots.

After a quick hard shower (about 0.1" rain) the bales dried off on the sides and we hauled them in, because more rain was possible. The bales were packed tight & heavy like little bricks, and the hay crew groaned, strained, and complained--but we only had a couple hundred of those bales. Stacked them in a loft, all on edge in a criss-cross pattern with 4" spaces between the bale sides, and nowhere were they stacked more than 5 bales high.

I checked the hay daily, half expecting to need to pull all of it out of the barn to prevent a fire. But they never even got warm, and I later sold that hay to a dairyman for the highest price I received for any hay that year. It had a "tobacco cure" smell and color, but was the very best.

But as you know, besides the acid the other two important variables here are (1) how the hay is stacked (whether air can get around/through the stack), and (2) relative humidity during the couple weeks after the hay was baled. All the excess moisture has to get away *sometime*, and the longer it stays in the bale the more likely the hay will mold before it's dry enough to prevent mold.


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## Production Acres (Jul 29, 2008)

If you have a drainage problem in your barn - you have a drainage problem in your barn and that has to be fixed - doesn't matter what type of barn it is. That having been said, people like to blame mustiness and mold problems on the barns, and not on the fact that they baled wet hay. In a barn with a good dry bottom, 90% of the time that you get musty bottom bales is due to moisture FALLING out of the hay stact via gravity. When you put 20% moisture hay in the barn in a stack 10-20' tall, moisture moves through that stack via osmois. This moisture is captured in the bottom of the stack and stays there because someone put plastic down, and "then a layer of mulch" guess what, you have mold. 
The picture of the rd bales sitting on pallets works well on dry bottomed barns. On our concrete floors here, we have to stack fresh hay on 2 pallets - 8" off the concrete to keep the musty layer from forming on the hay. Additionally, we have fans on the back wall of the barn pulling air through the stacks and changing the air in the barn. BUT, you must have ventilation under the bottom layer of hay for any hay coming into the barn over about 12% moisture. Hay baled under 12% (small squares) maybe 15% for rd bales)) can almost be sit directly on the concrete with no adverse effects. Hay that has been in the barn for 3-4 months can be moved to a new location and sit on the concrete with no problems, but fresh hay above 12% moisture must have good ventilation under it to remove the moisture falling out of the stack of hay via gravity!!!!!!! 
Most people associated with hay stacks have seen heat seams on the top of stacks of hay, and most have pulled stacks apart before to let them breath better when the hay was too wet, but the bottom must be taken care of as well. Actually, due to the nature of barn lofts, they keep hay very well! 1. the bottom of the stack is way off the ground and well ventilated. 2. The hay stacked in a barn is in the hottest part of the barn(this used to scare me to death). But think about a hot air balloon - hot air expands and is lighter than cool air. This expansion actually changes the moisture level in the air in the barn and also works to provide for "air changes".
Hay can be stored very differently in the west due to the dry cliamate that exists out there, and conditions in the west don't apply to hay storage here in the east.


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## nwfarmer (Jun 16, 2009)

Yep, I used to live in the Midwest. Couldn't stand the humidity. Here our only humidity comes from the irrigation ditches.


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## rank (Apr 15, 2009)

mlappin said:


> How are you stacking them? We have a guy around here that is making 700 acres of hay and another guy I talk to alot at the sales is making 800, they both stack their big squares on the edges (strings on the sides).


Yep. We have always stacked strings up. We have lately begin to question that.



mlappin said:


> I've had hay caramelize as well and even had it happen with each bale being treated with acid......<snip>.....Several university articles I've read and the local distributor for the acid everybody uses around here both claim if it caramelizes then not enough acid was used.


We used acid on these bales that caramelized....but, due to a plugged filter, I'm not sure I was putting enough on. That may have been the problem as well. Probably a combination of things.....a little tough.....not quite enough acid....stacking in the barn immediately....stacking with the strings up.


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## rank (Apr 15, 2009)

TooFast4U said:


> > and the local distributor for the acid everybody uses around here both claim if it caramelizes then not enough acid was used....
> 
> I tend to agree with your local distributor. The first year we used acid and before we had the rate figured out (manual rate controller) we small square baled some good alfalfa in the face of impending thunderstorms. The hay was damp and we poured on the acid, afraid of not using enough. (We later figured out I'd gotten on *plenty*.) Got rained out baling--actually baled until the baler wouldn't tie knots.
> 
> ...


But....if your hay had the tobacco color and smell, then it did caramelize......????


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## haybaler101 (Nov 30, 2008)

And the only way it can get a tobacco cure is it had to get hot at some point. Carmelized hay loses a tremendous amount of quality also. The heating or carmelizing process will destroy the soluble sugars in the hay which is the readily available energy. The protein fraction will also be less available because the heating makes it less digestible.


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## rank (Apr 15, 2009)

haybaler101 said:


> And the only way it can get a tobacco cure is it had to get hot at some point.....


From what I've read, it can start as low as 100 degrees F. Some say it starts a little higher. We're definately not talking mold or starting any fires, and the hay is dry, but it's a little off, nonetheless.


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## bunchgrass1 (Jul 4, 2009)

Our experiences have been as follows (w/ sm square bales) - 
Pallets - THE best mouse haven. Protected, w/ easy movement under balesand plenty of hay for nests.

Tarps - Last year, when hay prices were up, they might have been worth it but usually the tarp costs more than what it can reasonably cover.

Ground moisture is the main problem if you're stacking anywhere but on blacktop or in a loft. You need to keep it away from those bottom bales as well as creating a really high humidity inthe stack after tarping. We have had good luck laying down visqueen (sp) black plastic as a moisture barrier then stacking on it - if you jsut go w/ gravel the moisture can still get into your stack especially w/ the rains you all have ha back east.

That said - from my earlier post about rained on bales - they're trash. I flipped them 2X after 3-4 days drying in 80-90F heat and low humidity but they all have mold in them. One problem may have been that they were sitting w/ cut edge up (like to pickup w/ a harrowbed) rather than on string side. This may have provided an eaier path for moisture to get into the bale(s).

I always thought that if your hay got rained on, it was worse in this order:
worst - not raked but cured in the field
next worst - windrowed and cured
next - windrowed or not and not cured
least worst - baled but in the field.

My opinion has changed (at least for sm squares) after my recent experience. Sm Square in the field that get wet need to be opened up, spread out and allowed to dry again otherwise mold.

Anyone see it differently?


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## nwfarmer (Jun 16, 2009)

After reading all of these posts I can see we really got it a lot easier out here in the west with dry ground. Even when it rains hard the ground under the bale usually stays dry. Most of our rain is squalls. They come through all summer with high winds, rain and hail. I have opened ground bales in the spring with nice green hay, even though the outside is dark brown. The ground side has dried mud that never goes through.


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## nwfarmer (Jun 16, 2009)

This is how they stack their hay in cowboy country.

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## mlappin (Jun 25, 2009)

Ridgerunner said:


> Do you guy just stick a bale spear though the bale when it is on its side? Does it go in easy enough?
> 
> Do you have a special trick for flipping the bales on thier sides? I would imagine the net wrap is pretty robust and holds the bale together well during the flipping process.


The wife is a Air Force brat and all of her Moms side of the family live in England and after talking to her cousin one day I made this video up to give him a little better ideal of how I spend my summers. It also shows how I stack em on their sides.

YouTube - Stacking Hay


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## Daner (Jun 18, 2008)

Now that Man knows how to stack hay.


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