# Hay was cut and got wet in field



## Bullbaron (Sep 19, 2009)

Just thought I'd get your opinions on the following:

In south central OK, I have hay pasture of mixed bermuda and prairie grass. Hay unfortunately was cut about 10 days ago and then it went to raining. No cut hay rested in water but it's now sitting there drying since yesterday. Hay is for cattle consumption only, no horses. Using round baler.

What's your opinion? If it dries well and we can get in and bale it, will it be safe for cattle consumption? I know nutrients are probably gone, but I'm hoping it will still provide proper roughage for adequate rumen health for cattle.

OK, if the answer is NO above, then comes the question whether to leave it there on the ground cut losses or do I need to bale it just to get it off the ground. Then, what to do with it, burn it, or maybe someone wants it for soil erosion control.

Thanks for any help on this,


----------



## UpNorth (Jun 15, 2009)

I would definitely bale it and get it off the field, you don't want it slowing down the regrowth or killing off patches of the you pasture. When you do get it baled and put up, take some cores of a couple of the bales and have them tested by a lab. That way you'll know if its worth feeding or if it's straw. Otherwise you're not going really know whats left.

Was the rain hard and heavy or just lots of slow light drizzle? If it wasn't a downpour you may still have some feed value in those round bales.

Good luck, hope the weather gives you a break.


----------



## coyote (Sep 19, 2009)

Hey check out this link.

Rain Damage to Forage During Hay and Silage Making

Its awesome to explain rain on hay and what it does. I found it to be very educational and it shatters some myths about hay getting wet. Knowledge is power and food for the cows.

Aaron Colborn


----------



## Heyhay..eh (Aug 7, 2009)

It seems that every year I end up with some hay like this. It just seems to be a fact of life in our region.

I would definitely bale it to get it off the field otherwise you have the problem of messing up you next cut with old hay mixed into some potential prime hay and when you mow your next cut you might have all kinds of problems keeping your knife clear causing jams or clogging.

I feed this hay to the cattle on the ground if it is really bad (wet slugs). If it is dry then I will put it in a feeder. You will be surprised at how they will consume it. I have even pulled some out of standing water and fed it out right away. It went too. Rule of thumb is make sure that they also have some good quality feed to go with this. I am using it to augment my pastures as they run down to winter. It takes the edge off and gives you use of some gut filler.

Much like the kids, you feed them and then give them something to keep them full!

Take care


----------



## mlappin (Jun 25, 2009)

We pasture our cows in the woods during the winter and I'll place the "junk" around various places in the woods, they can eat what they want and lay on the rest. Around here sometimes the junk hay is almost worth as much as the good stuff cause if they can lay on something besides the frozen ground, feed consumption really goes down.

For the most part in my experience it would have to be a bale of nothing but mold before its completely worthless and except in a few rare occasions, for the most part cows won't eat something that will hurt em. Exceptions being cherry leaves, fresh clover and hemlock.


----------



## Chessiedog (Jul 24, 2009)

I agree with mlappin got to get it off the field any ways .I have about 40 brood cows feed them some nasty stuff some times they eat what they want and leave the rest lay. Set out a bale a couple days ago still have pasture but they like something different sometimes so I set out a bale of hay that had been rained on for a week they ate about 60 to 70 percent of it and just pushed the rest around. I put out some one time that was rolled really wet it had caramelized had a 3 foot hard ball in the center the calves shoved it around for a 2 weeks just picking on it till it was gone .Couldn't believe they ate it I was going to roll it over in the ditch.


----------



## swmnhay (Jun 13, 2008)

Like the other guys said bale it up and get it off the field.Usualy it is on the wet side but it carmalizes.A tight bale is better to keep it from molding.I feed it to bigger cattle 800-1500# holstein fats that are on full feed of corn with along with alfalfa hay in rd bale feeder.One feeder with a decent bale and one with a junk bale.

I would't feed it to young cattle or if there is much mold I wouldn't feed it to bred cows.


----------



## mlappin (Jun 25, 2009)

Like has been pointed out, I also keep good hay available while using the junk. A person will be surprised at times what cows will eat. I bought some bean stubble bales last winter for practically nothing with the intent to use em as bedding. This works out very well on the Friday auctions as we can go right next door and the man who runs the action lives there and will reload whatever I bought onto my truck. Anyways, sat 4 of those bean stubble bales out and the next day the cows had ate 90% of them. So I sat four more out and they probaly ate half of those then laid on the rest.

Kept alternating between the bean stubble bales and corn stover bales all winter. It's almost like they get bored with one or the other. When switching from one kind to the other, they always eat quite a bit of them at first, then start laying on whats left.

I've had some that were given to me jsut to get em out of the guys fencerow after they had sat several years. They were wrapped with poly twine as well and I automatically figured bedding bales. Got em home and started feeding them and the cows ignored the better hay I was feeding for these. Got to inspecting them a lot closer and turns out they were full of wild oats that had actually been made after the seed were almost fully formed.


----------



## nwfarmer (Jun 16, 2009)

coyote said:


> Hey check out this link.
> 
> Rain Damage to Forage During Hay and Silage Making
> 
> ...


Very interesting. I had an experience a couple of years ago. A heavy frost was coming, into the teens. An old farmer told me to cut the alfalfa or all I will have left is stems. That night after cutting we got 6 inches of snow. The snow melted in about a week. I raked the wet hay, it dried and I baled it. I don't know what the nutrients were but after opening a bale it was the prettiest hay I had ever seen with well distributed leaves throughout the bale and very bright green. I told people it had been snowed on and they bought it anyway after I opened bales for them to see. As I drove to town after the freeze I saw a lot of fields of alfalfa with stems only sticking out of the ground.


----------

