# What Causes Dusty Hay?



## whitmerlegacyfarm

Hey guys i know this is a general question, but what are some of the reasons hay gets dusty after a few months? Is is the fact it was possibly not dry enough yet? When i break the bales open or toss um down some dust flies off. Our horses still love it and don't have any problems with it.

I'm just making small squares of mainly Grass Hay, you a NH Haybine.

Thanks Guys


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## mlappin

Well first question is this, is it the least bit moldy? You can get dust from moldy hay, or very dry hay can be dusty as well. The dust from very dry hay is the wax off the stems of the plant.


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## slowzuki

Depends on what you can dusty too, any hay short of silage will produce dust but abnormal dust is usually mold spores from wet hay. A very slight pat with your hand on a moldy bale sends up a cloud of spores that is what we call dusty hay. You break that sucker open and it will be very dusty. Mold spores aren't great for horses or people although a healthy person shouldn't get sick from it.


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## Tim/South

I believe most grass hay will have some dust. I always thought it came from the leaves drying.
We square baled for years, cut with a conditioner and always waited until the hay was cured before baling. There would be a certain amount of dust in any grass hay we baled.
Take a handfull of hay and dunk it in a bucket of water. Look and see what comes out of the hay. I have done that then strained the water just to try and figure out what the "dust" was. It is not dirt or mold.
May just be small particles of the grass plant that detaches once cured?


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## Teslan

We get dust on our grass hay from the very dusty dirt/gravel county road that is beside the field. Can't do anything about that.


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## whitmerlegacyfarm

From what i have saw, there is no mold. If it were mold i assumed my horses would not eat it, atleast in the past they usually push it to the side, if there was a bad moldy slug in one.

This hay making is all new to me only have one full season under my belt, and really have no good guidance in the field on when it's ready for baling. I had given all my cuttings 4 days to dry, i don't recall ever getting any to the point where i thought it was ok on 3rd day to bale. I lost most of my first cutting to rain, much after doing more cutting later on i think it was dry enough to bale.

Am i right by saying OG Hay for a 2nd and 3rd cut will hold it's nice green color or should i be loosing the nice green baled up look if it's dried properly?

Main reason is i'm selling to my Aunt for her Alpaca and I planted a few stand of pure OG because they give me $5 a bale for 2nd and 3rd cut, so i want to make sure i'm making good quality for them, but at the same time i'm only cutting about 12 ac of my own ground.


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## Teslan

Our 2nd and 3rd cutting OG is very green looking when baled. However we have very little humidity here and we don't usually have to turn the windrow until the morning before baling. This keeps the hay from being exposed to sun and dew that will cause it to lose that green color.. From the pictures I've seen of hay from your area it sure looks a lot more discolored then ours does.


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## Nitram

Teslan said:


> We get dust on our grass hay from the very dusty dirt/gravel county road that is beside the field. Can't do anything about that.


Two of my fields are on north side of road same problems especially if no rains before cutting


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## hay wilson in TX

Dusty hay, it is in the eyes of the beholder.

The dust can be what *we* label as Ash in the trade. That is foreign material dirt, that is picked up in raking, and even baling.
What most of us think of as dusty hay is a white mold. To avoid this we bale when the hay is lower than "20% moisture" of better yet when the hay is no more than 18% moisture. The same applies to larger bales but using 16% moisture as the magic moisture.
How can this be, we bale the hay at or below the magic moisture level and have mold?
Can Do Easy! have the hay almost cured, with the stems still in the 30% range but the leaves dried to the point of shattering, say 8% moisture. With hay that is half stems and half leaves that hay will test as 19% Moisture using a total moisture tester. Say the microwave or electric oven system.
When we bale this 19% Moisture Hay we shatter off 25% of the leaves. Then we can have Hay that is 66% moist stems and 33% dry leaves. and actual hay at 23% moisture. The leaves that are left will be ok but the damp stems will mold.

Now the universal truth is with 65% relative humidity the hay will be no *less* than 18 to 20% moisture. If the stems are still damp we will be fortunate to bale hay that will quickly go to 25% to 29% moisture from the 18% moisture leaves and 30% stems.
To bale hay with out using an acid preservative or anhydrous ammonia to kill the mold we need the stems to be stem cracking dry and the leaves to have moisture from the surrounding humidity.
THEN we have the 18% moisture hay that is safe from mold.

Easy enough for me to say. BUT some climates seldom have a humidity that goes below 60% moisture and some climates seldom have above 60% humidity.

One solution is to use a tedder or have a conditioner that leves the hay out wide covering 80% or more of the ground with the hay exposed to the direct rays of the sun. This hay will have to be raked with a 90% humidity or still wet with the night dew.
The Arid West must drop their hay in a 3 ft wide windrow, and rake the hay when it is as damp as possible.
Both require management styles and methods that are foreign to the other.
HERE we have the "best" of the two worlds! I have two to three hours during the day to bale, between too damp and too dry, and three to four hours for night baling.
During 2011 I went a month with out a enough humidity to bale, day or night. 
No problem, there wasn't any hay to bale anyway.


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## JD3430

would you consider a all expense paid vacation to beautiful SE PA for a few days during hay season to teach my green arse how you do hay the right way?


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## rjmoses

Hay making art is a regional thing: what may work here, may not work 300 miles away. I'm between the Illinois and Mississippi Rivers and about 5 miles from the Missouri. My relative humidity seldom drops below 60%, yet 50 miles to the east, humidity that same day can be 30%. This affects my drying time, baling time, etc. I seldom bale before 1 PM. This year was the first time I ever raked before 10 AM!

There's an old saying I find useful: How do you develop good judgement? Lots of bad judgement!

Ralph


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## whitmerlegacyfarm

Yea i defently have experienced the learn as go and and learn from your mistakes. Mother Nature can be a tough one.


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## slowzuki

I'll add one more thing I've seen for dusty hay, I picked up some hay that was stored in a riding arena. The dust from the material they used for a surface was unbelievable. They held dog trials at the building when the horses didn't use it. The loft had an 1/8" layer of super fine dirt dust and all the hay had it settled into the hay. We used the hay for sheep that were going for meat as the wear on teeth would have been terrible.


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## slowzuki

I'm not sure about the 65% number, you mean in the windrow at ground level?


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## JD3430

rjmoses said:


> Hay making art is a regional thing: what may work here, may not work 300 miles away. I'm between the Illinois and Mississippi Rivers and about 5 miles from the Missouri. My relative humidity seldom drops below 60%, yet 50 miles to the east, humidity that same day can be 30%. This affects my drying time, baling time, etc. I seldom bale before 1 PM. This year was the first time I ever raked before 10 AM!
> 
> There's an old saying I find useful: How do you develop good judgement? Lots of bad judgement!
> 
> Ralph


Yeah don't I know it!


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