Making Quality Hay.

I have been looking at my second cut as well. I feed it to the horses by mixing it in with the coarser hay from first cut. I noticed my second cut is bleached out a little in color as a result from letting it sit out a couple of days longer because I could not get it to dry with cloudy conditions. It never got rained on but the morning dew took its toll. The horses seem to love it however.

My first cut was a challenge like yours was George. It should have been cut earlier but the weather would not allow it. It is stemmy and the horses pick through it and eat the finer grass first. They will eventually much on the stemmy hay but save that till last.

Ed

My dairy farming friend is on his second rotary rake, after wearing out the first one, and he says the difference in hay quality is significant, worth the expense for the rake. Bob

The funny thing is this contradicts a little what I said on another thread a while back! The idea with a rotary rake is that it will not make the windrows so tight and you can rake hay before it has finished drying and let it finish drying in the windrow while preserving some color, out of the sun. The common view of side delivery rakes is that they twist the hay up too tight to continue drying after raking. This has been my experience.

On another thread I was questioning how valuable it would be or whether it was worth the extra expense. I still think that will depend on how well you have figured out the mowing, tedding, and baling. All of which can have big impacts on making good hay.

I have more experience with loose hay than baling, but have bought many bales from others over the years. One of the challenges we are faced with is that we are not conditioning our hay, as cutting with a sickle-bar does not crush the stem. In my mind this leads to better hay, but it also complicates the drying and baling process.

I have posted before that I learned most of my haying from men who adapted their horse-drawn ways to machinery. Cutting a lot of hay at one time was not a common practice. 500 bales was about tops in one section. This way the hay could get the attention it needs. Also with less on the ground, there is less tendency toward short-cuts. I have learned that big windrows and tight bales are great methods for increasing production, but they run contrary to making good hay that can store well.

The rotary rake has been developed for large amounts of hay and bigger balers. As George points out, the tools we use are only aids in the process that we are trying to perfect. The tools alone cannot make good hay, and good hay can be made without any tools. It matters what context you are working in.

One reason that loose hay stores so well is that it isn’t compacted the way baled hay is. I used to love coming into the stables during winter evening chores with a fork-full of summer. The animals just loved that hay. It filled the barn with a luscious odor, and created an intimacy to the situation that just doesn’t exist with baled hay, even from my own fields.

Carl

Jay, you are correct, my JD 594 high wheel rake has an adjustment to change the pitch of the teeth. I played with it a little but found once the rake was working well it was best to leave it be and stop tinkering with the adjustment.

I raked all but one field right before baling. That seemed to work well for me with my set up. The one field I raked into a windrow and tried to dry took forever to dry out and I ended up raking it two more times before baling. Not a big deal with a tractor but would have been a challenge for the horses.

Ed

Well, -17 F and windy this morning, I forgot how much harder it is walking in snow up to your knees. Good time to think about hay. Generally, when hay gets down to about 20% moisture you can begin baling small square bales, 18% for large round bales. Probably 22% or so for loose hay but that depends on how much and how big the stack, how quickly, if there will be air movement through the stack, etc. Loose wrapped bales with dry better than tight bales when moisture is on the edge.

The best meters for testing moisture and calibrating your hand/eye is a Koster meter that is like a little stove. You take a few samples, chop them up, weigh them, dry them down to near 0% moisture and reweigh the dry matter to calculate the moisture. The Koster is kind of expensive but you can do the same thing with a small microwave oven and a small gram scale. If you use the microwave put a cup of water in the microwave with the sample or you could set it on fire. The probes will not be as accurate but will give you a good idea. You just need to create similar conditions between samples. For instance, if you are checking a windrow, grab a handful and squeeze it tight around the probe, don’t just lay it in the windrow. Tight bales will give a different reading than what you get by hand.

One challenge when to bale is due to the variability in the field. Some places might be 18%, in the swales might be 22%, higher yielding areas greater than lower yielding areas, heavy red clover in some areas will slow drying, north slope dries slower than south, edges of the woodlot slows things down, etc.

Rapid drying of hay requires heat (sunlight), dry air (low humidity), and air movement to move moisture and moist air out of the windrow. Anything that interferes with these conditions, cool temperatures, high humidity, cloudy skies, still air will delay drying. Tools like a tedder or rake create conditions that allow natural drying processes to work, but they do not in themselves dry the hay. Tedding right after mowing lifts the hay and spreads it over the entire area making full use of available sunlight and air movement. If the hay gets matted down or something happens to impede air movement through the hay perhaps second tedding is justified, or for instance a heavy dew the next morning when the hay is still tough, tedding again may be justified. A tedder is most valuable at first cutting in heavy yields. Second cutting, you may make the most $ with a tedder by leaving it in the shed. Alfalfa in particular takes a beating with the tedder because the leaves get knocked off. Look at the weather, if things look good leave the hay alone and let nature dry the hay. That will be the best hay.

Rotary rakes sweep the hay sideways and disorient the stems, thereby improving air movement through the windrow. This can allow you to begin raking at a slightly higher moisture than you might with a bar rake. My rake tilts so if I tilt it forward so the teeth contact the windrow sooner it kicks the hay up. I do this to speed drying. If I tilt it back it tends to roll and rope the windrow. I do this if no rain in sight, the hay is drying quickly, and I want to delay drying to keep some moisture in. The best approach here many times, particularly with second cutting is to cut and lay the hay in a wide swath and stay out until it is time to rake and bale. The question is always when do you use your tools? Raking and tedding can help if the conditions call for it, but high quality dry matter is lost and at a cost of finite energy expended by the team. Am I just getting old, or does anyone else think about energy conservation?

So for me the issue with tedding is, will the tedder improve drying conditions enough to justify the energy expense and wear and tear on the equipment? If you have conditions in the hay that suit good air movement, but the humidity is high, cloudy conditions or cool temperatures, etc., you can ted all day long and the hay will not dry any faster. You will bale stems with no leaves.

Everyone needs to find their comfort zone when making hay, every cutting seems different. Give nature a chance.