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Round bales

EUG560

EUG560

Member
Location
Scandia, Minnesota
With round bales that are stored outside in the elements, how much good nutritional hay is left after sitting outside 2 or more years? Obviously the outer foot or so is pretty bad, but what about the inner portion? Just curious. I see a lot of old bales sitting in fields or on farms. Wondered if they are still useful or why they would be saved. Just curious. Im in Minnesota if that makes a difference.
 
Once they are really bad you can use them in pens as bedding and theyll pick through them a bit so long as you can get the twine/net off.
 
Kind of depends on how well or tight they were baled, how much weather they experienced and if they were stored on a well drained spot.

Ben
 
Depends how much moisture you get. Over her to the right of the Red River, about 6 inches turns brown but doesnt get too bad. Further west, they dont loose much at all.

When I lived in Maine, leaving a bale out over the winter turned it into a slimy putrid mess all the way through.
 
Normally a round bale with twine will have much greater storage loss than a bale with the net wrap. The net tends to make a smoother cover over the bale and sheds water better than twine.
 
I think you have your answer give to you in this post. It depends!! I have a Kubota Baler, and it will make a very hard tightly wrapped bale, covered with net wrap. Here in Ontario we have similar weather to you, if anything maybe a bit wetter. After a year sitting outside, a grass hay bale will only have a inch or two less than perfect hay on the outside. Naturally the bottom of the bale will have a bit more waste. Grass hay wraps very tight and makes a water resistant bale, but if you should go to Alfalfa or Clover hay, the more coarse material will let water penetrate deeper. Lots of hay is stored outside for beef cows. Most guys are just looking for mouth fulls of feed to over winter their beef cows, and not as concerned about high protein. Dairy farmers will generally take more care of feed storage as they will know the next milking if the hay wasnt so good. At least 80% of the hay in a big round stored unprotected with still be as good as baled if hay was saved and stored well.
 
Here in central Kansas a tightly-rolled round bale with net wrap can set outside for several years and only have a thin layer of deterioration, maybe just an inch or two. Twine-wrapped bales don't shed water as well and will go downhill more quickly. A big factor is the surface they're setting on - it must be well-drained or the bale will soak up moisture from the bottom.
 
I think the question isn't about loss from weather, but nutritional value lost from age. There is no exact answer, but most studies have shown minimal nutritional loss from even 10 year of storage. So the hay thats still good inside the bale after two years still has nearly the same value that it had the first year.
 
As has been noted, it depends. A real tight, net wrapped bale up off the ground will last a lot longer than a not so tight, twine wrapped bale sitting on the ground in a wet spot. My baler makes decently tight bales, but not rock hard and it's twine, not net wrap. I figure I lose about 1/3 or more of the bale over a winter. In fact, I'm hoping to be able to try tube wrapping all mine this year. I can rent a tubeline type wrapper for a lot less than the cost of a barn for storing 200-225 rounds.

2 year old bales here on the Ontario border in NYS are basically bedding, if even that.
 
I'm sure some university somewhere has researched it with all the variables. Search long enough, you can probably find it so there's no guesswork. SDSU seems to be one of the best at this kind of thing.
 
I wrap hundreds of bales each year, mostly wet, but
some dry hay too.
cvphoto85123.jpg

Dry hay comes out exactly like it went in. Cost me
about 2 bucks per bale for plastic. I bought this new
inline wrapper 3 years ago. I had an individual
wrapper before, I thought they would store better,
but not really. A pain to move because you wrap in
the field then have to pickup and load/unload using
a grapple. And individual wrapped bales required
twice as much plastic as inline
 
Hard core tight wrapped bale with twine keeps quite well I think, a year or 2 no problem. I figure the outside inch to inch and a half is a little rough and the bottom sitting on the ground, hopefully on a high spot will be 4 inches of compostable. Don't stack them outside uncovered. Place them end to end with 6 inches in between. As far as bales that have been setting outside for years, what's your time and cost of operating equipment on a public road worth?
 
(quoted from post at 10:41:32 04/15/21) I wrap hundreds of bales each year, mostly wet, but
some dry hay too.
<img src=https://www.yesterdaystractors.com/cvphotos/cvphoto85123.jpg>
Dry hay comes out exactly like it went in. Cost me
about 2 bucks per bale for plastic. I bought this new
inline wrapper 3 years ago. I had an individual
wrapper before, I thought they would store better,
but not really. A pain to move because you wrap in
the field then have to pickup and load/unload using
a grapple. And individual wrapped bales required
twice as much plastic as inline
Click to expand...

Nice! Can't find a tubeline wrapper near me for sale at the moment. Neighbor has one I might be able to rent.
 
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