How To Build A Traditional Hay Stack?

[stuckmotor]

Thanks vtsnowedin and egon as well. I've been fascinated with these things since I ran across some sales literature on them at my Allis Chalmers dealer, in the 60's or early 70's.

 

[stuckmotor]

I made a big mistake. The hay sweep is mounted on a John Deere not a Kubota. Maybe these links will work:
How to HAY SWEEP instead of baling hay (day 1) - YouTube
How to HAY SWEEP instead of baling hay (day 2) - YouTube
Horse Powered Hay Stacker - YouTube

 

[Oliver1655]

Here is another option: Horse-Drawn loose Haying at Grank-Kohrs Ranch - YouTube
The first part of this video: The Amish Way of Making Hay - YouTube is how we loaded loose hay as a kid. However, instead of using hay forks at the barn or manually throwing it off with pitch forks, there were two ropes that went from the front of the wagon to the rear which were used as slings to lift the load similar to the hay hook. A team of horses or tractor was located at the opposite end of the barn to pull the rope up and draw the bundle of hay into the barn. The spreader bar the rope slings hooked to had a release with a rope attached to it followed the bundle into the barn. This rope was marked allowing the person operating the release rope to identify where the bundle was which allowed the bundle to be dropped where it was needed.

 

[Egon]

Today some forms of acid may be used when putting up hay. I'm not familiar with them.

 

[stuckmotor]

Egon,
My neighbor used to have an injection system on his balor that sprayed some kind of preservitave into the hay. Could that be the acid you mentioned?

 

[Localmotion]

Some really great ideas & vids - thanks guys :thumbsup:

Egon,
My neighbor used to have an injection system on his balor that sprayed some kind of preservitave into the hay. Could that be the acid you mentioned?

Definitely I've never seen any sort of additive for hay used in the UK or here in Spain. When I worked for a contractor we did used to add enzyme to silage - I had a tank fitted to the front of the tractor which sprayed enzyme directly onto the pickup of the baler to ensure the grass was evenly treated. We also had a sprayer which dosed grass passing through our self propelled forager for clamp silage - is it possible your neighbour was baling silage or haylage not hay?

It sounds to me you need to investigate silage before the large round bailers came into vogue around here it was popular I have never done it myself so you need to do some research Basically the grass is cut semi dried and packed into a pit cut into a hillside as much air as possible is squeezed out by rolling the pile with the tractor wheels as you are loading the pit then the pile is covered with a large plastic cover dirt around the edges to keep it air tight. The grass ferments /breaks down into a fowl smelling product that the stock love and is twice as nutritious as hay

Another good idea, thanks Timbatrader - I spent much of my life in the UK making both clamp and baled silage each year for ourselves and also contracting to other farms. I even got to clamp about 250 acres while spending a month on holiday at friends farm near Te Awamutu in Waikato! :thumbsup: NZ is a truly beautiful country and at the time I was very tempted to sell up our dairy herd in the UK and start again - but decided instead to modify our system to a NZ style in the UK. It worked well (my former business partner still has the farm), but now wish I had made the move as I'd probably still have cows today (it's a long story)!

I must admit I had not really considered silage here in Spain because the climate lends itself so well to making hay! :laughing:

You have now got me thinking though that it could be a good option as we could collect it from the plots on the same day it is cut and then add it to a sheeted field pile at home... Silage would be good for the sheep and goats, but I'm not sure how good silage is for feeding to horses? When I was a kid my stepmother used to occasionally get silage baled if the weather broke before we could get the hay made - but I seem to remember there were a few things to be especially aware of when feeding it to the horses and she used to also buy a lot of hay in to supplement the silage? Anyone have any tips?

 

[Egon]

Egon,
My neighbor used to have an injection system on his balor that sprayed some kind of preservitave into the hay. Could that be the acid you mentioned?

It may have been prionic acid but that is the limit of knowledge.

 

[stuckmotor]

Thanks Egon. Your knowledge and mine are equally scant, on the subject.

 

[timbatrader]

My horses love balage baled silage only problem is I don’t use enough to be able to use a full bale once opened before it goes off
Another option I have heard of but not used that could work on a small scale. Grass is cut left to wilt for a day then stuffed into large plastic garbage bags suck as much air out with a vacuum cleaner then seal the bag. It might be useful to pile the grass up and roll it with a vehicle before stuffing it into the bag to compact it and get as much air out as possible. A lot of work for a small amount of feed. But you don’t need special gear and you can open one bag at a time, as you need it saves it going off

 

[Localmotion]

My horses love balage baled silage only problem is I don’t use enough to be able to use a full bale once opened before it goes off
Another option I have heard of but not used that could work on a small scale. Grass is cut left to wilt for a day then stuffed into large plastic garbage bags suck as much air out with a vacuum cleaner then seal the bag. It might be useful to pile the grass up and roll it with a vehicle before stuffing it into the bag to compact it and get as much air out as possible. A lot of work for a small amount of feed. But you don’t need special gear and you can open one bag at a time, as you need it saves it going off

The only problem I can see with the garbage bag idea is that it will be very difficult to get the compaction necessary / expel enough air - even if the grass is rolled first, it will expand again while trying to stuff it into the bag and it would take a lot of vacume pressure to make decent silage....

If I made a small clamp or field pile, I can layer the grass abd compact it using the tractor, and at least I could re-sheet it every day after taking out the silage I need - that said after a few times of opening and re-sheeting a clamp I'm sure I'll still get a lot of waste...? Also to make a clamp narrow enough to be able to keep an open face is not practical - my use is only very low (approx. 2 conventional hay bales per day) which would mean the clamp would need to be narrower than the tractor...

So maybe it is back to the haystack idea...???