Round Bale Question

[Youare]

Round bales are becoming popular here in the Northeast. For those of us who are horse keepers much of the storage areas for hay was designed around square bales.

This year I had to purchase a couple of round bales as square bales were not readily available. When I opened the round bale I noticed the hay is not the same "quality" as I am used to with square bales. These seemed to be dusty in places and a little moldy.

Is this dust a characteristic of all round bales because of the amount of hay that is wound up so they don't dry or mature as well as a square bale? Or, was the hay just baled too wet?

Can hay be baled into round bales so the quality of the hay is the same as square bales? How do you tell the if a round bales is good from the outside? I can cut open a square bale and check the interiour at little expense, but a round bale is a different story.

I would be greatful for any advice.

Randy

 

[cowboydoc]

Good hay should not be dusty and moldy. Absolutely do not feed this to your horses. It will cause them to colic.

Good roundbales won't be that way. Good round bales will look just like your square bales do on the inside. The outside will typically be a little bad from sitting outside but a couple inches in it should be just like your square bales. To find out the guality just reach in the bale at different places and pull hay out. If it's dusty or moldy besides the top couple inches that hay was not put properly.

 

[DAP]

</font><font color="blue" class="small">( Round bales are becoming popular here in the Northeast.)</font>
Randy, "becoming popular" ??? Not sure what you mean by this. Good hay is good hay. Bad hay is bad hay. Ok hay is Ok hay.

How hay is prepared, handled and processed is 75% of it's qualitative worth. The other 25% is the plant quality itself, in my opinion. And make no mistake, I don't have to "make" hay to know this. Buy enough of it, and you get informed real fast. /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

Although I agree somewhat with Richard ... roundbales here (in the NE) are not generally suitable for a daily forage for horses IMO. They spend most of their life in the elements, and in general horses will end up wasting a good portion of a round bale anyway.

Take Richard's advice to heart though ... NEVER give an animal moldy or dusty hay. Even if it smells funny, rid yourself of it. We NEVER use bad hay for bedding either (we use pine shavings) cause the mares will eat it anyway.

The mares love to 'nose through' a new flake of hay looking for the hay seeds before consuming the individual grasses in the hay flake. No more round bale.

They are cumbersome to move and harder to store and preserve properly. We find it easy enough to just hand deliver the flakes of a square bale to them, whether in their stalls or out in the paddock.

It may be that some folks use round bales for their horses but on our place, they don't work out too well. I guess the attraction is to put one or however many out in a paddock and let the horses take care of the rest themselves. That notion doesn't work out too well at our place.

My paddocks are on the small size. Don't know if you ever left a lot of hay remnants on nice timothy/clover growth, but once it get's wet, it smothers the grass unless you clean it all up.

I'm sure others may have a different view, but this one is mine.

 

[Youare]

Richard & Doug

Thanks for the advice. I figure if I put my nose in a bunch of hay and it doesn't smell right it probably isn't. Hay is getting scarce in my part of town or they want an arm and a leg for it.

Most of the people making hay around here are dairy farmers who's cows can tolerate musty hay. I figured that if the hay is put up at the correct moisture content the inside of the bale will be as it should.

I keep looking for better stuff.

Randy

 

[cowboydoc]

in general horses will end up wasting a good portion of a round bale anyway.


If you don't use a roundbale feeder I completely agree with this. Most people use a round bale feeder just for horses. This minimizes the waste to virtually none. Also if you only have a few horses it doesn't pay much either as by the time they go through a roundbale a good portion of it is wasted. I keep one feeder out for every four or five horses. This way they go through it within a week and there is virtually no waste or any that goes bad.


"roundbales here (in the NE) are not generally suitable for a daily forage for horses IMO"

While you may be right about NE it shouldn't matter if it's square bales or round bales. The quality of the hay is what you're after. If the quality is good you're just as well of feeding a round bale as you are square bales. But if you're only feeding a couple horses it's much better to feed square bales.

 

[powerstroke2000]

I agree with the good hay is good hay.
Some people will take round bales and stand them on end then unroll them and feed them that way.

 

[Justaplain]

Free feeding round bales = day 1--dining room
day 2 bed room
day 3 bathroom /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif bcs

 

[Youare]

One of the problems faced by horse owners in my part of New Hampshire is the development of farm land so there is less land to be farmed. The number of farms going out of business because of a bunch of reasons, one being low milk prices the other being the money that can be made selling off the family farm for development that no one wants to work.

Another practice by dairy farmers that cuts into the baled hay market is a thing I believe they call haylage. They mow the field, condition the hay and leave it on the ground for maybe two days then it is blown into a silage wagon. Once it gets back to the farm it is blown into long plastic tubes.

I would think the hay not being dry would tend to rot inside those plastic bags. I don't know the how this is supposed to work for cows but I was told it is no good for horses.

I can see where this system is much easier for the dairy farmer, it's hard to find help today when haying season comes. I worked for two farmers for 10 years helping them hay and took my wages in hay so I know what it is like.

There are more round bales appearing in fields around here and because of the supply of square bales I am faced with buying some now and then. I feed only two horses and haven't let them free feed on all the hay they want like they would get if I put a round bale out in the winter turn out area. I can only imagine they would eat the whole thing in two days.

Randy

 

[cowboydoc]

I can only imagine they would eat the whole thing in two days.


After being on round bales the horses will regulate themselves. Mine average about 25 lbs./day on round bales. This is about what I would feed them if they were getting fed square bales a couple times a day. It's actually much better for horses to be on round bales. A horses system is designed to eat many small meals throughout the day. When we only feed a couple times a day we disrupt that system. Then when they do get fed they will gorge themselves. This is one of the leading causes of colic in horses. Being on round bales I rarely get colic anymore. The only ones we ever have problems with, knock on wood, are the show horses that are kept in stalls and fed squares two times a day.

 

[Egon]

Given the same hay to start with will not the round bale be more weather resistant and subject to less rain penentration if the bales get left out.

Egon