Storing my hay bales

On Thursday and Friday I moved my hay bales into the hayshed.  After all my time and effort in cutting and baling my hay I ended up with 74 bales.  This is the most I ever had.  Last year I had 59 bales from my first hay cutting, and that was after I fertilized the field.  It didn't seem like more hay than last year.

It turns out my hay bale totals are different because I used different balers to bale the hay.   Both balers should make a 5 ft by 64 inch long bale.  Both hay bales are 64 inches long.  While the new baler maximum size is 60 (inches?) the bale after it is net wrapped is 4 1/2 feet tall.  Not 5 feet.

The new bales look to be more dense than the old bales.  So I thought the weights may be the same.  On Friday I put a bale into my pickup and hauled it to CHS to be weighed.  The old bales would completely go side to side in the pickup's box.  The new bales had a little room on each side of the bale when it sat in the pickup box.  Again 4 1/2 feet versus 5 feet.

This year's bale's weight is lighter.  Twice I weighed my old bales the first year I had that baler.  Once for a first cutting of the hay, and the second time for the second cutting of the hay.  The first bale weighed 1180 lbs.  The second cutting's bale weighed 1460 lbs.  This new hay bale weighed 960 lbs.   Much lighter.   If I go by total weight.   59 times 1180 equals 69,620 lbs.   74 times 960 equals 71,040 lbs.  So the total weight difference is that this year's hay weighed 1,420 lbs more.


I had 14 bales left over from last year.  I moved them out of the hayshed temporarily so I could put all my new hay in the hayshed.

The hayshed is 20 feet wide.  The old bales just fit wall to wall.  And where the posts are located, the bales squeezed in.   The new bales equal 18 ft in total and that leaves a few feet on the side.  A nice fit, and no pressure on the walls.

Also the height is shorter.  13.5 feet versus 15 ft on top of the wooden pallets.  I could stack the third 5 foot bale but I had to put the bale fork in the lower part of the hay bale as the tractor loader's reach had the third bale barely going above the second bale.   No problems stacking the 4.5 foot bales.

With 74 bales it took two days to move and stack them all.  52 bales on Thursday.  22 bales on Friday.   I also moved last the three bales with poor net wrap on them.  I didn't want to try to re-bale these bales.  To keep the bales from falling apart I took some old twine I had and wound it around each bale.

This bale wasn't too bad to add twine too.

This is the bale I had re-baled last and the net wrapping still didn't work well.  I had to used a bunch of twine to hold the bale together so I could get it into the hay shed without the bale falling apart.

Here are all the bales in the hayshed.  I put the last year's bales in last.  You can see how last year's bales go from wall to wall.

With the extra bales the hayshed is mostly full.  I still have the second hay cutting to store in here.  I have a feeling the bales will be stacked coming out the front of the hayshed.