horse hay question

Don't feed it to the Horses for sure mold will kill them, but if you want to recoup some of your money, It wont hurt cows actually cows seem to like it more for some reason,so if you know someone with cows cut them a good deal on it and you will get some of your money back and they will get a deal on some hay, win win
 
I have a goat. She's the pickiest of all my critters. She's a dairy goat so I wouldn't feed her anything I wouldn't want to taste in milk. She lives with the horses, too.

My husband joked that I should buy a pig to eat the bad hay. OOOhhh...let's not open another can of worms. pigs are so cute.
 
Cattle and other ruminants can handle some mold in their food. Mold, especially when it is in that "white dust" form is very bad for horses. They inhale it. It causes all sorts of respiratory problems, like heaves. There are some pallets that are very small. Check around industrial places and furniture stores. They often let you have them for free. Unless your door is only 3 feet tall, you should be able to get pallets in. The alternative is to throw hay away every year.
 
If you can't move a pallet into the room, I've seen pallets as small as 3x3 or 2x4 for odd shaped things, can't you just move in wood and make a "pallet"?

I mean... I assembled my desk in a room... and it won't fit through the door... or window. hahaha
 
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Absolutely! I can do that! Thank you. simple solution right? why didn't I think of that?
 
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i can help you out with pallets if you need. my husband brings them home all the time.
you just let me know and we will have something here for you.
 
We kept the bales on pallets when they were stored in the horse trailer and then again in the garage. I didn't think it was necessary upstairs. So I've learned it is. I had some bales mold when kept on pallets. Is there a better way to stack bales on pallets? Spacing or something? This green 2nd cut is probably more moist than other hay?
 
Heck even a couple of bricks with wood planks over to hold up those bales.... I sprinkle DE under my hay pallets, right before we load em up again.
 
If it's originally good hay and not completely molded (which is what this sounds like) then you may be able to sell it to some cattle men; they'll probably want a bargain on it though.

If you can't get pallets into the hay storage room, then trying laying out a grid of four by four by tens or twelves to get your hay up off the ground and get some circulation underneath it. Another thing you can do to help prevent this from happening again is to salt your hay really well when you stack it (sometimes hay can be a bit wet in the middle and this helps, plus the horses and other livestock appreciate the salt).

I've had some hay get moldy on an edge with the rest of the bale still being good, and you can try pulling apart the flakes to get rid of the moldy part (this was prime $7 a bale alfalfa that had unfortunately gotten stacked in the wrong spot -- I definitely wanted to try salvaging some of it). It was messy and wasteful, but the horses were fine on it and not a complete disaster like throwing the entire bale out. I've had to settle with hay that had some dust to it too during lean years (two years ago hay could not be had for love or money around here due to a bad season), I got by feeding as little as possible and watering it down before I fed (they wasted a fair share but not as bad as having no hay at all) and I had to supplement with hay cubes and beet pulp quite a bit until my hay guy caught a break and got a decent stand to bale. In neither situation was the hay in truly unsalvageable condition -- and I had my horse vet take a look at it and tell me what he thought.

*Oh, and stack the bales on the narrow, long side -- less area space per bale touching a potential mold producing spot.
 
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