How to identify moldy hay??

[Chick3nLover]

Hi everyone, I had a question on hay. So recently where I live, the heat has been really bad, so I installed misters. I didn’t know that you shouldn’t run them for more then one hour, and now I’m worried I may have moldy hay since the bottom run part of my coop has hay as the ground. Whould this cause mold? And if so how do I identify if there is mold at all? And lastly if there is mold how do I clean my coops and prevent this from happing again?

 

[samanthaoverton]

It will look black (ish) but can be different colors. Key thing is smell. Think dank, dirty, basement..horror film...

 

[3KillerBs]

IMO, mold is most easily identified by smell.

 

[Percheron chick]

Smell

 

[Alaskan]

Hi everyone, I had a question on hay. So recently where I live, the heat has been really bad, so I installed misters. I didn’t know that you shouldn’t run them for more then one hour, and now I’m worried I may have moldy hay since the bottom run part of my coop has hay as the ground. Whould this cause mold? And if so how do I identify if there is mold at all? And lastly if there is mold how do I clean my coops and prevent this from happing again?

The same answer as the rest... poke through the hay... if it is moldy, you will smell it, and maybe also see it.

As to how long to run misters... that hugely depends on where you live.

Some very low humidity area, like Arizona, could probably run misters 24/7 and never cause mold...

Also, a windy location will dry things out faster and have less mold issues, than a location or place with little to no air movement.