Why not let them dry out inside a barn? I’d imagine leaving them out, exposed to the elements, would allow for a higher likelihood of fodder becoming mouldy?
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Unless it is a climate controlled building, they tend to accumulate moisture in the building, and have poor airflow.
Sunlight, and airflow are great ways to mitigate mold, as mold grows very poorly under UV light, and airflow in addition to UV radiation dries the fodder out.
If properly dried “hay” is fine to store in a barn or similar structure, but those structures that money to maintain as far as insurance, building, maintenance.
Fodder is commonly left out and in most places where it is used degrades less than the cost of storage when baled. That said, it seem like that wrapping them in plastic or tarping them is a good happy medium.
the reason is actually terrifying.
when hay dries, it also heats up. if you just stick all the hay in the barn immediately (or in too big of piles) they do actually [light themselves on fire](https://youtu.be/jO5W25csxGo).
so its safer to let them dry out in a field away from each other rather than all together
Fire.
There are little bacteria that *love* to eat hay. They thrive on the sugars and reproduce like crazy for a little while. The problem is that they produce a lot of heat in the process.
No biggie when you’re dealing with haybale-sized bales, there is plenty of room for the heat to dissipate.
When you stack the bales, though, the heat has a harder time getting out. It’s very easy for the temperature inside the stack to exceed the hay’s ignition point. It just gets to hot and the hay catches fire.
Hay has a lot of little stem that make it up, so *lots* or surface area. Lots of things that are easy to burn. A hay fire, once started, is nearly impossible to put out.
So it’s easier to just let the hay dry in the field, where it’s unlikely to burn up.
I once saw a truck stacked with hay going down the interstate. The hay was on fire and the driver was oblivious.
Wet hay/alfalfa bales get extremely hot on the interior through compression and bioreaction – hot enough to spontaneously combust adjacent dry material. Best to let them dry where they are exposed to air circulation.
Source: Stacked many bales.
If at all possible the hay is dry before you bale it. As most have stated wet hay is a big fire risk. Not needing a building just for hay storage is also a big plus. Most of the farmers I know now use very large round bales which can be moved with a tractor to where they are needed and wrapped, no need to handle them twice.
Another neat thing that happens to round bales out in the weather is that the outer inch or so will turn into sort of a crust and protect the interior of the bale from extra moisture from rain, snow, and dew. The outside will look brown-grey, but everything else will be nearly as green as the day it was baled.
The risk is spontaneous combustion. Freshly baled hay has a lot of moisture. It also has some good insulating properties. Any stack, pile, collection or bale of organic material runs the risk of spontaneous combustion. As the bacteria goes to work breaking down the bale it creates heat. The insulating nature contains the heat. When the material is thin enough and the heat is not allowed to escape it will start to smolder. That smoker will become a fire.
You see it in oily rags, large woodchip piles and baled hay. If you put the green baled hay up too soon you’ll lose both the hay and the building.
Most of the hay around here is dried in the field before it is bailed. It really depends on the type of hay and the animal it is used for. Not just because of the risk of fire.
The big giant cylinder shaped bails you typically see just sitting out in fields are for cows. Cows are fine eating/digesting moist and moldy hay.
The small square bails, which is the stuff around here that they let try in the field after it is cut, before it is bailed, is for horses predominantly. Horses need properly dried hay, trying to feed them round bail hay could kill them depending on the levels mold they are ingesting.
There are some fundamental misunderstandings about what’s going on with hay. The hay is dried or cured on the ground before it is baled, it will not dry in a bale. The most common reason for hay bales to be left in a field is that it’s just a really busy time of year and they haven’t got to it yet. If the bales are properly made with good tension they won’t spoil that much, they basically shed water.
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