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	How to Make Haylage

Haylage is a grass crop, cut, harvested, and stored as food for farm animals. It uses the same crops that are a part of normal hay, but with more moisture content. With the right equipment and storage techniques, this process drastically increases the food value and reduces losses for the crop.

Steps

1. Grow the crop that will be harvested for haylage. Normal choices are alfalfa, clover, and bermudagrasses, but even other grasses and legumes can be used for this storage process.

2. Cut the crop with a hay mower, sickle-bar mower, or rotary cutter. It should be carried as soon as the flower starts blooming or flowering for the highest food value and yield.

3. Leave the crop alone till its moisture content reduces to 60%. The drying time will depend on the climate, the kind of grass and the depth when it is laid down, or cut. The leaves have to be wilted, but there should not be a lot of fading in color and its weight should be quite lower than its green cut weight.

4. Bale with a standard round baler, tie when it becomes the standard size and wrap it in plastic shrink wrap. This is normally carried out by a large machine specially meant for this goal and is not feasible for a very small task for for experimental intentions.

5. Wrap your bale with commercial shrink wrap in the old fashioned method, beginning with the bale kept vertical tying around and around till at least 3 or 4 tight wraps embrace it. Push the bale down on its side, wrap end to end the equal number of wraps, to totally close the bale.

6. Keep the bale in such a manner to prevent the the wrapper from being ruptured, either in a protected shelter, or on clean, smooth ground free of sharp stubble or rocks below it. Holes in the wrapper will provide air into the bale, thus allowing it to mold or rot.

7. Examine the hay before feeding. Acids will be produced by fermentation in the wrapper, so you will get a sour, fermented odor, but dark or brown discoloration, visible mold, or other signs of rot will mean the haylage may not be healthy for livestock feed, especially for horses.

8. Bale your haylage with a square baler if there is no equipment for dealing with the big , round bales. As the round bales weigh as much as 1500 pounds, hydraulic lifts have to be used to move them, and special grapples that don’t puncture the bales are designed for this aim.

9. Handle square bales very cautiously. As the moisture content is more than normal hay bales, they will be far heavier, so use care when piling them. They can be tied in heavy duty airtight plastic bags, averting the trouble of wrapping with shrink wrap mentioned above.

Tips

· It is very important to determine the moisture content of the haylage. Moisture below 45-50% can really heat the material, thus rendering it useless. The optimum moisture level is between 50-60%.

· Forage, cut and allowed to dry below 45% should be allowed to dry adequately to make regular hay bales, at 10-20% moisture.

· Cut haylage when weather is forecast is good, and cut only the quantity that can be baled and stored at recommended moisture.

· Store haylage in a raised hay platform or wagon with sides to reduce loss. Haylage laying on the ground and stomped on by animals, will normally not be consumed.

Warnings

· Horses are very sensitive to molds and other problems encountered with inferior feeds, and only properly prepared feeds will work for thm.

Things Needed

· Standard farm equipment.
· Land for making your crop to haylage.
· Hay cutting equipment.
· Baler.
· Haylage wrapping.

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