I picked up my first new bales of the season from my hay supplier today. He has a very difficult time making good dry hay this summer with all the rain in SW WI but these are good dry beef bales.

I know a lot of folks use bags or full wrap. I have compromised on a simple system of just wrapping the outside diameter of these very large 6 ft+ dia x 5 ft wide heavy bales. Most weigh 1600 lb +. I wrapped them today right off of the trailer.

Last year my net-wrapped bales sat on the ground for a couple months before wrapping and I could tell when I took the wrap off. This year I was aiming for wrapping them right out of the field but can't quite time that with the show season in full swing.

Just got a start today but it helps to have a season under my belt. Little things like don't wrap around the corners (holds water), more efficient handling etc. Here is a picture of some wrapped bales from today. I set them on used pallets from our plant until I run out of pallets then on the ground. I save the ones on pallets to feed last.

Jim at Dawn 

edit: reference the grassfed post below: the strip tilled corn in the background is part of my grazing/finishing corn for the coming winter/spring steers.

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IMG_1703_first wrapped bales of the season_082310.JPG (91KB - 120 downloads)