Hay production begins in the field. This picture is of alfalfa at time of harvest with 1/10 bloom and no yellow leaf.
The sharp eye will also see the leaf is without grasshopper consumption and a good leaf to stem ratio.
Alfalfa is cut with a rotary cutter without crimping rollers. Grass hay is cut with crimping rollers. The difference being the blister beetle being a nectar feeder if in the field is up on the flower above the 2 inch cutting height (alfalfa, 4 for grass) of the rotary cutter.
Grass hay being cut before or in the boot stage (meaning the grass flower is in the leaf sheath) does not attract blister beetle and can safely be crimped to speed drying and allow for a softer hay desired by horses and the green color desired by buyers.
When weather requires all fields to be baled at once rather than spread over a wider window of time some hay bales my stay on trailers longer than desired creating end sun bleach bales. This can also occur for those buyers that leave their trailers to be loaded at harvest and pick up their trailers at a later time. While we will mechanically load trailers the buyer remains responsible for securing the load to include tarping to prevent sun bleach.
How green is a green bale depends as much on the quality of light when the picture is taken. This bale's green color does not look so green when out in the direct sun light. In the shaded light of a barn this same bale appears a darker green color.
Once the hay bales make it to the barn they are secured above ground and from all sun and weather effects. The last 200 bales remain for our own winter horse consumption.
The hay barn interior walls are paneled with 3/4 inch plywood for ease of bale grabber use and keeping the hay off the metal barn sides that would collect condensation.
Notice the irregular color of these bales. That reflects the top layers of the windrow being sun bleached while the lower layers remain shaded while drying. This is alfalfa hay that was baled on a day of higher than desired humidity requiring a longer drying period to limit mold and mildew once baled.
This youngster finds pulling a hand wagon with two alfalfa bales across the ground a bit much.
While we would like to produce a 25 pound bale for our women hay buyers the reality of the hay baler industry is fixed at 50 pound bales being the most consistent to produce small square hay bale.
We keep a supply of barn cats on hand to catch mice and rats.
The idea is no droppings in the hay as well as to keep the mice from chewing the electrical wiring of our equipment.