Round Bale Hay Setups

[Sassy'sMom]

I am very curious about round bale hay setups. Where to do you keep them? Do you have them in a shelter to keep them out of the weather?

I am considering building a 3 sided shelter in my paddock this summer to put a round bale in, but I wanted to get some ideas from people. Can you show me pictures of where you keep your round bales?

Thank you!!

 

[StellaLenoir]

we have a large bale holder that we made. It is 4 sided off ground with pallets and roofed. We used old shutters for the access side to roll the bale in. Then one side is half wood boards top half shutters to allow me access with out opening the big doors. The other 2 sides are built with wood boards up about 2.5-3 feet. Then we used cattle fencing to wrap the 2 open sides. We removed sections of the fencing to allow heads into eat.

I have found the bale does flake off in BIG peieces. The fencing catches the pieces falling so it does not fall on the horses or on the ground to be stepped on and wasted.

I found too, that you need more than one place for the horses to get at the hay, or you will have one eating and the rest waiting.

The most important thing though is the pieces that come off the bale. some are very large. I do think they could bury a small horse. Thats why we put the fencing. The horses have plenty of space to eat and all that happens is the hay falls and hits the fence. Then the horses pull it out.

My mom had a problem with cows, a calf got buried by a piece of round bale. Very sad.

I will try to get pictures , if I can get my camera to work.

 

[Sassy'sMom]

Anyone have any pictures that might help me out? Thanks!!

 

[Bess Kelly]

I used to have several large 3-side run-ins at another farm. They were about 25' wide and I had a wooden feed trough across the back length, with a hay rake above it. There was plenty of room to put 6 or 7 bales of hay in there. I could put it about 3-4 flakes deep as it was approx 20" from wall to outer edge of top, they slanted back to wall and rested just above the trough. Thus, hay pulled out generally fell into the trough, eliminating a good amount of waste. This worked quite well for me and I am actually getting ready to add this to some of my run-ins here. The horses were not in any aggressive state with this as they were compatible pasture mates and hay was always available.

For me, this worked better than round bales. A lot depends on numbers you are feeding in the area as well as what is available to purchase of type, quality you need. I felt safe with it though.

Another thing I have seen is a "sling" made from fencing, attached to a VERY robust four poster frame. The round bale was put into the sling from the end, strings removed and was there for animals to eat away. I would be afraid of the BIG rounds in this but some are only 300-400#.

 

[Marty]

I don't get along well managing round bales but they have saved me a ton of money this winter and work too.

I don't have a shelter for one.

I have mine in a paddock where I can control how long they are at it. When I open the gates they go in and eat it and when I think they have had enough I get them out of there and shut the gates. There is waste so whatever they have pulled out of it I rake up and throw it back on top of it or use it in the barn.

I have it up on a pallet so it doesn't sink into the ground.

Then I remove all the string so nobody gets stuck in it.

Then I take some bungies and wrap two rows of bungies around it to keep it from falling apart.

As they eat it down and it gets smaller I just keep tightening up the bungies.

That will work pretty good for a while until they eat most of it and it becomes a lump on the ground.

At night if its not going to rain or anything I shove the kiddie pool on top of it to keep it from becoming damp. It looks really stupid too but it surely works just fine.

But if its going to freeze like 32 degrees or lower or get rainy or anything like that, I just cover it up with a tarp and hook each side of the tarp to the pallet. No problem.

Then I uncover it soon as its nice out.

 

[Sassy'sMom]

These are all great ideas. I am not sure if we are going to get a round bales or not, but I wanted to get some ideas of what to do if we did. I never thought about the pallet and a tarp when it rains. I was always worried about it getty wet and yucky. I am sort of concerned about how I would move a round bale, because we don't have a tractor or anything, so that is another consideration.

My problem is where I feed the hay now. I have 3 minis (two geldings and one mare) and I turn them all out in a paddock together during the day. The hay is in a big 12 x 12 stall that they all have access to. There are three different hay racks on the wall that they can all get to. One of the geldings, the smallest horse of the three, chases the others out of the stall all the time. And when the weather is bad, the other two are always standing in the bad weather, looking towards the barn, and he is just standing inside the stall door, not letting them in. So, I sectioned off my paddock and keep him separate now. He has access to another stall that he can get out of the weather in and eat his hay in.

I just hate having to keep them separate. I really just wish they would all get along, so they could all be together. So, I thought that if I put the hay outside and the stall was no longer the source of feed, that maybe he would quit being such a bully. He isn't mean, he hasn't hurt them. He just goes towards them and they both scatter!

 

[Marty]

That's one reason my round bale is not in an enclosure and its in the open. Takes them all a while to position themselves around it. At first they all dive in and then some get bossy and push others over, etc. So they needed room to manuever around it.

 

[Annabellarose]

A round bale may not solve your problem either. I have seen a horse run circles around a round bale just to keep one other horse from eating on the opposite side; sometimes they are just like that.

I won't feed round bales, I feel they are too risky. At least with a square bale I can (and I do) look at every section as I peel it off of the bale. I check for baled up trash, which could be swallowed and/or chocked on; plants that shouldn't be eaten; dampness; mold; baled up dead animals, I have found several dead snakes, a couple of mice, and a rat. My neighbor raises Standardbred racehorses and is a licensed veterinarian. She told my mother and I recently that the only time that she ever fed a round bale to her horses one of them got very ill and nearly died from botulism and they traced it to a baled up dead animal they later found inside the round bale that was in his paddock. Also, I don't have a tractor to move round bales or the room to store round bales inside.