Making Good Quality Hay for Horses

Make hay when the sun shines. But start watching the weather long before it's time to cut hay. Begin to notice weather patterns and get a feel for how likely it is to rain based on forecasts. I use the weather.gov 7 Day Forecast and Hourly Weather Graph.

The two prediction methods I use are:

1. The weather tends to follow a trend of raining more often or less often than what the forecasts predict. So if the weather man predicts wet weather and it doesn't rain, then the next time he predicts 50% chance of rain, the actual chances of rain are more like 30%.



2. These trends of being drier or wetter than the weather forecasts tend to change 2 days before the moon cycles. And there's almost always a better chance of rain during the full moon. So if it's a rainy spell between the first and second quarter of the moon. I tend to not look for a chance to cut hay until a few days before the second quarter arrives.

Conditioning hay removes part of the waxy coating on the plant to allow faster drying. Basically it accomplishes this by just rubbing the plant a little bit, most often right after the hay is cut. Hay conditioners that use rollers don't actually squeeze moisture out of the plant, they just rough it up a bit.

I use a tedder to condition my hay. It has rotating tines that sweep the hay along the ground and throw it in the air behind it. If I was to buy different hay equipment, I would probably choose something that mows, conditions and windrows the hay all in the same operation. This would cut down on my labor and save fuel because with my current equipment, I have to travel over the field 3 times, (once for each step), to accomplish something that could be done in one pass.