Let's talk about hay bales...

I have a scenario where we have an overabundance of hay bales. Thought we could sell them, but we're ending up with over a thousand that are just going to probably sit for the next few years and I'd rather not have that happen. We just don't have enough storage area for so many bales and future harvests are just going to keep adding onto the pile.

Clearly using hay bales instead of straw bales for construction/building is a big no-no for various reasonable reasons, but is there a way to use hay bales for construction through some kind of treatment/curing process with an additional chemical or mineral (or maybe lime?) or something else?

If not, what other options might exist for using hay bales productively?

It would be nice to brainstorm and come up with sound and reasonable uses for hay besides just selling, mulching or feeding it...

Hey there!
Sounds like you want to dig into making a Silage Pit.
It’s usually dug in dry, sloping land (avoiding ground where water will pool up from the water table, or surface runoff into your pit)

Once silage pit is dug, it’s covered with a plastic sheet to cap it, then covered with earth to ensure a good air seal + pack it down a bit.

Silage can be made with anywhere from 30% to 75% moisture content - so you can mix dry hay and fresh green hay together to make a lower-moisture silage.

Well-maintained, well-sealed, and well-packed, silage can last for up to 3 years.
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Biggest CON with my suggestion:

You gotta BLEND the dry hay and green forage for this to work. So, you’d be taking apart the hay you already baled, scattering it in a green field and then harvesting it again - cutting the greens and packing everything into your silage pit. (no drying - you want it green, and haybale shapes would make ) air pockets inside your pit.

You may be able to scatter the hay right before a rainstorm, and gather the wet hay and green forage for a very damp material that will easily compress.

Just dousing the dry hay with water could easily lead to a spontaneous combustion fire in large volumes, since it’s hard to pack dry hay down tight enough to shift it from aerobic (heat-producing) to anaerobic (cold fermenting)

The goal is to smush the silage down and suffocate it so the aerobic composting bacteria eat all the oxygen before they get too hot, and then choke/die.

Not adding enough greens could give you the same issue with hot composting instead of a cold ferment.

So, it’s risky, and a lot of work.

Also you have to dig a big pit, or have an empty silage silo just laying around

And you have to get used to working with silage to feed animals.
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Second option: bale planting.

Hay does compost very rapidly, and is a self-fertilizing growing medium once it starts composting.

Set aside a spot for growing a crop of food.

Pack the dry bales in wide rows, with as narrow paths between them as you can. You want to minimize airflow around surfaces, so get the bales really tight next to each other.

Soak the bales.

Once it’s thoroughly soaked with water, (rainstorms are helpful) let sit for 2-3 weeks to hot compost for a bit.

You can now plant directly in the bales, as deep as you want.
Hay composts itself, acting both as a water-absorbing mulch and fertilizer as the hay has far more nitrogen than straw.

Pros: A lot less extra processing work, and since they’re open to the air and only 1 bale deep they can’t get enough stored heat to combust.

Wherever you stick them will have AWESOME soil next year.

Perfect for an area that gets waterlogged when rainy - the crop will have loads of water as the hay soaked it up, but won’t drown, since it’s raised up.

Cons: extra airflow can make the hay dry out faster around the edges, so a drought-resistant crop is probably a good idea

Crops made EASY with hay bales as a growing substrate:

Potatoes - no digging required. No risk of accidentally cutting the potato with a spade. When they’re ready to harvest just break apart the bales and scoop out clean potatoes. Just make sure that initial sprouting potato is buried DEEP in the bale.

Pole or bush Beans - very easy to spear sticks into the bales to make no-cost trellises for them to climb.

Squash - like zucchini, gourd, acorn, winter or summer squash. I’m currently growing various squash in hay bales and they are taking over everything.

Tomato - pick a drought tolerant species, but they seem to love growing in hay.  (Though they’re hungry and may need a bit of extra compost/manure on top of what the hay provides)

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More brainstorming:

Sell bales at a discount on somewhere like Craigslist or Facebook marketplace, and tell people you charge x$ per mile traveled for deliveries, but they can pick it up themselves for free if they arrange a time to come over.

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I’ve also seen hay used as a temporary winter shelter for livestock - stacking it up into walls, not worrying as they were exposed to precipitation because they were only 2 bales thick - not enough to combust.

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Or stacking the bales up into 3 tall walls and 1 low wall - a composter. Throw your compostables in and the walls will also compost over time. You could plant the walls with strawberries or beans or something, to give it a dual purpose
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You could donate the hay to a nearby rescue organization who cares for horses or cows.
Then write the donation off on your taxes

Thank you very much @Toko Aakster. Those are some great suggestions. #1 is not really possible unfortunately even though I like it. The water table is too close and there is too much rain usually to facilitate a silage pit.

#2 on the planting is a really nice idea. Especially with beans. Been wanting to get into human food fermenting a lot and various beans for making natto (with not just soy but other beans seem to work) would be super useful.

#4 (bale shelters) seem like a really good idea. The outsides could be used to grow some various plants and the shelters could be rotated to different locations when one deteriorates (a year or two?). I am curious, how would you build a roof/top to shelter them from snow and rain? Are you thinking a wood frame with hay bale walls?

Also on #4 can you think of some good vine-like plants or "side growers" that might grow on hay bale walls while not destroying it too fast?

#5 on 3-bale tall walls, interesting idea. I think I kinda need to see an example. Do you have a picture or sketch?

It's an interesting question. No doubt folks here will come up with some pretty amazing ideas.

Respectfully, though, I don't think we're talking about waste hay (coarse, bleached, moldy). I personally would hate to see good hay used for construction.

There have been severe droughts in many places. When pastures fail, hay is not only a commodity: sometimes it is a lifeline. I personally don't care much about how some rich dufus feeds his racehorses. But consider how a small, organic integrated farm would use your (I assume) non-sprayed-with-persistent-herbicide hay. It would be part of a cycle, feeding the soil and producing food. That seems better to me.

I know I'm overstepping my bounds here. It's not my hay. Just my 2c.

I would definitely look into selling it if I were in that situation, although I accept that maybe things are very different where we live. Here hay is quite a valuable commodity (although less so this year, when the grass has grown exceptionally well and everyone has too much hay to make!).

If you are dead-set against selling it, you could look into making raised beds from the hay bales. There are many accounts of people using straw bales for this and I don't see any reason why hay bales would be worse - given their higher nutritional content, I suspect they would decompose into incredibly rich beds after a few years. The one caveat to this is that you may need to add a carbon-rich soil amendment, something like charcoal or biochar.

You are correct that building with hay is a no-go. The starches it holds are super attractive to fungi, bacteria and insect decomposers - straw, on the other hand, is much more like fragile wood and much more inert.

There is a case presented that selling hay from your property is just selling fertility of your own soil.
Do you need to cut the hay?
Can stock eat it instead of having to cut it?

As an experiment, try inoculating a hay bale or three with your favorite mushroom spawn, soak the bail with chlorine free water and cover with blackout plastic.(in a shady area)

When the mycelium has colonized and the mushrooms start to pin, remove the plastic and watch them fruit. By that time it should be past the solstice and the sun cycle should help with the flush.

@Luke Mitchell it would be great to sell it. 100%. It's just not selling. We have so much hay and we have several more fields to bale as well as at least one or two more mowing cycles. We can't let it sit due to a few reasons, so it has to be mowed, but yeah, selling it would be fantastic but no one needs it. We just don't have enough storage space after having a couple thousand bales in reserve. It would be great to have other uses. I really wish I could preserve it and build with it since I would love to build an actual barn and some other shelters with it that would last longer if cob'd or somehow covered, but again, it's not straw and I don't know if it's possible to do anything long term beyond what was mentioned in post #2 point #4.

With the topic of fungi I know borax and lime should kill fungi pretty readily due to the basic ph level. Hum. I wonder if a very toxic (but human friendly) treatment can work.

@John C Daley yes. We have to cut it due to various reasons. The stock that could eat it is not close enough to take advantage of the situation.

@William Kellogg that is an interesting idea. Thank you. I would like to grow some more valuable mushrooms and this could be an option.

I suppose since we do have a forrest we could "fill it" with bales for this use.

Greg Payton wrote:I have a scenario where we have an overabundance of hay bales. Thought we could sell them, but we're ending up with over a thousand that are just going to probably sit for the next few years and I'd rather not have that happen. We just don't have enough storage area for so many bales and future harvests are just going to keep adding onto the pile.

Clearly using hay bales instead of straw bales for construction/building is a big no-no for various reasonable reasons, but is there a way to use hay bales for construction through some kind of treatment/curing process with an additional chemical or mineral (or maybe lime?) or something else?

If not, what other options might exist for using hay bales productively?

It would be nice to brainstorm and come up with sound and reasonable uses for hay besides just selling, mulching or feeding it...

Buy some livestock and feed it through them.  I know that comes off as simplistic, but if you can pull it off, stock for a full cycle of steers or sheep or goats, and when you're caught up, load up the truck and send the herd to the locker.  Fence in a piece of ground that isn't productive, and move your feed sites around the worst spots.  Let the livestock trample in and pee all over whatever they don't eat.  

Maybe, there is a reason your hay bales don't sell.

Maybe the bales are priced too high is the first thing that comes to mind.  When I have something to sell I look at what other people are selling that item for then I price mine for less.  If it still doesn't sell then I would lower my price.

If that didn't work then maybe a barter situation might work.

The second alternative that I see for someone with lots of hay is to not make bales.  Just cut the grass and let it naturally go back into the soil by decomposing where it was cut.

The third alternative that I would try is "Straw Bale" gardening with hay though who knows what wild edibles a person might get with hay.

I also like the shelter idea.  There is a post somewhere on the forum where someone used the bales for a shelter for their sheep to keep them safe from snow and freezing weather.

Thanks @Christopher Shimanski already have livestock that eats it. We just have far more than is needed and a lot of the hay to which I'm referring is very old now and we'd prefer to not feed it to them, but we have a lot of new as well with - again - an overabundance and will end up with an even bigger problem after this summer.

@Anne Miller just an overabundance in our area it seems. We have a couple of agreements with third parties where we have to mow and bale (remove mowed cutting) unfortunately. Even put ads up at major trafficked zones. $4 and then $3 a bale. A lot of folks who I've talked to just tell us they know folks who are giving them free hay. Yeah, I think growing some things is a good one and if we could use that sheep idea for cattle and some other things like maybe sealing up some animal coups it might be good. We also could use it for small walls or maybe barriers against trafficked roads whereupon we can grow things simultaneously.

Also, this is the second time the sheep shelter has been seemingly mentioned specifically:

Anne Miller wrote:
I also like the shelter idea.  There is a post somewhere on the forum where someone used the bales for a shelter for their sheep to keep them safe from snow and freezing weather.

I've tried to search this out with various related keywords a couple times now, but no joy. Are you able to link that up here in this thread?

The fact that your hay isn't selling is very interesting. According to the news media, drought has made it difficult for farmers to find hay. Back in February I saw a social media post predicting $20 bales this Fall. I asked the poster if he would buy loose hay from me. He wasn't interested.

Meanwhile, grass is growing like crazy where I live. Maybe the doom 'n gloomers in the media are lying. It would be a relief if one bad thing they are predicting comes to nothing.

@Jeremy VanGelder you make an interesting observation. We tried to sell the hay at the stated "market value" of $8-10 a bale and got nothing but laughter and ridicule. We went lower and are getting nothing but silence. Things are definitely not exactly as being portrayed at large - whatever that means.....

Greg Payton wrote:
#4 (bale shelters) seem like a really good idea. The outsides could be used to grow some various plants and the shelters could be rotated to different locations when one deteriorates (a year or two?). I am curious, how would you build a roof/top to shelter them from snow and rain? Are you thinking a wood frame with hay bale walls?

Also on #4 can you think of some good vine-like plants or "side growers" that might grow on hay bale walls while not destroying it too fast?

#5 on 3-bale tall walls, interesting idea. I think I kinda need to see an example. Do you have a picture or sketch?

For composting : This, but as big as you want it.



Growing anything in the hay will make it decompose faster, as you need to allow water to get to the roots, to let it grow.
Adding plants and water shortens the lifespan of a wall down to 1-2 years, likely on the shorter side.
For slowest decomposition, keep it as dry as possible.

This is one option: with one layer of bales stacked up 2-3 high around the edges, and up the back. A lower roof and wider sq footage may be more effective if you have larger animals - or a few of these built next to each other in a row.  (If you have wind storms, extra bracing inside the hoop may be needed)
Using a tarp directly over a haybale stack or structure is not advised, as the tarp will hold in moisture and encourage condensation.


You could also make a yurt-like structure for a wider footprint and more stable walls. Circles are less likely to collapse than squares.



These folks are installing extra drainage under their straw roundhouse so it breaks down slower, and thread bamboo through the bales to provide extra support for stacking them higher. I've also seen people use whippy sticks/unwanted saplings for this step - essentially 'sewing' the bales together.

Or you could shingle it with reclaimed wood...

Greg said,"I've tried to search this out with various related keywords a couple times now, but no joy. Are you able to link that up here in this thread?

I tried to find the post also.

From what I can remember the person who posted lived somewhere like Wyoming where it gets really cold and snow stays on the ground all winter.

For a temporary shelter, the bales were used, and maybe a plywood roof.

I tried all searches I could think of. I am thinking the post was prior to 2018.

Permies is the only forum I use and I have read 90% of all posts and maybe posted to half of those.

You could store it and sell it in late winter.
But if all else fails, you can make hugelculture form them. Yes, it works with more than just wood.

@Toko Aakster thank you much for those illustrations. So that is interesting. on #2 (initially #4 for bale shelters) basically use pallets for walls to establish the structure and then put bales on the OUTSIDE to create the weather barriers and to be able to replace them regularly? How many deep/thick can you really go until you start getting too hot? It seems like if you make the walls thick enough to walk between and replace them as they age.

It would be great to have some of these for cattle since we've need to build some barns/sheds around the farm to give them shelter at various points and to just have ourselves.

Is there a preferred covering for the roof? We've had really bad luck with tarps generally, but if we get a thick UV resistant one they seem to do better, but not perfect. The livestock panels are a good call for the roof structure.

What do you use to keep the hay bales dry when on the outside? Wood or some other covering? Is there something that would wick moisture somehow?

The yurt concept is interesting, but maybe a little too involved with hay vs straw. I could definitely see investing time in a yurt-like structure with straw and even adding cob.

@Anne Miller I'm sorry you ran into a wall finding it as well. Very unfortunate since I'd love to see more details. I think Toko's thoughts are interesting, but I'd really like to see other roof options that could work out both for the livestock and keep the hay alive longer if possible. We have a lot of storms so I could see the livestock panels method getting blown away if we don't have a way to really solidly tether it and facilitate wind escape/blow-through.

@Nick Kitchener good idea and something we have discussed. Our problem is how to store it. We already have so many bales that we have no more room. Maybe figure out a way to use hay to store hay??? HAHAHAHAH But seriously yeah, it would be great to store it since there's such a large quantity.

On the topic of hay bales, anybody in these forums have a rough idea how the insulation properties of hay bales compare to commercial insulation products?

My dad used square bales to act as insulation against the inside wall of a well house, to prevent the water pump from freezing in the cold of winter. (These are the small bales, 60 - 80 lb square bales, not the bigger 300 lb square bales that have become popular in recent years.) He just built up a wall of bales against the exterior wall. I am now wondering if I should replace those bales with styrofoam pink or white, products that are actually intended for the purpose of insulating a building.

If I replace these square bales with, say, six inches of soft styrofoam pink, would I be increasing or decreasing the insulation level of the well house?

@David Binner: This is worth a stand-alone topic. E.g., Insulating a Well Shed (Hay vs. Foam)

Hay bales provide good insulation if they are packed tight and kept dry. Any gaps will degrade the overall insulation envelope. If they are not enough to prevent freezing, a thin layer of foam insulation on the inside studs of the building helps a lot.

I don't know if the R-value of hay has ever been determined, but it may be similar to straw.  For an explanation of why we use straw instead of hay for building, see the really well-done post "Hay vs Straw - Why we use straw and not hay for building things" in this forum.

Based on various tests conducted by different labs over several decades, the straw bale building code (IRC Appendix S - Strawbale Construction) assigns an R-value according to thickness and bale orientation.  Assuming they are at least 6.5 lbs./cubic foot dry density, straw bales placed in a wall assembly laid-flat or on-end (strings concealed within the wall) are R-1.55 per inch, or approximately R-28 - R-36 for most 2-string and 3-string bales available in the U.S.  Bales placed on-edge or on-end (strings visible on the wall surface) are R-1.85 per inch, or R-26 to R-28 for the 2-string and 3-string bales we have here.

Rigid foam is usually rated at R-5 per inch--it takes much less insulation depth to achieve a higher level of insulation.  Getting a bit off topic, most modern insulations like foam, fiberglass, rockwool, etc., are more insulative per given depth, which accounts for their widespread use in construction.  They also have a much higher embodied energy, and can be difficult to repurpose and impossible to dispose of.  Among more-natural materials used for insulation, only wool and blown-in cellulose (which could come from straw instead of paper) are similar in terms of R-value per inch.

This dramatic difference in R-value per inch is one of many barriers faced by all the thick-wall construction methods that use more natural materials like straw bales, light-straw-clay, cob, hemp-crete, slip-chip. In my view, thicker walls offer many advantages including a more interesting interior aesthetic, but the thicker walls take up a larger portion of the building's footprint, and usually require wider footings and roof overhangs, which adds to a building's cost.

When I grew up in rural Wisconsin (1960s) I recall seeing bales of whatever farmers had available--hay or straw--placed around the foundation of old farm houses.  These buildings often had stone or concrete foundations that were uninsulated, and quite possibly drafty, which resulted in very cold crawl spaces that made for uncomfortable cold floors and frozen plumbing. The bales must have helped because farmers in my area placed bales around their foundations every winter.