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Storing leaf hay

 
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I am thinking about trying to make leaf hay for my two goats. But I don’t  see how you could effectively bale it.
Any one done this? Is there a good, space efficient way to store leaf hay?
 
gardener
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Someday I want to make bales out of leaves for free "straw-bale"-esque gardening. (I've got lots of leaves!)
I don't have the equipment for doing so that this fellow does, but it was interesting to see how it could be done:  
 
Lina Joana
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That is awesome!
There are hand operated balers you can make. However, when making leaf hay, you typically aren’t using fallen leaves: you cut branches and let the green leaves dry. unless you had a way of stripping them, I think the baler would have issues with the branches.
I will say though, that the goats will eat almost nothing from the ground - except fallen leaves. They love those. So maybe there is more nutrients in the leaf fall than I realize.
 
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If I wanted to store leaf hay I would probably find a topless container that I could easily drop the leaves and branches into after they are well dried. Maybe something near where I am drying the leaf hay.

When we had goats I just threw my pruning remnants into their pen without drying the branches and leaves.  

That video makes good use of fall leaves that have dried.

It will be interesting to see if anyone comes up with a good way to store leaf hay.
 
pollinator
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I've done quite a bit of research on this in the last couple of months and have began my experimentation on cutting and storing leaf hay.

What I have found that used to be very common in Europe but now is virtually unknown is the bundling and storing of 'faggots' to feed livestock throught the winter.

A 'faggot' is a bundle of green branches between 2-6 feet long bundled in manageable bundles 12-18 inches in diameter. No need to dry before storing.

My experience so far is that trying to dry the before and even after bundling causes the leaves to fall off the branches supper easily. I cut my branches 2-3 feet long as that's what my trees would easily produce hundreds of. I bundled them together with roughly 10 foot piece of baling twine that I wrapped around the bundle fairly tigh.

When kept inside of a shed with no sunlight and minimal air movement it seemed like it took a month for the leaves to seem dry but still stayed on the branches stong. There was no mold. When fed to the rabbits they had to fight off the chickens as both devoured the dried leaves, the rabbits ate a surprisingly amount of the twigs and bark too.

I now have a pile stored in the barn which seems to be drying nice. I have been storing caragana, box elder, siberian elm and aspen.
20220630_124526.jpg
A bundle of tree hay.
A bundle of tree hay.
 
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