Why small bales earn their keep

A compact holding rarely justifies a tractor and a big round baler, and it rarely needs one. Small conventional bales, roughly 20–25kg each, can be made with a compact tractor and a small square baler, or by calling in a contractor for a few hours on the right day. You can lift them by hand, stack them under a low shed roof, and sell or swap any surplus. The trade-off is labour: several hundred small bales mean several hundred journeys from field to trailer to stack, so be honest about how many you actually need. Two or three ponies, a few ewes or a house cow over winter is a comfortable fit. Thirty store cattle is not.

Start with the grass, not the baler

Hay is made in the field long before any machinery arrives. A good hay crop wants a dense, leafy sward that has been grazed or topped hard in early spring, then shut up to grow cleanly. On lowland ground, shutting a field up in early April usually gives you a cut in the second half of June; upland and northern holdings may be three or four weeks later.

Timing matters more than anything else you will do. Cut when the grasses are just coming into ear and before the seed heads ripen and shed. At that stage you have the best balance of bulk, protein and digestibility. Leave it another fortnight and you gain tonnage but lose feed value fast, ending up with stemmy hay that stock eat reluctantly and leave in the rack.

Walk the field before you commit. Docks, nettles, thistles and ragwort all dry badly, bale up into the crop and reduce palatability, so top or spot-treat problem patches the season before. Set the mower to leave a stubble of around 50–70mm. Cutting lower than that risks scalping the crowns of the grasses and pulling soil into the swath, and it slows regrowth.

Drying: the part that decides everything

Small bales are far less forgiving of moisture than large ones, simply because there is so much more surface area for air to get in and mould to get going. The target for safe storage is around 15–18% moisture. Above about 20%, you are gambling with heating, mould and, in the worst case, spontaneous combustion in the stack.

Practical steps that make a real difference:

• Mow in the morning once the dew has lifted, so the crop has the full day to dry.
• Ted within a few hours of cutting to spread the swath and expose it to sun and wind. A tedder is worth borrowing or hiring for this alone.
• Ted again the following morning, once any dew has gone, then row up in the afternoon.
• Expect two to four good drying days. A wetting of rain can add a day or more each time.
• Bale in the afternoon when the crop is at its driest, not first thing in the morning.

For a field test, take a handful from the swath, twist it tightly and hold for twenty seconds. If it holds the twist and you feel no dampness, it is close. If it springs back open or your hand feels clammy, leave it. A sharp crack when you snap a stem is another good sign.

Weather windows and the haylage escape route

British summers being what they are, plan a cut around a settled forecast and have a fallback ready. If rain arrives and the crop is nearly there, you can often bale and wrap it as haylage at around 40–50% dry matter. It will not suit every store of feed or every pocket, but it beats watching good grass turn brown in the swath. Wrap within a few hours of baling, stack wrapped bales away from vermin, and use them within twelve months.

If the weather simply will not play, it is no failure to barn-dry small bales or to buy in for the winter. A wet hay crop that is baled damp will cost you more in vet bills and lost condition than the shortfall ever would.

Baling, carting and stacking

Check bale tension before you start, and check the first few bales for weight and shape. Loose, floppy bales shed their shape in the stack; over-tight ones can be a struggle to handle by hand and may not dry through. Have the trailer close behind the baler so bales never sit in the field overnight, where dew and ground damp will undo your work.

Store on pallets or a dry concrete floor, never straight onto earth. Leave a gap of 100–150mm between the stack and the walls for air movement, do not stack more than four or five high where you need to pull from the top, and keep the shed ventilated. Expect the stack to sweat for the first fortnight. If bales feel hot or smell sweet and musty when you pull one from the middle, break the stack apart and let it breathe. Check again after a month.

Feeding out and next season's sward

Use the oldest bales first and keep a note of what came from which field, so you learn what your ground produces. Feed in racks or rings rather than on the ground, and move feeding sites regularly to avoid poaching and a build-up of parasites.

Finally, do not hay the same field every year. Rotate your cutting ground, graze the aftermath once it has recovered, and return muck or compost where you can. A soil test every few years will tell you whether lime or potash is short. Look after the sward and it will keep filling your shed, one small bale at a time, for decades.