The best feed for livestock is always high quality fresh grass or forage. As this is not
available all year around, fresh grass and forage can be conserved for scarcity periods
Hay making is the process of turning green, perishable grass or forage into a product
that can be safely stored and easily transported without danger of spoilage, while
reducing nutrient loss to a minimum.
Turning forages to hay is a simple and economic way to conserve forage material
which can be stored for several month and used to feed your livestock while periods
green fresh feed is not available or scarce.
As haymaking is an old practice and for many farmers and practiced widely, this
factsheet is specially addressing ‘newcomers’ in that sector, mainly small scale
farmers which are not yet using this very simple technology. That is also the reason,
why mechanized procedures are not described. For farmers planting forages in
bigger scale the buying in of services from Mechanisation Service Enterprises should
be considered
Hay making consists of a series of steps, each as important as the one before
1) Before you can make hay you have to choose the right forage
variety which is adapted to your agro-ecological zone. For
many farmers the improved forages promoted by CIAT and its
partners can be an interesting alternative to the widely used
Rhodes grass.
2) Choose the right time for the harvest
Forage has be harvested at the right time to make high quality hay. The forage
should be harvested at first bloom to 10 % bloom stage when the grass is high
of nutrients, tender and the ratio of stem to leaf is ideal. Later cutting will harvest
more biomass but the nutrient content will go down with advanced flowering
or even seed set.
Cut the grass when you can expect a number of dry and sunny days, the faster
the forage dries the higher will be the quality.
Cut in the morning after the dew is off to help to reduce drying time and loss of
carbonhydrate due to respiration.
3) Cutting
Cutting can be done with a cutlass (the universal tool of all African farmers) or
a sickle.
Harvesting Brachiaria or Panicum, no matter if for haying, silage making or fresh
feed. Brachiaria and Panicum should not be cut too short. Leaving 5-10 cm
stems is easing and accelerating regrowth due to a higher number of ‘growing
points’ out of which new shoots will develop. While mechanical harvested
forage is layed out in swaths, manuel cut forage can be spread in layers to
create a good exposure to sun and wind to ease and excellerate the drying
process.
4) Drying
Forage contains 70-90 % moisture. It has to be dried down to 15-20 %. Rapid
drying will create the best quality and minimize nutritional losses. Depending
on the sunshine and wind intensity and relative humidity that will happen
within a couple of days. Turning the hay over facilitates drying.
Only well dried hay (15-20% moisture content) should be bailed and stored.
First to avoid moulding and secondly hay with higher moisture contents
developes degradation processes which go along with heat development
which can in the extreme cause fires.
5) Bailing
In principle hay can be stored as loose material but this is not convenient for
different reasons. In practice hay once properly dried is bailed to ease
transport, storage and portioning.
In larger scale farms hay is bailed by machines, this is the easiest way and
creates standardized bales in size and form, which is important for
commercialisation and portioning. A standard bale should have 14-16 kg.
In small scale hay production bailing can be done with the help of wooden
boxes or simple manual presses, different models do exist and are in use in
Kenya.
6) Storage
Hay has to be stored dry to avoid moulding and degradation. This can be in a
barn, shed or outside well protected by a canvas cover or thicker plastic sheets
from ground moisture and rain. Well protected, hay can be stored for several
months without losing its nutritional value.