Talk:Hay
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[edit] History section
I think that this section should probably be properly wikified (instead of consisting out of block quotes). The reference from which was cited could then be listed in references as "Some of this article comes from the public domain resource [...]". —Michiel Sikma (Kijken maar niet aanraken) 09:30, 16 June 2006 (UTC)
As far as I know hay was not known to the Romans. Who invented/discovered it? How did its use spread around the world. It must have made a tremendous difference to farming systems. Does anyone know anything about this.Frank.corr 07:40, 20 May 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Uses
I am going to move the information on hay making out of Uses and in to Hay Making. Makes it easier for the reader to keep 'uses' seperate from the 'how to' part. wagors 16:38, 16 June 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Making Hay
Past tense used in this section makes it sound like no one makes hay anymore. Also very industrial country centric as hay is still gathered by hand in some parts of the world. Will come back later and see if there is something I can do. wagors 16:52, 16 June 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Straw, not Hay
Please remove all the images from the article that show Straw (dry stalk of cereal plants), and no hay (dry grass). This should be featured? You geeks. --Tom 17:28, 16 June 2006 (UTC)
- Agreed. I removed one picture actually labeled as straw. I'm no farmer, tho, so I can't be certain that some of the pictures here labeled "hay" aren't actually straw also. --Tysto 22:06, 23 September 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Bad Edit?
Up to the end of the 19th century, grass and clover were not often grown together because crops were rotated.
- An annon user known for other spamming activities modified this line to change the date range. It MAY be a valid edit, in which case I just changed it back to the wrong version. Can someone who knows better verify it and remove the [citation needed] note? --Mdwyer 04:15, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
Mdwyer, you are correct, that change was deliberate vandalism. The current revert is correct to the best of my knowledge (or at least was what was there before I made the change). I've removed the citation needed tag, since it wasn't there before I untruthed the article, and I assume it doesn't need to be there now that it's been reverted. 40.0.40.10 05:01, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Changes made 30-Sep-2006
I've just expanded the article a little, covering spontaneous combustion and the move from small bales to large bales.
Here's a photo I took a few hours ago, which shows the dense hay in the middle of a large round bale. Is it worth adding this photo to the article? Cheers, CWC(talk) 14:50, 30 September 2006 (UTC)
- It's a very nice photo. Feel free to add it, I'd say. There isn't really a need to ask. I think it would look even better in a different light, by the way, perhaps in the evening or morning so that it's possible to see the shape of the hole a bit better. —msikma <user_talk:msikma> 09:53, 1 October 2006 (UTC)
I've finally got around to uploading a better photo and adding to the article. CWC(talk) 15:55, 4 March 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Images etc, May 2007
My recent edit was just an experiment, but seems to have set of a flurry of changes. Thanks, Montanabw, for greatly improving on what I did. Thanks too to user:Sirex98 for adding that great photo.
As user:Montanabw pointed out in an edit summary, it's quite OK to alternate images to the left and right. Does anyone want to try it?
One side comment: Montanabw captioned the photo I took as "Poor quality hay, bleached from weather or harvested late, of low nutritive value, but adequate for some animals if fed free-choice, as it is dry and not spoiled". But around here, that counts as good quality hay! (Some locals grow lucerne hay under center pivots, but most hay comes from non-irrigated land. Except for superfine woolgrowers, Australian farmers rarely keep stock indoors, since they don't have to worry about snow. So hay is basically used only as supplemental feed.)
Which illustrates one reason Wikipedia is weak on agricultural topics: it's hard to write good articles when there's so much variation from place to place. Cheers, CWC 18:55, 26 May 2007 (UTC)
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- I did a little tweaking and did once again put the round bale as poor-quality hay. However I do agree that the point is well-taken that there are tremendous regional differences...and in some cases, feeding large quanties of poor forage is done purposely, for example, to keep a bored horse from chewing wood or bolting its feed. Content overall is getting there, but the article probably needs some boldness to restructure and rearrange it totally; it looks put together by committee, in the bad sense. But it isn't horrible, either. There's worse in Wikipedia. FYI, another way to calculate hay in the small square bales is that a ton (US) of hay occupies cubic space that is about 10' x 10' x 10' I can find a reference if we care deeply enough about putting it in there (source is Cherry Hill's Horsekeeping book) Montanabw 04:27, 28 May 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Thank you, Montanabw
Thank you, Montanabw (talk · contribs), for your recent edits to this article. Great work! Cheers, CWC 14:42, 29 May 2007 (UTC)
- Aw shucks, be sure to check for typos, I usually have a trail of them... and if you Aussies have different words for stuff like swathers, balers, etc., we might be able to have some fun with terminology. Montanabw 17:35, 29 May 2007 (UTC)
[edit] How to calculate mass of hay
User 142.161.225.123 (talk · contribs) recently added this to the article:
- To find the number of tons of hay in a stack
- Multiply the overthrow (the distance from the ground on one side over the top of the stack to the ground on the other side) by the length, by the width (all in feet); multiply by 3; divide by 10 and then divide by 500 to 600, depending upon the length of time the hay has been in the stack.
This seems like an interesting piece of historic lore, but we'd need a citation. Can anyone help? Thanks, CWC 10:41, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Tossing cyclopedia section
I was bold today and tossed out the entire 1881 Cyclopaedia section. It is internally contradictory, either repeats what is in the history or else is just archaic and not of a lot of use here. If anyone is enamored of it however, or wants excerpts to put back into the article, here is what I cut in its entirety. Montanabw 04:15, 26 June 2007 (UTC)
- -----------
From the 1881 Household Cyclopedia
- "Instead of allowing the hay to lie, as usual in most places, for some days in the swath after it is cut, never cut hay but when the grass is quite dry, and then make the gatherers follow close upon the cutters: put it up immediately into small cocks about three feet high each, and of as small a diameter as they can be made to stand with; always giving each of them a slight kind of thatching, by drawing a few handsful of the hay from the bottom of the cock all round and laying it lightly upon the top, with one of the ends hanging downwards. This is done with the utmost ease and expedition; and when once in that state the hay is, in a great measure, out of danger; for unless a violent wind should arise immediately after the cocks are put up, nothing else can hurt the hay; as no rain, however violent, can penetrate into these cocks but for a very little way; and if they are dry put up they never sit together so closely as to heat, although they acquire, in a day or two, such a degree of firmness as to be in no danger of being overturned by wind after that time, unless it blows a hurricane.
- "In these cocks allow the hay to remain until upon inspection, the farmer judges it will keep in pretty large tramp-cocks (which is usually in a week or two, according as the weather is more or less favorable), when two men, each with a long-pronged pitchfork, lift up one of these small cocks between them with the greatest ease, and carry them one after another to the place where the tramp cock is to be built, and in this manner proceed over the field till the whole is finished.
- "ANOTHER METHOD:
- "The clover is cut, and after it has lain four or five days in the swath, till it is sufficiently dry, the haymaker, with a rake, rolls up a sufficient quantity to form a ripple, which is set up in the form of a cone. Taking a few of the longest straws he twists them round the top, which forms the point of the cone, keeps the ripple compact, and shoots off the rain. In taking up the clover from the swath and forming the ripple, it is necessary to keep the upper or dry part inwards: by that means it is much sooner dry, and in a fit state for the stack. It is generally necessary for clover to remain five or six days in the ripple before it is put into the stack, but that depends on the state of the weather. There is no occasion to untie the ripples. The method of rippling is not so expensive as cocking; it is much superior both in wet and dry seasons—not so liable to be injured by the wet—much sooner dry, and of course of a better quality and more nourishing for cattle. Each ripple will weigh, when dry, about four or five pounds. They should not be made too large. Except where meadow grass is very long it would not be practicable to ripple it. The practice of rippling is simple, attended with little trouble or expense, and whenever tried will recommend itself:
- "Grass, when cut for hay, ought to be quickly raked, in order that its powers may neither be exhausted by the sun nor dissipated by the air. In the first stage small cocks are preferable, and on after days these may be gathered into large ones or hand-ricks, by which method the hay is equally made and properly sweetened. After standing eight or ten days in these ricks, according to the nature of the weather, hay may be carted home and built in stacks of sufficient size for standing through the winter months."
[edit] Fresh Image
In the second image down, barley has been recently substituted for alfalfa, but the caption still reads newly baled which would refer to a field scene, not the shed. The alfalfa before was a perfect example of rounded bales whereas the barley appears to be variously cured or mixed grasses. - Athrash | Talk 20:09, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
