I baled 9 acres of pretty heavy orchard grass clover hay with a small amount of timithy and alfalfa in it as well. Mowed it all on Monday from 5 to 8pm with a discbine was pretty wet had rained a little that morning. Was in mid 70s with 20% humidity and slight breeze stupid low humidity for my neck of the woods. Next day at noon I tedded it out and it was pretty dry and ground had dryed out well in between mower rows. Again all day Tuesday was in mid 70s 30% humidity and slight breeze good drying weather for me. Wednesday we raked with rotory rake at 1pm and by 3pm was rdy to bale or so we thought. Hay was almost to dry I thought stems snapping and brittle. Round baled up a few and if I let baler run while I went from windrow to windrow it was actually so brittle bale was getting smaller. So we hooked up square baler and baled 300 bales. Had some issues getting them tight enough i thought because it was to dry bales were tad on light side and baler was down as far as it would go but seemed ok and finished field off. Tested a few at 6% to 9% low but figured ok. I bale on ground then we pick them up later. So baled till done at 8pm and picked all bales up and stacked in wagon by 9 30. Nothing wet nothing damp all good I thought.
Here comes the problem I put wagon with 200 bales on it in my machine shed as I knew I had to work alot coming 2 weeks. I left wagon loaded in shed 3 weeks and when I went to unload it 2 nights ago I was pretty shocked to discover my hay was very dusty and smelled. Outside exposed to air was good inside all dusty not heavy mold just pretty dusty. Then entire wagon was this way so earlier loaded bales vs late or earlier baled bales vs later didn't matter.
Everything I've read on here and learned in 3 years I have no idea what I did wrong? Nothing during any phase of making this seemed like it would lead to moldy hay. I was more concerned with to dry lighter bales then mold until I went to unload.
Couple pictures of wagon before I unloaded it and while I still thought I had 200 horse quality bales lol!
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What happened??
