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Bureau of Dairy Industry, U. S. Department of Agriculture, Washington, D. C.
ABSTRACT
On June 3, 1936, first-cutting alfalfa hay containing 15.8 per cent moisture, nicely cured without rain or excessive loss of leaves, was stored in an open mow to a depth of 7 1/2 feet in both the coarsely chopped and natural long forms. The hay was left in storage for 150 days.
Two and a half times as much hay was put in a given space in the chopped form as in the natural long form.
The long hay attained a maximum temperature of 81° F. the day after it was stored and declined to 72° in 2 days. The chopped hay reached a maximum temperature of 106° in 2 days and declined to 76° in 16 days.
The carotene content of both the long and the chopped hay was 76 parts per million of dry matter at the time of storage. After 150 days of storage the carotene content of the long hay was 31.9 parts per million and that of the chopped hay 20.7.
After 5 months of storage, the long hay had 54 to 57 per cent as much green color as the greenest grade of alfalfa hay and the chopped hay had 47 to 48 percent as much.
Both the long hay and the chopped hay in this experiment lost green color at a slower rate than they lost carotene.
In the investigation of the previous year with chopped hay containing 25 percent moisture, the green color was completely destroyed and the final caro-tene was only one-fifth as much as in the chopped hay in this investigation.
Dry matter losses were moderate and about equal in both kinds of hay.
The chopped hay was as palatable as the long hay.
The quantities of milk produced and the maintenance of milk flow were very slightly in favor of the cows fed the chopped hay, in spite of their slightly lower consumption of nutrients as estimated from actual analyses. However, these slight differences in production might be expected with hay that is practically identical in quality.
This investigation indicates that hay with 16 per cent moisture will lose more of its color and carotene if stored in a chopped form than if stored in a long form.
The results of the 2 years' work show that the chopping of field-cured alfalfa at the time of storage in a mow is practicable if precautions are taken to see that the hay is not too high in moisture content. The principal advantages of chopping are: (A) More hay can be stored in a given space; (B) less work is required in the mow at the time of storage; (C) the hay can be removed from the mow more easily; and (D) in the case of stemmy hays, consumption is more complete because the leaves are not so readily selected from the chopped hay as from long hay.
To insure success with chopped hay certain precautions must be observed. In the first place the hay to be chopped should be dried in the field to a low moisture content. While this is important when the hay is to be stored in the usual way, it is doubly important when the hay is to be chopped. Furthermore, the hay should be chopped into 3/4-inch lengths or longer. If these precautions are observed, the quality of hay made by storing it in a chopped form will be approximately equal to the quality of hay made by storing it in the natural long form, except that even under the best practicable conditions the chopped hay will still lose more of its color and carotene than the long hay.
Both high-moisture content and fine chopping increase the temperature of stored hay and lead to excessive destruction of color and carotene and to a lowering of the feeding value. Under certain conditions the temperature may become high enough to make the chopped hay a fire hazard.
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