I have found the best cover for round bales is pallet covers. I slide one over each bale then a tarp over the top and they last over a year with no problems. I've been reusing the covers for a few years already and they have lasted just fine. Got a roll of 30 from Amazon for like $120 but that was cheap to save the bales.
Discussion
I like this technique, we have been using billboard tarps but they are hard to store properly when not in use and rodents have chewed more and more holes in them over time. The combination of the pallet covers plus the large tarp to improve the longevity of the pallet covers is a nice improvement on our existing system. Plus, if I had those pallet covers I could tarp off bales for a few days, like the current situation I'm in, to buy me some time until I can get them up on pallets and properly positioned and stacked. Ultimately, the long term goal is to need less hay, and to have a roof under which I can store any hay we do need but for now tarps seem to be the best solution.
I will be ordering some pallet tarps to try this system of hay storage out. Seems like good upgrade to what we have already been doing stacking the hay on pallets and covering with a large billboard tarp.
It saved me, truly. I was wasting so much hay using regular tarps or even 6 mil roll plastic to cover but once I got these I haven't lost a single bale. I have had no place to build a cover so have had to make due with pallets and covers as well.
These are the ones I got in 2020 but they are a bit more expensive now.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01B1ZWI0M/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1
Trying out new hay tarps to preserve the hay without storage in a building.
Thanks to nostr:npub1szlawrnh4kzvq9yfuegvpz0ws8h5zywea4n2d4zf3kdd3g9tenwqnqn3du for the tip on using pallet covers as hay tarps for 4x4 round bales. Putting this new hay taping method to the test. In the past, we've used large used billboard tarps to cover many bales of hay at once all stacked together. Managing the large tarps proved to be too difficult to maintain its longevity and we found ourselves replacing them ever couple years. With plenty of moldy hay in the meantime as the tarp degraded. I'm now trying to cover each individual bale of hay with a $20 pallet tarp. It's perfectly sized to fit over a 4x4 round bale of hay. The idea is that we will tarp individual bales with the pallet covers then tarp over the whole group of bales with the degraded billboard tarp to better protect the pallet cover tarps. Then when we use a bale we can easily fold up and properly store the pallet covers. Hopefully this method ends up lasting until we finally build a proper barn for hay storage.
#homesteading #permies #permaculture #meshtadel #tarpsareashitcoin