Small scale hay storage

I wasn’t planning on getting back into rabbits in our new location, but have decided that, given the increasing price of meat and how cheap it is to get started with rabbits…well, long and short, we’re going to start back in later this winter. One of the things I learned from our previous place is that I need to do a better job of planning out feed storage than I did last time. It worked, sort of, but it was never convenient. And with extended plans for adding more livestock here (egg-laying chickens this spring, and then either pigs or sheep the following year), I want to make sure I’ve planned better.

Pellets I’ve got a plan for. I always give my buns a good helping of fresh greens and tree hay. But hay…I could use seeing some models. I need a plan that keeps the hay out of the wet (both rain and snow—not infrequently in substantial amounts) in reasonable quantities for a small rabbitry. We’ll start with a breeding trio and I know it will expand from there, but I don’t plan on having more than 7 or 8 adults and their offspring. It’ll need to be conveniently located near the rabbit shelter, but not in it. The first winter I’ll be purchasing hay, likely in the smaller square bales, but next summer I’ll be cutting as much hay as I can from our pasturage. Anyone have a solution for small-scale hay storage that they are happy with?

Picture of cute bun from previous herd, just because.

My hay storage is for a small herd of goats (10)& sheep(2), rather than rabbits, but our place had an extra 2-car garage. I divided it in half, to use one side for stalls, the other half, for hay. I would estimate that about 100 (square) bales could fit, if we stacked them 1 layer higher. We can't, because of my physical limitations.

Alas, we don't even have one garage yet. But that makes me wonder if I could use some of the space under the travel trailer carport that the trailer doesn't take up. Hmmm. Will have to see if that's feasible once we have that built in a couple of weeks.

We started from raw land and so far we have a well, a power box, and two shipping containers. Sooo much more to go. But this does get me thinking about one possible option, so thanks, Carla!

There are a LOT of people around here, who use carports, just taking care to also cover the hay well, with tarps. I've seen some who made walls on the car port, with tarps, too.

and get the hay off the ground, very important! pallets if you can get them heat threated (HT) works very well imo.
I have put it outside on pallets and pallets all around to give some airflow with a plastic tarp on top. car port (or, imagine that you want a garden next year) or greenhouse/tunnel are better as an extra layer of protection.
If I had to start from scratch I would do:
put the tunnel where it has to come for next seasons veggies, put pallets down so you don't walk on the soil, place the hay on the pallets, pallets on top of the hay, finish with a tarp. With a tunnel, you don't really need sidewalls to your tarp, just to catch drips from condensation. If you have a very dry winter, you might get away without.
Or alternative: start with a bigger carport (if you can afford) than you think you need (same for greenhouse btw) and have a space for the hay and other tools.

as for walls to the carport, weaving with willow works to block rain and look better. Tarps are faster, but ugly imo, trade offs and dicisions ...

We have a pole barn in our setup, the hay is on pallets (dirt floor) and the main rain side is blocked with corrogated steel. The other 3 sides are open and the hay is in the driest corner without additional tarps.


[edit: I had an error, I went out to get fire bricks and replied after and the website requests to 'let them know' in a reply, to avoid clogging up, this edit]

Yes, on pallets is best. Even on the cement floor, we keep hay on pallets, because the building does occasionally get some minor flooding. Do note though, raising it off the ground to protect it from mold & mildew also gives space under it, for critters. In our case, that has been black snakes. I'm good with that, because they eat both mice and copperhead snakes, and they're non-venomous - but, I'd still rather not step on them, and they will bite, if cornered.

My husband cuts hay--low quality weedy hay from our clearing--with a scythe and then makes a haystack with it. One winter we had one of those and also a square stack of square bales of hay that wasn't good enough for a friend's goats. We covered that stack with a tarp. In the spring I found the hay under it was well on the way to rotting--I'm using it for mulch so that's not catastrophic, but it still doesn't last nearly as long as fresher hay. But what was interesting was that the uncovered haystack was in much better shape. I think it's because a properly constructed haystack sheds water, whereas bales do not, and the tarp is an inadequate covering.
We're talking about building what my husband calls a barn, which would house no animals but have multiple uses--storing hay in a loft, shelves for drying onions and beans and peanuts etc (have to figure out how to make those mouseproof) and downstairs we'd have a permanent set for a boiling pit for maple syrup, sorghum, possible tomato sauce if I ever had enough tomatoes at once; and a stovetop for a canning kitchen. I think he wants to also have a cement floor for a car-fixing station.

I store small quantities of hay

1. For 6 bales at a time
Covered motorized trailer, aka carTruck still holds one more on the passenger seat if necessary
Back seats removed, 2 small bales fit side-by-side into the trunk via the hole from the middle of the car (dont need to open trunk and can still keep oil, jumper cables and full size spare in the trunk)

2. For a slightly larger quantity.
Bag/ bag end-to-end join with red house wrap tape if using large bales (contractor grade bags)
Edit: try not to puncture or let the kids sit on them
Hang from the trusses of a car port / car tent / garage
Depending on reach, looping a strong cable and pulley washing line style works. I use those annoying 9" spring clips that I need help opening but they'll hold a bale (2 clips for heavy bales)

3. Bag and store in with feathered friends

Edit: the type of spring clip I've found works in picture below

I had an outdoor hay stack rot once.  The small bales were on pallets and were covered with a tarp.  There was condensation on the tarp at the top of the stack, from the day night fluctuating temperatures…. And fluctuating temperatures throughout the winter weather cycles.

Moisture migrates from the soil to the hay….

I have since kept hay stacked on pallets and  tarped with out the moisture problem by making a vent at the top of the stack for water vapor to escape (rather than condensing on the inside of the tarp when the air outside the tarp gets colder than the inside.

I have used two tarps overlapping at the top, with a pallet between the two layers of tarp, but I am sure there are many different ways to accomplish a vent for the warmer moist air to escape

For people who are in areas at all prone to wildfire, beware of storing hay or straw anywhere near an important building!  Not only for the obvious reason of the stuff catching on fire and burning the building down with it, but even near by, the blazing stuff will loft up still smoldering swatches which can rain down in a wind onto other things.  Real wildland fires can spread miles downwind by this process. When I lived in California my main hay stashes were always at the far corners of the small (1 1/2 acre) property from the house and barn, and I would either pen the animals near the hay or else move the hay by forkfuls or wheelbarrow to them daily...

You say you have two shipping containers; are they filled with other stuff?  It seems that they would be great.  BTW, your rabbits are adorable!

Barbara Simoes wrote:You say you have two shipping containers; are they filled with other stuff?  It seems that they would be great.  BTW, your rabbits are adorable!

Ha, yes, they’re claimed. Currently, they are storing all of our possessions (including various tools, which takes up almost the entirety of one of them!) while the house is being built. Once the house is built and they’re emptied, they become Spousal Unit’s shop and form two walls of the garage—we just need to add a roof between them and end walls. A barn is in our future, but not right away.

Order of operations - Water -- Access -- Structures

Since you're dealing with a new site, these are important planning considerations.  It's a lot easier to work with how water moves onto, through, and off your property and plan to work with that rather than having to deal with changing the flow down the road.  Our property is relatively flat and in 2010 we put up a new shop building without taking this into consideration - we now get pooling in the spring melt and in wet periods in the courtyard of the two shops as a result.  I've done some mitigation work, but still need to do more.  If I'd recognized the water flow ahead of time we could have dealt with creating a channel for it to flow while there was heavy equipment on site.

Then plan your access - where do you want drives / roads / paths for equipment and humans?

Finally put structures in place.

Location considerations include the permaculture zones from 0 (centre of energy, typically house) through to zone 5 (effectively wild, or accessed once or twice a year).  Dealing with livestock is a daily activity so those areas should be in your zone 1 or 2 (if I recall pasture could be 3, but I don't have a reference at hand as I type).

Without a specific design for how to handle your primary question, I think this would be a good time to get your plan straight before getting into builds.  I don't know how much hay you would want to store for the animals you expect to have, but I'd think getting a handle on that volume would be good for a design consideration.

I hope this is helpful.  Good luck.

I currently have one rabbit, (I’m hoping to get more soon) but I store hay in 55 gallon metal drums. It’s the perfect size for one bale of hay, the hay usually lasts me a while so I only get two at a time. If you need a lot of hay at a time though it might not work super well.

As a youngster my Welsh/Irish grandfather would cut long cedar poles, place them evenly through his field.
He would cut the hay with a sythe and mound it up the pole.
Using my cousin and I to climb on and mash it down combing the hay so the water would shed away from the pole.
The outer parts would be bad and put back into the soil.
Labor intensive, but if you have a fire you only lose one haystack not the barn and a years worth

I have a cattle panel staked into an arch shape, covered with a tarp. I store hay on pallets under that. The tarp drapes over the arch and is pinned down on the back side, with the front open. I can store about 15, though that is pushing it. You could put two panels together to get more space.

Lina Joana wrote:I have a cattle panel staked into an arch shape, covered with a tarp. I store hay on pallets under that. The tarp drapes over the arch and is pinned down on the back side, with the front open. I can store about 15, though that is pushing it. You could put two panels together to get more space.

I use panels and pallets for just about everything!