Where can I go to see where they make horse hay?

Question

I'm currently living in Ocala, Florida.. and would like to see where they process/make the big rolls hay. If you have any ideas of where I can find a place so I can see it .. please let me know. I was going to go to the Seminole, But I think they only sell the horse feeds.. I don't think they will show me.

Thank You

Answer 1

LoL you can come to my house and watch my dad do it everyday. Not that fascinating, really.

Answer 2

go to a farmers house that bails his hay and ask him if you can watch the bail there hay. im sure he whouldnt mind. hay is not procccesed it it cut in the fields like beans or any other crop and left to dry and then the go out with the bailers and bail it.

Answer 3

You can find a farmer in your local ad or you can look in the paper on sundays. You can also look online or on craigslist.com

Answer 4

Your hay probably comes from fields all over the place.  Where my horse lives, they make their own.

There's a big field and hay is planted.  When it grows pretty tall, they come along with the tractor and cut the hay.  They let it sit in the field to dry, and will come along to toss it with the tractor again to mix it up so it all gets to dry, not just the top layer.  Then they come back again with an attachment on the tractor that sucks up the hay and smooshes it into bales - either square or round.

They get several crops of hay out of the same field during the course of the summer.

If you are buying your hay from a feed store, they are probably not the people that cut and baled the hay.  They probably got it from farmers.  In florida, they might have to ship the hay in from other states.

Answer 5

Its pretty boring, you grow the hay mix on a field, when its tall & mature enough you cut the hay, let it dry for a couple days, flip it with a raker, let the other side dry, then take a baler & bale it, if its round bales, you either stack them & tarp 'em or make them into ''marshmallows'' with the plastic covering...if its square bales, you put them on a wagon & put them up in the hay loft of your barn...done....its not interesting...

Any farmer will most likely let you watch, if not help with the haying process...

Answer 6

You can see it done around here all the time. I still love to watch the amish around here cut and bale the hay. The use their work horses its like stepping back in time.  

Answer 7

I've never heard of processing hay.  But, I live in the midwest in a rural area.  We always baled our own hay for the horses.  My dad would go out and mow down the alfalfa and rake it into nice little rows.  It would sit in the field for a few days until it was dry and then he'd go and bale it up.  Some of it we made into little square bales which is usually what we fed the sheep and some of it was made into the big round bales which we fed the horses and cattle.  My dad would use a skid loader to move the bales from the field to the barn for storage.  Just drive around in the country and you're bound to find someone making hay.

Answer 8

It isn't too exciting.  Alfalfa or another kind of grass-like plant is cut, and left to dry for a few days.  Then the farmer drives a piece of equipment called a baler over it, the baler collects the alfalfa and rolls it into a big cylinder shape, then wraps plastic around it and spits it out onto the ground.  Later, the bales are picked up with a forklift or something.  Ask a local farmer to let you watch, if you really want to see.

Answer 9

Well, like the guy said just show up at a place, free labor is free.

We have such places all over, such as across the street.

I used to have to move them with a front end loader .....pain in the butt lol!

Just be polite to the farmer. Let him know you just want to watch.