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Uses Hay is generally used to feed domestic animals such as sheep, goats, cows and horses when or where there is not enough fresh grass or when fresh grass by itself is too rich for easy digestion by the animal. Pigs may be fed hay, but they do not digest plant fiber very efficiently. Making hay Up to the end of the 19th century, grass and clover were not often grown together because crops were rotated. However, in the growing season, usually spring, farms produced more fodder than the animals could consume. Some paddocks were "shut up" for hay. Just as the leafy material was at a maximum in the pasture, immediately before the grasses flowered if judged correctly, the pasture was cut. Much of it was still being cut by scythe by teams of men. Later, this would be done by horse-mower and, from the 1930s onward, by tractor. By the 1930s, good pasture management meant that highly productive pastures were mainly ryegrass and clover, so compromises were made when it was time to mow. Later still, some farmers grew crops, like alfalfa (lucerne), especially for high quality or special-purpose hay. During the drying period of several days, the process could be speeded, and the effects of rain accounted for, by turning the cut sward over. At first this was done by hand with a fork or rake, later with tractor drawn rakes. Drying can be further hastened with the use of a tedder, a machine that fluffs and spreads the cut grass. This process is called tedding. Subsequently the dried hay was "rowed up" by raking it into a linear heap by hand or by machine. As it was being rowed up the hay was gathered by another team. In early days, this was done by forking it into a horsedrawn cart or dray or onto a truck, later by a sweep attached to a car, truck or tractor. Alternatively, the loose hay could be put into stooks or sheafs for drying before being collected. Loose hay was taken to an area designated for stacking—usually a slightly raised area for drainage—and built into a hay stack. The stack was made waterproof as it was built (a task of considerable skill) and the hay would compress under its own weight and cure by the release of heat from the residual moisture in the hay and from the compression forces. The stack was fenced from the rest of the paddock. When needed the haystack would be cut open, using a hay-knife, and some would be fed out to animals each day. Depending on the area, the hay stack could be supported by an internal structure or by under a movable roof that could be lowered as hay was removed. On some farms the loose hay was stored in a shed or barn, normally in such a way that it would compress down and cure. Hay could be stored in the second floor of the barn above the animals or in a specially designed barn with little internal structure to allow more room for the hay. Confusingly, the term hay rick could refer to the machine for cutting hay, the hay stack or the wagon used to collect the hay. Haystacks produce internal heat due to bacterial fermentation. If the hay was baled from moist grass, the heat produced can be enough to set the haystack alight. Farmers have to be careful about moisture levels to avoid this "spontaneous combustion", because haystack fires can be very dangerous.* Mechanised Baling Mobile balers, machines which gather and bale the hay in one process, were first developed around 1940. The early balers produced rectangular bales small enough for a man to lift over his head, dropping them onto the ground. The size and shape made it possible for people to pick these bales up, stack them on a vehicle for transport to a storage area, then build a haystack. Since rain washes nutrition out of the hay, hay was generally stored in a hayshed or protected by tarpaulins. After some attempts to mechanise the transport of small bales from the paddock to the haystack, farmers have moved to balers which produce much larger bales, maximizing the amount of hay which is protected from the elements. Large square bales are easy to stack, but round bales can be made denser and are now common in Western countries. The ratio of volume to surface area makes it possible for many dry-area farmers to leave the bales outside until they are consumed. Wet-area farmers later developed plastic bags to enclose the bales left outside. The successful harvest of maximum yields of high-quality hay is entirely dependent on the co-incident occurrence of optimum crop, field, and weather conditions. When this occurs, there may be a period of intense activity on the hay farm while harvest proceeds until weather conditions become unfavourable. The "summer vacation" period when public schools would close was by tradition to enable farm children to assist in the family hay harvest. This tradition is entrenched to the present day, even though only a very small fraction of school-aged children today in developed countries live on livestock farms. History
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