The present invention relates generally to agricultural crop storage and, more particularly, to a stack cap covering system for protecting stacked feed crops such as hay from moisture.
In the past, farmers and livestock producers simply took for granted that part of the hay or other roughage crop that they were buying, feeding or selling would be molded, leached, blackened or otherwise made unfit for feeding due to moisture. Recently, the value and expense of such crops have led farmers to attempt various solutions to the moisture problem.
A few years ago, when most bales were hand stacked, the tops of the stacks were sometimes constructed in a pyramid shape to lock out moisture. This eliminated the excessive moisture losses associated with a flat topped stack, however, each bale that even partially protruded from the pyramid would have considerable damage.
More recently, farmers have placed plastic tarps, canvas, plywood or other sheeting, or the previous year's ruined bales on top of their stacks. All of these attempts at reducing moisture damage have had serious drawbacks. Such covering systems have tended to be expensive, labor intensive and generally ineffective in that air circulation to the hay is restricted. In many cases, this poor circulation ruins more hay than the covering system protects. Hay storage sheds or barns have been used to cover part of the crop. However, such structures are expensive, have limited capacity and usually require hand labor to fill.
Presently, most farmers and feeders prefer a roughage crop that requires little or no manual handling. The crop must also be high in total digestable nutrients; cost efficient to sell or use; and mold and dust free. Such crops are treated with selective herbicide, conditioned mechanically and chemically during processing, stacked by machines and, in medium to large scale operations, such crops are fed to livestock by machinery.
Nowdays stacking of bales is usually done outdoors as most buildings are not large enough to accommodate the handling the machinery or the volume of hay produced or used. The machinery used make compact stable stacks and if the hay is covered properly, the use of such machinery provides an extremely effective method of storing this valuable necessity of livestock feeding.
A need exists to provide a relatively inexpensive means for protecting stacked hay and the like from moisture in a manner which will provide air circulation around the hay and which will not interfere with the use of large hay handling machinery.