Easy Way To Protect Big Bales

Easy Way To Protect Big Bales CROP STORAGE Miscellaneous 20-1-40 It was extremely wet last year in the North-west Colorado region where Kurt Frentress farms, but he wasn't worried about the hundreds of tons of good quality timothy hay he had in storage. Frentress stacks his round bales 4-high on end and puts a water-proof cap over the top bale. "They do a good job of protecting from rain and snow since most damage occurs at the top of the stack and not on the sides," he notes. "It's a lot easier covering a stack of bales with caps as compared to big tarps, and much more convenient when selling or using the bales because you can take away any number without disturbing the rest of the stack." Bale caps consist of reusable waterproof covers shaped to fit over the end of a bale. The sides of each cap have two slits so they're expandable to fit different size bales. Elastic bungee straps are sewn into the lower hem of each cover to secure them in place. The material used in the caps is a long life U.V. protected fabric that Frentress arranged to have produced by a California company. He has applied for a patent on the design and plans to offer the bale caps for sale. Frentress expects his bale caps to last at least 5 years. He figures the cost per ton to use the caps is about $1.54 per year, which he figures he can easily recoup by receiving premium prices for his hay. Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Kurt Frentress, P.O. Box 282, Hayden, Colo. 81639 (ph 970 276-3602).

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