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I grew up in Western, KY and I can tell you in that part of the world 
some years getting hay in is a real crap shoot. There are two issues. 
The first is the cutting window. At some point you have to cut it or it 
will go to stem and be worthless - especially for horses. It could be 
fed to cows but it's not worth much. The prime window can be short - as 
short as a week. If you don't get it out you still need to cut it to get 
rid of the stem so it won't impact the next cutting. What we would do 
was "cut and pray." If we couldn't get it out, we'd roll it for the cows 
or bail sell it for landscape purposes. If we didn't get it out for the 
stock at least we had the field cut getting ready for the next cutting. 
If we knew we couldn't get it out instead of cutting we'd bush hog it.

If it stops raining it depends a lot on your soil. If it drains well and 
you get a week of dry sunny weather you should be able to turn it a 
couple times and it save it. If it is mostly clay and saturated, you're 
probably screwed. Talk to the guy that cut your hay and see what he 
says. Some types of hay cure faster than others. Orchard grass is what I 
expect you have and that cures fairly fast if memory serves me right.

Truman

Lucie Hess wrote:
> Ok, I need some moral support.. I'm sitting here with newly cut hay in the field and watching it get rained on. My hay guy cut it yesterday afternoon.. Don't ask me why.. I had been watching the weather and knew we had a high possibility/probability of getting stormns and a lot of rain. 
> So to say the least I was surprised to meet him on the road as he was leaving and I was goining to the house.
> So it was cut late yesterday, around midnight we have a huge thunderstorm and it contines to rain all night and has rained on and off all AM.  So almost 12 hours of steady and hard rain.. 
>
> I'm feeling that my hay is ruined, and I'm just sick.  I had planned on having it  put it up in small square bales, for the horses.  I do have another much bigger field that isn't cut yet, but this is my higher quality hay, fescue, timmothy, lespedeza and some clover.  The lespedeza is thick this year.  I was looking for a significant yield.  
>
> It may rain another day too, so if I can't get it to dry quickly, so that  I can put it into square bales,  should I just write it off? 
> Roll it into big round bales for cattle, or just leave it in the field and turn the horses out onto it with the hay down as it is?  I had planned on turning the horses out as soon as the hay was  put up in the barn.
> It's their summer pasture. 
>  My next question.. is it appropriate to be angry with my hay guy for cutting the hay when  heavy rain was predicted at over 50% chance???  I'm pretty unhappy, but if it's not reasonable to be unhappy about this.. I guess I'll need to "get over it".  Thanks for any info...
>
> Columbia, Missouri
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--

“He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a 
monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also 
into you.” Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil


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