| Hay is dried stems and leaves of grass plants, which are cut when they were green before they achieved full natural maturity. Hay is used as a foodstuff for domesticated animals in those areas where climatic conditions do not allow the use of fresh forages all-round the year.
The capability of hay to stay for longer periods without getting spoiled is achieved either by putting it in a silo, i.e. the preservation of green plants in watery state or by drying, through the removal of water from the plants (on an average from 55 to 65 %)
Hay types:
If hay is more or less well dried then all plants forming the composition of hay can be easily determined and hay can be classified into groups. Thus, the study of the botanical composition of hay is very important and represents one of the pivotal means for the value assessment of hay in practice; other visual features have lesser significance but nevertheless, are always taken into consideration. The color of good ordinary edible hay is more or less bright green. A brownish color indicates the presence of other family plants (e.g. clovers), bluish – sedge or luscious cereals, growing on marshlands; if the pure edible hay’s color is dark, then it indicates that the hay was kept in the rain. Yellowish, straw-colored hay shows that the grass cutting is done much too late when many of them have already become aged. This hay does not have a strong aroma, which is peculiar to green high quality hay, cut in time; the aroma depends mainly on the odorous cone (Anthoxantum odoratum), which belongs to the earliest cereals. However, the aroma of hay, the so-called odor of coumarin is peculiar, except to the cone - also to melilot (Melilotus), holy grass (Hierochloa), woodruff (Asperula) and to a lesser extent to other plants. The unpleasant odor coming from hay is due to the influence of a rainy climate, incomplete drying and depends on the decomposition processes (putrefactive organisms and mold). Such hay during strewing releases lot of dust. Several hay types are distinguished based on their place of growth. |
