Method and agent for preservation of hay

Food or edible material: processes – compositions – and products – Inhibiting chemical or physical change of food by contact... – Biocidal or disinfecting chemical agent

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Details

426321, 426636, A23K 300

Patent

active

049801848

DESCRIPTION:

BRIEF SUMMARY
This invention relates to a method for the preservation of hay and other dried forages for animals, especially ruminants and horses. The invention furthermore relates to agents to accomplish the method.
The treatment of pasture feed to hay of high quality often causes problems: supposed to eat it, because harmful fungi deteriorate the nutritional value, further they may be noxious to the animals.
It is thus of utmost importance to obtain a properly stored hay. The risk for storage damage increases by harvesting using modern technology, e.g. big bales. Such bales are compact and difficult to dry afterwards. Earlier, hay was dried preponderatingly on hay racks. Normally a dry matter (DM) content of 85% was obtained. Hay does inevitably carry a field flora as well as a storage flora of mould spores. To prevent these from developing sodium chloride (common salt) in an amount of 10-15 kg per ton dry hay Was added by hand when loading in the loft or in the barn. Furthermore the salt improved the palatability. Unfortunately storage moulds grow at lower water content than the field moulds and are copious in their spore forming ability. The risk, that the mould spores shall develop, increases with increased moisture content in the hay.
Today's technique, where the hay is dried in strings on the ground including a couple of turnings and the string is picked up and pressed into bales or big bales, has heavily increased the risk for mould damage of the hay. The farmer is to a considerably higher degree than before in the hands of the powers of the weather and is difficult to obtain the same high dry matter content achieved by rack drying and by loft drying. The addition of salt in connection with string pick-up is inefficient because of nonhomogeneous distribution in the hay. Practical experience has shown, that even if a small part is untreated and mould formation occurs therein, the whole lot must be rejected. Mold formation causes a series of problems: animals as well as of the cattlemen and may cause e.g. pneumonia.
Moulds affect the conditions in the digested path of the animals. deteriorated feed conversion. Such milk must in principle be rejected.
Mould formation thus causes environmental problems for the cattlemen and influences on the health of the animals as well as on the milk. In addition there are the economic consequences. If conditions for mould formation are on hand, degradation of organic matter takes place under heat formation and formation of carbon dioxide and water, which accelerates the mould formation. One says, that the hay is "breathing". Most obvious this is in big bales.
For the reasons stated above and common experience obtained so far, the farmers are advised not to use chemical preservatives for hay. It is considered, that homogeneous addition and therefore acceptable results are from a practical point of view impossible to reach. See e,g. the brochure "Something about mould poisons" issued by the Swedish Association of Dairies, 1986.
It has, however, surprisingly been shown possible to effect an efficient preservation without the serious problems stated above. With this aim, the present invention shows a procedure as well as an agent which are hereinafter set forth in greater particularity.
The invention idea is to prevent any form of fermentative and other biological activity unlike the silage process, wherein newly harvested forages in undried form are treated in order to obstruct any butyric and acetic acid formation by fermentation and to create favourable conditions for lactic acid formation.
By treatment according to the invention, the forage is supplied with an agent with the ability to give a high osmotic pressure in the moisture of the forage. The agent is supplied in finely dispersed form (atomized) in an amount sufficient to block the growth of the harmful fungi. The forage so treated is then taken to storage. The agent is suitably supplied in the field in connection with picking up from the ground or transporting to storage, preferably by spraying through a nozzle.
The agent

REFERENCES:
patent: 1013568 (1912-01-01), Sharpe, Jr.
patent: 1603136 (1926-10-01), Messmer
patent: 1935754 (1933-11-01), Virtanen
patent: 3202514 (1965-08-01), Burgess et al.
patent: 3996386 (1976-12-01), Malkki et al.
patent: 4344971 (1982-08-01), Garbutt
patent: 4448707 (1984-05-01), Fenn
patent: 4664861 (1987-05-01), Pritikin et al.

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