Armed Feds Prepare For Showdown With Nevada Cattle Rancher

[monty]

As I was reading through that article the thought came to mind that it may have been caused by fermentation as they mentioned near the end of the article. It happens occasionally in the area where I live too. People here generally let the hay sit for a month or two before stacking it for that very reason. I've seen steam coming off bales on cool mornings and later on seen smoke coming from them. It's a shame they lost so much hay after all the troubles they've already had. Most people in this area insure their hay because it's hard and expensive to replace it.

That really hit them hard this time of year. I have seen steam come from wet bales too. My family put up about 400 tons of alfalfa hay per year. We were very cautious about stacking any damp bales. But back then bales were only 100#, not these big one ton bales so it was fairly easy to tell if the bales were too wet to stack.