need advice on cleaning up after mouldy hay...

Long story but the gist is we got hay for my alpacas, waterfowl etc from a neighbor who swears it was properly baled but I had misgivings. Now last week I opened the first bale and inside it's black with white fur and whew the "dust" and sickeningly sweetish smell yuck! I opened a second bale from another area only to find the same thing. He swears its just "dusty" but I may be new to this but I wasn't born yesterday. I will not be feeding this and can't even use it as bedding so I won't be paying for it. I also won't take any chances on the horses finding a way to get into it so it needs to go. He's taking it back but we will have to load the 90 bales on his trailer ourselves tonight after we put the kids to bed. I will have my inhalers, I will give hubby antihistamines and we will sleep like the dead after hauling all that out!

The space we had it loaded into is my old mares stall (had to put her down this fall so no longer needed the space). Our barn has a concrete floor but her stall is fully covered in rubber stall mat and white painted walls. I was hoping to be able to clean it up so I could use it to store good hay instead of having to make bi-weekly trips with our little trailer and storing it in my tack room. If there isn't a good way to clean the mould out until spring I guess I will just leave it empty and continue storing my bales in my tack room this winter

So any ideas on cleaning up to be sure I don't contaminate new hay bales and can use the space this winter? If it was a few weeks ago I would just scrub it down with bleach and water but it is currently snowing and it is hovering between +2 and -12 so not sure how I'd get it dried out in there.

We had a similar situation, but it was earlier in the year. Had 100+ bales stored downstairs in the stall, and a pipe burst while I was at work. Not good.

If it's got any fuzz, it's definitely mould. It usually appears on the ends first. Blackness is a sign it's been there awhile. Possibly baled too wet?

I'll think more on this, but without getting the stall wet, as you stated, all I can think of at the moment is a shop vac, and shop broom.

You could sprinkle salt around to kill the spores, but that would attract moisture....but not freeze.

This might be a good idea, it will also "suck" moisture away from the hay.

We lived near the ocean once, and a friend of mine ran a hay farm for a living. His suggestion was salt around the hay as our humidity was so high due to proximity to the ocean.

I don't think I would be too concerned! sweep it up and get on with it. It's not like it's contagious and going to spread to new bales!!!
I use old mouldy bales to make winter shelters for my ducks and pheasants. In fact, I still have a shelter in my pheasant pen I made 3 winters ago. Never had any concerns!!!

I agree with DWD, I think moldy hay is the result of baling conditions, I don't think that mold creeps in from outside sources. If, like Hillbilly, you live in a hihg humidity area, you have secondary concerns. But storing moldy hay should not contaminate any incoming hay if it's dry.

Around here we create problems for ourselves when we tarp hay. Moisture gathers on the underside of the tarp, drips onto the hay and...bleck!

We had a batch of hay this year that was filthy wiht mold. I threw it all into a pile, wtered it and let it rot. Later I used it to build a hugelbate (spelling ?) in my garden. Some friends were so impressed with the hugelbate idea that they came and nabbed some rotting, moldy hay to build their own hugelbate. So there can be a secondary use for that miserable stuff.

Uno, what is a hugelbate? I have never heard of that before.