Get hay off the ground and let it breathe
Damp rises and roofs drip, and hay catches both. Stack bales on pallets or a raised dry base, never straight onto earth or concrete where the bottom layer will wick moisture and mould unseen. Leave a gap between the stack and the walls so air moves around it, and between stacks if you store a lot — a solid wall of hay pressed against a damp barn wall sweats along the whole face. Check the roof of the hay store with the same suspicion you would check a stable roof: one slipped sheet dripping onto the same spot ruins the bales beneath it all winter. Keep the stack tidy and stable, heaviest bales low, so you are climbing and pulling from a pile that will not shift.
Bins, lids and rotation for hard feed
Bagged feed stored open on a floor is a rodent buffet with a feed bill attached. Tip every feed into a rigid bin with a close-fitting lid — metal beats plastic where rats are determined — label each bin with what is in it and when it was opened, and keep scoops in the bins rather than carrying one scoop from feed to feed. Work first-in, first-out: finish a bin before refilling it rather than endlessly topping old feed with new, and sweep the feed room floor the day feed spills, because spilled feed on the ground is what draws vermin in the first place. Store feed well away from yard chemicals, sprays and fuel; feed absorbs contamination and the feed room should hold nothing you would not want near a feed bucket.
Learn to spot mould before the animals do
Your nose and hands are the inspection kit. Good hay smells sweet and dry; hay that smells musty or sour, that puffs dust when a bale is opened, that has white or dark mould patches, or that feels warm in the middle of the bale is not feed any more — it is a vet bill, and for horses it risks colic and damaged airways. Never feed mouldy hay hoping the animals will pick around it; they will not reliably, and the spores alone do harm. Check new deliveries bale by bale as you stack, and if a load arrives damp, complain while the supplier is still there rather than after the stack has heated. Droppings, chewed corners and shredded sacking are your early warning for rodents — act on the first sign with traps, proofing and removing cover, not when the bins are being raided nightly.
Keep the system simple enough to survive busy weeks
Storage systems fail when they are complicated. One place for hay, one for feed, one rule — oldest first — and a quick weekly glance at the stack, the bins and the floor covers a yard of any size. Keep a rough count of bales and bags so a dwindling supply is noticed in weeks, not on the morning the last bale is opened.
The store only works if the person feeding follows the same order and rations, so keep them in KinsLe's Family Sharing — the shared notes on which stack is in use, what is in each bin and what each animal is fed sit in the profile for the whole family, and the right bale gets opened even when someone else is doing the feeding.