Stupid question on round balers

been thinking lately that it really is ridiculous to be doing small square bales to the extent that we do every year.

Horse customer's like them, and always will, but I need at least 1000 bales for myself every year, and since we're still dropping bales on the field and picking up by hand, cutting out even just our 1000 bales would still be a lot of saved labor - not to mention resolve storage space issues.

Anyways - my stupid question is this: When you're baling with a round baler, and you run out of hay in the field before you've got a complete bale - what do you do? Can you just tie it off where it is and make a small bale? Or does it have to sit in the baler and wait for the next baling session?

I've never used one, so I'm curious.

I use 504g veermeer and yes I can tie the bale at any size. Sometimes if small enough I won't even tie it and just feed it right away.

I figured you could.

I was wondering mostly about the end of the season - what you do when you've got 500lbs of hay in there. Didn't think it'd make much sense to have to clear it by hand (the way I do on the square balers)

good to know.

Just one more reason to switch, not that I needed any more.

We have two KRONE round balers.

<a href="http://youtu.be/H_1_iWV9WqE">The KRONE 125</a> is used to make 4x4 Coastal Bermuda bales for Nancy's horses.

If it is not the last, final cutting, then the hay stays in the baler until the next cutting.

If it is the last, final cutting, then it is dropped on the ground, unrolled, and picked up with the KRONE 260 baler.

<a href="http://youtu.be/dq2VrkuoVcg?list=UU4gFuJx6qHbiK0FRREh2lDw">The KRONE 260</a> baler is used to make 4x5 Bahiagrass bales for my community neighbors.

If it is not the last, final cutting, then the hay stays in the baler until the next cutting.

If it is the last, final cutting, then it is tied off to make a small bale.

The small bale is given to the next buyer at no charge.

Why in the world do you drop on the ground?

They put a hitch on the back of small square balers for a reason, hook a wagon to it and bale onto the wagon and save yourself a bunch of extra work.

(quoted from post at 09:37:13 10/27/14) been thinking lately that it really is ridiculous to be doing small square bales to the extent that we do every year.

Horse customer's like them, and always will, but I need at least 1000 bales for myself every year, and since we're still dropping bales on the field and picking up by hand, cutting out even just our 1000 bales would still be a lot of saved labor - not to mention resolve storage space issues.

Anyways - my stupid question is this: When you're baling with a round baler, and you run out of hay in the field before you've got a complete bale - what do you do? Can you just tie it off where it is and make a small bale? Or does it have to sit in the baler and wait for the next baling session?

I've never used one, so I'm curious.

Click to expand...

Depends on the type of round baler. A soft center baler you are kind of stuck. The bales has to be full to be tied. Most hard center balers can tie off at any size. The benefit of the soft center is your hay can be a little on the damp side when you bale and if not placed end to end will dry where at the same moisture a hard center will mold or rot. I made the mistake stating out of not knowing the difference and currently have a soft center baler that I hate. I should be able to replace it in the spring.

Rick

If you still wanted to do some small squares you might be able to find a New Holland bale wagon around your area cheap. We used to have a 1010.

That's exactly what I do. We end up with a few small ones every season, handy to have around sometimes. Also using a Vermeer machine.

My Vicon 1211e will also tie (elec) in manual mode the partial bales. Not very pretty, but tied. It is also a soft-core baler.

I was similar situation to you, baled around 1600 squares per year for the cows and 200 for the horses. Used bale baskets for cow hay, and horse hay I dropped on ground & pick up. Bought a 650 New Holland round baler last Summer, and couldn't be happier. Makes a 4x5 solid core bale, but can go from 4x4 to 4x6. When I'm done with the last bale, I pull down the lever on the baler to trip the wrap cycle, and the bale is completed, whatever size that may be.

I still baled about 200 squares of 2nd crop alfalfa with the baskets this year, to have some for the cows just in case I have problems getting rounds to them in the Spring mud. Baled about 80 4x5 rounds of 1st crop, and part of 2nd crop. Still dropped the horse hay squares and picked up, because the baskets don't work with the terrain of the grass field.

Sometimes you do need to backup and hit the brakes to get a small bale to pop out of the baler though. The center can be too far forward to fall out.

I've never even heard the term soft vs. hard
center. Thanks.

JR, I usually just keep that last partial bale in the baler, no twine. Then I'll drop it in the pasture for the critters to browse on before I put the baler back in the barn.

BTW, your square vs. round thinking was exactly the same thought process we went through many years ago - getting round baler or going to kickers and wagons. Went the small round baler route and I think it was the right decision. One drawback is it reduces your ability to regulate how much hay you're feeding. That wasn't an issue when we had lots of critters, but now that we've cut down on cattle sometimes a round bale can get too weathered before they've cleaned the whole bale, so there's more waste.

actually we did just start using a chute since we no longer have as much free help. It works in most fields, not so well on hills and odd shaped fields. But as much time as that saves, round bales would be a better solution.

You just tie it like a normal full size bale and kick it out on the ground. A round baler will make what ever size round bale you want. Doesn't always have to be a full bale.

On my JDs doesn't matter. If it won't auto pickup the string, pull out a about 18" of twine from the arm, before the tie sweep and drive through something to force the twine against what bale there is while rolling in the chamber and doing the pickup sweep. It will pick it up.

Mark

I have sometimes had problems getting a small bale out of my 847 NH round baler. Had to help it out with a crow bar sometimes. But I guess not many people still use an old baler like the NH chain balers anymore.

How about one of those balers that makes large square or rectangle bales ?
Can those be sectioned off to feed better than a round bale ?
They sure do stack on a trailer to haul around nicer.

Yeah, and after one season of round bales you'll be back to using your small square baler making "idiot cubes."

Why? Because with small squares you make one pass across the field and it is EMPTY. The bales are all nicely stacked on a trailer or wagon where you can move them from place to place just by hitching on. They get handled once or twice more as they're unloaded onto an elevator and stacked in a loft. Inside. Dry. Ready to use. No waste.

To feed, you toss a few down and open them in a nice dry manger.

With big rounds, you have to chase all over the field, back and forth, scooping up bales one at a time, and make dozens of trips. Tearing up the equipment and the field. Burning fuel.

That just gets the bales to the edge of the field. Then you have to pick them up, again with a machine, one by one, and load them on to a trailer. Then you either need to drive the loader tractor all the way home to unload them, or have two loader tractors.

Now you get to pick them all up again and stack them somewhere else. You can't get big rounds up in the hay loft, the floor will collapse under the tractor. So you stack them outside where they get rained on for months and months. By the time you use them the hay is half gone and the rest is poor quality.

Then you have to handle them AGAIN, with a tractor and a loader. Slogging through mud in all sorts of weather to get to them, slogging through more mud to get to the feeder. Want to feed them inside? Oops, the animals are in a traditional old milking barn, back-to-back, with narrow mangers up front. No way a bale is going in there, so now you have to figure out how to slice the bales up and get them into the barn to feed...

I'm sure it depends on where one lives(weather, etc.), what you feed &amp;???, but I have done years &amp; years of both &amp; you don't have enough money to pay me to quit round bales &amp; go back to small squares!!!

(quoted from post at 12:47:13 10/27/14) Yeah, and after one season of round bales you'll be back to using your small square baler making "idiot cubes."

Why? Because with small squares you make one pass across the field and it is EMPTY. The bales are all nicely stacked on a trailer or wagon where you can move them from place to place just by hitching on. They get handled once or twice more as they're unloaded onto an elevator and stacked in a loft. Inside. Dry. Ready to use. No waste.

Click to expand...

Square:

once to stack on wagon
once to put on elevator
once to three times to stack in barn (mow size/elevator)
once to throw down from mow
once to break open to feed

So, you have up to 7 times that one bale is handled by HAND

Round

once picked up in field to put on wagon
once off loaded in yard into barn or stack
once picked from barn/stack and put in feeder

So, you have 3 times that one bale is handled by TRACTOR

Multiply that by how many small squares are in even a 4x4 roll and you will soon find out where the IDIOT in IDIOTCUBE comes from.

Ive seen people store idiot cubes outside with no tarps`, I bet the waste on those is a lot more than a roll. (the rolls I make are covered or inside)

(quoted from post at 12:47:13 10/27/14)

With big rounds, you have to chase all over the field, back and forth, scooping up bales one at a time, and make dozens of trips. Tearing up the equipment and the field. Burning fuel.

That just gets the bales to the edge of the field. Then you have to pick them up, again with a machine, one by one, and load them on to a trailer. Then you either need to drive the loader tractor all the way home to unload them, or have two loader tractors.

Now you get to pick them all up again and stack them somewhere else. You can't get big rounds up in the hay loft, the floor will collapse under the tractor. So you stack them outside where they get rained on for months and months. By the time you use them the hay is half gone and the rest is poor quality.

Click to expand...

Why move all the bales to the side of the field when you can load and wagon/trailer direct? Park empty wagon in the middle of a "load" of bales, two bales at a time with loader/3pt spear. If you are tearing up equipment handling rolls of hay than equipment and/or operator is wrong for job.

Tarps were cheap last I checked for outside storage.

(quoted from post at 12:47:13 10/27/14)

Then you have to handle them AGAIN, with a tractor and a loader. Slogging through mud in all sorts of weather to get to them, slogging through more mud to get to the feeder. Want to feed them inside? Oops, the animals are in a traditional old milking barn, back-to-back, with narrow mangers up front. No way a bale is going in there, so now you have to figure out how to slice the bales up and get them into the barn to feed...

Click to expand...

I've fed rolls out in a traditional tie stall barn, set them in the barn floor/door (tractor doesn't even need to drive inside) and unroll the bale by hand. It can be done, yes it takes a few minutes, but small price to pay when the entire rest of the process was done by machine.

Each to his own, I guess. To start with, we're part timers, so when we get home from work and get the field round baled the day can be over if necessary. With squares, once the field is baled you're about half done, lol.

We went to rounds to feed the majority of our beef cattle and never looked back. With the rounds on person on a tractor can clean up the field, a couple people with trucks and a tractor can make pretty quick work of it. They get stacked and covered with tarps, no worries about hay in barns. When it comes time to feed, one person with the tractor can feed enough for two to three days. The wife likes that.

We still did our extra hay in squares, and did a fair amount of second cutting to feed the critters being finished, but go back to all squares if we were still feeding a bunch of beefers ? No way…

Now...I know you are just kidding mkirsch..

It's nice to have some small squares because they are handy to feed.

I bale about 200-300 small squares to have some on hand, and the rest large rounds. You will love the large rounds once you get set up. Makes baling a lot easier for one man, if that is all there is. Bob

Get a baler with hydraulic tie. Watch your bale gauge then wrap them when they get to the size you want. Might take three or four to experiment with until you get the size you want.

If you don't want a real small bale, judge the amount of windrow you have left, then trip the baler before the bale is full size. And if you guessed right, the last one will be between half and full sized.

How many bales total? We are doing about 10,000 squares a year. Our first dance with a round baler was only a 40x40" or something like that hesston. Major pain in the butt, only about 8 square bales per bale, all our wagons would only hold a fraction of what they hold with squares.

Went back to squares, quite happy with a bale basket now, near the barn we just pop over and dump at the conveyor. Far away we dump at the wagons and restack on the wagons. Our best day this year was 1600 bales in about 4-5 hours baling, the wagons were ready to roll about 1 hour after that with 2 boys hired to load.

We used to tow wagons with the baler but you just can't get the bales per hour up in our rough fields. Still do it when not in a rush.

Also added a 4x5 round baler back into the mix this year, much better than the puny baler before but still not perfect. Not bad with a tractor at each end and truck running the flatbed but takes preparation. Filling barns with small access doors takes forever compared to cleaning up the field.

(quoted from post at 13:31:11 10/27/14)

(quoted from post at 12:47:13 10/27/14) Yeah, and after one season of round bales you'll be back to using your small square baler making "idiot cubes."

Why? Because with small squares you make one pass across the field and it is EMPTY. The bales are all nicely stacked on a trailer or wagon where you can move them from place to place just by hitching on. They get handled once or twice more as they're unloaded onto an elevator and stacked in a loft. Inside. Dry. Ready to use. No waste.

Click to expand...

Square:


once to stack on wagon
once to put on elevator
once to three times to stack in barn (mow size/elevator)
once to throw down from mow
once to break open to feed

So, you have up to 7 times that one bale is handled by HAND

Round

once picked up in field to put on wagon
once off loaded in yard into barn or stack
once picked from barn/stack and put in feeder

So, you have 3 times that one bale is handled by TRACTOR

Multiply that by how many small squares are in even a 4x4 roll and you will soon find out where the IDIOT in IDIOTCUBE comes from.

Ive seen people store idiot cubes outside with no tarps`, I bet the waste on those is a lot more than a roll. (the rolls I make are covered or inside)

(quoted from post at 12:47:13 10/27/14)

With big rounds, you have to chase all over the field, back and forth, scooping up bales one at a time, and make dozens of trips. Tearing up the equipment and the field. Burning fuel.

That just gets the bales to the edge of the field. Then you have to pick them up, again with a machine, one by one, and load them on to a trailer. Then you either need to drive the loader tractor all the way home to unload them, or have two loader tractors.

Now you get to pick them all up again and stack them somewhere else. You can't get big rounds up in the hay loft, the floor will collapse under the tractor. So you stack them outside where they get rained on for months and months. By the time you use them the hay is half gone and the rest is poor quality.

Click to expand...

Why move all the bales to the side of the field when you can load and wagon/trailer direct? Park empty wagon in the middle of a "load" of bales, two bales at a time with loader/3pt spear. If you are tearing up equipment handling rolls of hay than equipment and/or operator is wrong for job.

Tarps were cheap last I checked for outside storage.

(quoted from post at 12:47:13 10/27/14)

Then you have to handle them AGAIN, with a tractor and a loader. Slogging through mud in all sorts of weather to get to them, slogging through more mud to get to the feeder. Want to feed them inside? Oops, the animals are in a traditional old milking barn, back-to-back, with narrow mangers up front. No way a bale is going in there, so now you have to figure out how to slice the bales up and get them into the barn to feed...

Click to expand...

I've fed rolls out in a traditional tie stall barn, set them in the barn floor/door (tractor doesn't even need to drive inside) and unroll the bale by hand. It can be done, yes it takes a few minutes, but small price to pay when the entire rest of the process was done by machine.

Click to expand...

I don't do near the hay that I used to but I bale about half onto the wagon with the thrower and half on the ground. Either way when I come back a couple hours later the hay is all gone and a couple days later a check appears in the mail. Always the correct amount for the number of bales that were in the field. Like magic!

Waste? What they don't eat becomes a manure pack that helps keep the warm in the winter and gets spread in the spring on the fields so no waste here, it all gets used one way or another.

When my dad was dairy faming and feeding idiot cubes there was always waste as dad figured if they didn't eat it the first time they didn't want it and he wasn't going to make his cows get hungry enough that they ate anything you would put in front of them. So it went in the gutter and got spread with the manure. Again, no waste.

Rick

Depends on what you have for a baler. I know there were some fixed chamber balers back in the day M&W and I think Duetz Allis. Don't know what you did with a part bale there.

As for Vermeer and all those who copied that method when you get to the end of the field or what ever you tied up what was in the chamber and dumped it. I have made a number of these mini bales that weren't much bigger around than a Allis Roto Bale. Guess I should add that Vermeer pretty much copied the rotobaler method, just upsized it.

jt

Lots of advice/opinion here, some good, some pure BS. I have made large round bales since 1987, fed most inside our barn to dairy cows in tie stalls.Store and stack bales upstairs in the barn,3 high with skid steer loader. Never have had any problems, but our barn is in good condition, and the stable is high, and has wide feed alleys. My current baler is a CaseIH hard core, and will auto tie/or manual tie. I can manually tie a bale at almost any time, making a 2 foot bale or 3 foot bale, or whatever I have to. 1000 small square bales, should equal 100-4x4 round bales. There is no magic here , hay still has to be dry enough to keep, and you still need to have the right equipment to handle and feed either small sq. ,or large rd. Large bales do lend themselves to a one man operation, and are more forgiving about being rained on , but should still be covered or stored inside. Each to their own. Bruce

I use an old IH 2400, (hated by some and did take me a couple years to get tuned but now works good) and it will make a tiny 2 ft bale if you want. If I don't forget, when I'm near finished I will split what's left and make two medium bales. If I do get a little one it's no big deal. It will tie or as someone else posted, just take it to the cows "drectly".

Not many small square bales around. We used to buy straw ones when we milked. I know some of the guys that sell hay do a little bit, and make tiny round bales out of their big round balers. Most people did big stacks years ago then went to big round.

I've always been told soft core round balers take a bigger tractor. I don't know of very many around, and I know nothing about operating one, so how true that is I don't know, but it's what I've heard more than once. I bought a few truckloads of alfalfa soft cores during a couple years, I didn't really care for them as much. They were a little stemmy and they didn't like to unroll as well, even in my Haybuster, sometimes the core didn't want to fall apart enough for the flails to hit and feed it through.

If you do a number of bales, either a kicker or a bale ramp is nice, gets the bale out of the way of the door so you don't have to back up every time. Net wrap would save time wrapping over twine, but that's personal preference, twine is cheaper, net is less wrapping time. If you sell, around here net wrap bales are preferred.

As far as how long they keep, apparently that depends on where you are. Here, there is a very tiny amount of rot on the bottom of the bales when stored outside for a period of time (which EVERYONE stores them outside, as it would not be practical to build a shed or cover hundreds to thousands of bales). I've bought older than year old hay especially the drier years, it doesn't have the nutrition as much, but aside from the very outer layer, still perfectly fine. Just feed extra grain with them. If it gets too bad, people hire a truck grinder to grind it in to piles, and then mix it with other stuff in a feeder wagon.

Moving them in, haven't done mine yet, been a late year. Depends how far you have to go. Most guys around have a Kosch or similar bale retriever, pile them in the corner, then truck them home. They aren't cheap, around here there aren't any used. Small ones would work if not that many bales. The neighbors generally hay together so there are enough tractors/trucks to do that (or pickups with flatbed trailers). A shorter distance, they'd just haul them in with the retriever. Me, I typically bunch them with a bale fork into piles of ten, then use a stackmover to bring them in. This year, might do something else.

Feeding them, bunch of ways. Some people set them out. With more cows, can't beat a Haybuster which most people have, spreads bedding good too. For lower HP and not as rough, they have some that just use like sickle sections to cut up the bale. Either breaks up the bale pretty evenly and makes a nice windrow so they all can get to it without having to crowd feeders. For me, less waste as well, and no manure piles if you feed them in different spots each time.

Vermeer is developing a big round baler that you don't need to stop at all. It finishes the first bale and ejects it while the next one is starting. I doubt it will be cheap....

After I started farming in the seventies, I went through three square balers- an old NH, an IH27 and a 440 IH. Both of the IH's had throwers, but we had a problem getting help to unload wagons at the barn. I was cutting about 35 acres and probably losing close to ten because we couldn't get wagons unloaded before they got wet or bale hay before it got rained on because we were unloading wagons.

So, I got a 484 NI baler, used. It was like a breath of fresh air. It was a soft core baler and made a 5-700# soft cored bale. But, the best thing was that it would survive the entire winter without a roof, so I could stack them along the edge of a field and use them as I needed them. I bought a 644 NH baler about 20 years ago and it was a huge upgrade from the 484. It was a solid core baler, and makes about a 750# dry bale. It would also tie about 4 or 5 times faster than the NI and this could equate to quite a few bales at the end of a day extra because of the faster tying time. If you make a 35# bale of hay, as most folks do, that means about twenty square bales in one round bale. Do the math.

As far as an ending bale, I don't leave hay in my round baler- all it does is spoil. Unless I'm going to bale within two or three days, I either trip the knotters and tie a fairly large, unfinished bale, or take it down to the barn and kick it out for the cows. A partial bale left in the baler will cause the sidewalls of the baler to rust and cake up with some kind of crud that doesn't want to scour off. So, mine stays clear most of the time at the end of the day.

As far as the horsey set, if they don't want my round bales, let them pay a premium for small squares. I sell a round bale for $60, or about $3 a square bale. Squares around here go for $5-6@. And I haven't really missed dealing with the arrogant fools that insist on the squares. I store 90% of my hay in a shed, so it's in prime condition when it leaves the shed, and I have never sold the floor bales (I feed them, too).

As much as I love this business, it is a business. I'm in it to feed my cows. That costs enough. But I can't afford to feed their nags. If they want hay, let them go find out how much it costs to produce, or pay what I ask for good quality hay. If I have low quality hay, it goes to the mushroom houses up in Pa., and there are no arguements about low cost on my part. The cows won't eat that junk, and I make more than the horse people want to pay for good hay. So none of what I produce ever goes to waste, and I can do about 150 acres with little or no help.

Guess you could say I do love my round baler.....

if i had to do my hogs with small straw bales and his description of rounds I'd quit. I have one tractor with a loader, A 688 NH baler and a 6 wheel trailer to haulthats it for bale equipment that I use . i can haul 8 miles in good time with the tractor. and the only time i touch a bale is if the string drags in the field, and when i cut the string in the barn and un roll it as I can't use a processor.
if i had squares I'd need a Huge barn and need about 60 somedays to do chores. i mushroom stack out side last year i did 1200 rounds, this year was 550 ish,as I had spare left, i don't get much total loss due to spoilage up here in Canada even with the snow.
I baled then hauled home, after and got the last 20 home yesterday about 97% i haven't touched by hand yet to get them home and stacked!.
Regards Robert

When we went over to big bales in 1975 it gave me the greatest pleasure to watch our old (small) bale elevator rot away. It rotted away because nobody wanted to buy it!

Because some people can't drive a tractor and stack hay at the same time?

For us, small squares work well. Here is what we do...

Determine how many we'll need.
Keep the barn door clear and the key in the tractor inside.
Pay the man when he's done delivering.
Cut the string off the bale and throw the hay into the bunks.
Clean up manure and sweep up the little waste hay on occasion.

My only hay equipment is a bale elevator. No other equipment to buy, maintain, insure and store and no land to buy, insure and pay taxes on or rent and maintain. Buying it stacked in the hay mow is the cheapest and least sweat way for us. We get only 1,000 to 1,300 a year. We take all the 2nd and 3rd cutting and some first if that isn't enough.

That being said when my guy gives up making hay we'll have to reduce the herd way down or go to rounds, or both!