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Haying solutions

Hay Maker, I looked at those round bale unrollers and they seem pretty slick. Like you said, you can bale and haul rounds pretty fast by yourself and re-bale it into small squares when it's raining, if you like.

But the problem with them is that if there is a lot of alfalfa in the hay, the leaves shatter and what doesn't land on the ground under the baler all goes to the bottom half of the bale.

So the top half of the bale is all stems unless there is a lot of grass in it.

Anyway, it's been raining off and on all week since it started on Saturday and it looks like the hay crop is growing gangbusters so there should be lots of hay to bale in a few weeks!

Cowpuncher, how much do those bales weigh if they're bringing that kind of money? :shock:

Around here the price has dropped from $4.00 to $3.50 for a 40 lbs. bale.
 
Burnt...........You won't have much luck with a bale wagon with 40 lb bales..........you need to be stuffing 70-75 lbs minimum into a 36-38 inch bale to be able to handle & stack! We ran hundreds of thousands of idiot cubes through 1049's and I do not miss those machines at all!!!! Round bales simplified life big time around here!
 
RBT said:
Anyone remember the little round bales made by an Allis Chalmers baler? When I was a kid, we put up thousands of those things. Pitch them on a hay rack and haul them to the stackyard then stack them in a stack that was triangle shaped. Haul them back out on a pickup and feed them in the winter.About 40 bales to a load. Ah the good ol days! I think the day I left home, dad went to town and bought a BIG round baler. LOL (Sorry Burnt, Didn't mean to hijack your thread)
Click to expand...

We've got a pair of them if you'd like to come get them. Apparently they haven't been used for 50 years or more though :wink: I was going to photograph them to see if anyone on here knew what they were :-)
 
Traded my super 1049 for my round baler.
When I was a kid Dad was on the phone every morning to get a hay crew. Alfalfa was baled usually wagons behind the baler , shuttle trator and a crew at the stack unloading and stacking. The meadows were put up lose, and a crew of 7 to 10 men a day. Then in the 70s with some oil lease money we got balers and bale wagons, later replaced with self-propeled balers and the super 1049. But that took 4 to 6 of us swathing two balers and me hauling. The round baler I cover the same ground some years all by my self. Been lucky the last couple as my brother ran the swather in the meadows.
 
Burnt,

Bales here run about 65-70 pounds. If you can get a compressor and really pack them tight, they sell for $11.00 at the feed store.
They take a regular bal and smash it until it is maybe 18" long.
Saves on hauling and storage, I guess. I could never pay $11 for a bale of hay .

I don't know what kind of machine they use as I have never seen one.

We went to a trip thru Nebraska, Colorado, Wyoming, SD & ND last summer were amazed that there were not more than a dozen places using small bales. No doubt that's why they are able to charge so much.
 
Thanks for all the feedback folks. It's good to hear from the voice of experience!

I can make heavier bales but the market wants no more than a 36" or 38" bale. Not sure that I can make a 36" x 60 or 70# bale with my Massey 124 or 224 whichever it is.

I know that our round baler is the fastest and easiest but I also know that the market for BRB's is also the weakest.

Well, I still have a few weeks before first cut so I'll get it sorted out. Looks like it's going to be a big hay crop with the rain we got over the past week.
 
burnt said:
Thanks for all the feedback folks. It's good to hear from the voice of experience!

I can make heavier bales but the market wants no more than a 36" or 38" bale. Not sure that I can make a 36" x 60 or 70# bale with my Massey 124 or 224 whichever it is.

I know that our round baler is the fastest and easiest but I also know that the market for BRB's is also the weakest.

Well, I still have a few weeks before first cut so I'll get it sorted out. Looks like it's going to be a big hay crop with the rain we got over the past week.
Click to expand...
I am hoping mine will start to grow in two or three weeks. :?
 
per said:
burnt said:
Thanks for all the feedback folks. It's good to hear from the voice of experience!

I can make heavier bales but the market wants no more than a 36" or 38" bale. Not sure that I can make a 36" x 60 or 70# bale with my Massey 124 or 224 whichever it is.

I know that our round baler is the fastest and easiest but I also know that the market for BRB's is also the weakest.

Well, I still have a few weeks before first cut so I'll get it sorted out. Looks like it's going to be a big hay crop with the rain we got over the past week.
Click to expand...
I am hoping mine will start to grow in two or three weeks. :?
Click to expand...

I am hoping we can get the hay field re-seeded in the next couple of weeks. :???:
 
Well with the long, warm spring we had, everything was just waiting to jump when we finally got a warm rain.

And jump it did! I walked into the new seeding tonight and it is already about a foot tall. But too much alfalfa although the timothy will likely show up more as the crop grows taller.

My youngest son works on a dairy farm of 400 milking cows and they plan to start haylage the last week of May. So I will be about 10 days after that for our first cut dry hay.
 
We don't have any alfala grown here n fla, though I did see some in south fla that a man planted for deer it looked real good but I never checked into it. The closest thing we got to alfala is a wild peanut the uf developed called flagraze. Alfala hay is sold on every corner out of van tralers due to all the horse farms. Most people I know that buy alfala get it from a bunch called larsons. A big company from up north. We get these big 700lb wire bound bales that it takes a good man to push one out of a truck. There so tight, we feed them in the pasture. They don't get ruined by rain and the horses have to naw them. There around 80 bucks. I no there's not a bunch of man power in them bein so heavy. The wire is so good we save it for corner post brace wire. The only complant we have is most every bale has a bunch of small black round stones in it. I'd sure like to see the equ it takes to make these bales. Anybody up yalls way ever heard of larsons farms.there the big dogs in the hay business around here.
 
Never heard of Larson's but then I'm not in the export business.

There is sure a lot of Ontario hay that makes it down into your part of the country. In the winter, the farmer gets about $4.00 for a 45 lb. bale at this end and if he arranges his own trucking sells it for $7 - $8 at your end. About 700 - 750 on a load.

I don't think its getting fed to beef cows . . .

Actually I just looked it up and Larsons hail from Idaho, it seems.

http://www.larsenfarms.com/hay_feed_overview.asp
 
Larson is along a road in Idaho seem like 15 miles one side was spuds and a spud plant the other was alfalfa.... counted 14 big 4x4 balers and that many hydralic rakes , this was a few years ago , on a trip to the Ram sale in Doubois
 

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