A few square bale questions

[MNfarmer]

Just wondering if anyone has stayed with small square balers instead of going to a round baler. Do you sell all your hay? Feed it all? How many bales per year do you make and what type of system do you use, eg. thrower wagons, accumulator, bale wagon etc. Thanks!

 

[Flewster]

I still put up all small squares.........I really enjoy it but I only have 40 acres of which 8 is in brome and 3 is in alfalfa...........rest is farmstead or pasture.......

I put up about 600 grass bales and since this is my first year with the alfalfa I am not sure what average will be.....

I use an old d17 tractor, model 44 NH sickle mower, JD 214ws baler and pick up with two trailers using a bale popper.............

 

[Anonymous-0]

I put up about 4000 bales a year (3-4 cuttings). Use an 8 bale accumulator on a NH 315 baler. I also have a NH 1495 12 ft. cutter.
All is sold and most paid for in advance. I do store for customers without sufficant space.
I do it all myself with 4 tractors as I don't like changing equipment out all the time. I can bale and barn about 400 bales a day.

 

[mnbob]

I did small only on 40 acres of alfalfa till last year. Bought a round baler because I could not get help when needed. I take orders for small squares and the rest get the round baler. I sell all of it, mostly to horse owners. I enjoy making small squares more and make more $ off them but the rounds can save the day when rain is coming. Cut a few acres of grass also, all small sq. sold to fellow who keeps donkeys.
Almost forgot, I use some old equipment, some newer. JD 40 only rakes with the old LR 2 4 bar, Allis WD runs the tonutti v rake JD 4010 pulls the 1219 M/C, and 336 baler with old farmhand 8 bale accumulater. Or the NH 640 baler. A Bobcat for the farmhand grapple or bale spear. Lots of other old equipment that gets used when I get the opportunity.

 

[Errin OH]

We use the following equipment and put up between 2500 and 3000 small squares each year. We used to feed our own beef and sell the rest but now just sell it all. Picked up by hand.....

AC D19 gas
JD 1209 mower
I4-80 (red) twine baler
JD 894 Rake
Pequa (sp) 7' tedder
2 8x16 wagons
1985 F-250

 

[Vernon in Ks]

Put up around 8,000 a year of Brome small squares and around 10,000 in Bluestem with JD 348 wire tie. Hauled with 2 Kent hay monsters. Round bale 2-3,000 brome and 1,000 Bluestem in a normal year with a Vermeer 604K and JD 430. (Grass is shorter this year) Most is sold or custom, but do feed a lot also.

 

[Ed S.]

Wow. I really feel inadequate now.

11 acres, mostly alfalfa, some pasture grass. About 150-200 go in the old hay barn for our horse and goats, the rest (1000+) I sell to partially offset the cost of enjoying all the hard work (and it [i:46b037150b]is[/i:46b037150b] enjoyable!).

Currently doing this with an 8N, New Idea 250 sickle bar, Dearborn 3pt rake, New Holland Hayliner 68 baler and a couple of smaller hayracks.

es

 

[MSS3020]

Use 273 to bale and pick up by hand. In past years put up 15 acres alf and 20 acres grass. In process of converting all to grass. Feed to horse people. More money in small then round but more work to.

 

[old]

Bet it is all that 8N wants to pull that baler and that hay wagon. I know in my area you would be in trouble fast with a set up like that but we also have a good number of hills

 

[Ed S.]

Yep, we're pretty flat out here. We don't stack more than 100 bales on the rack - that's about as much as I feel comfortable with (she's still makin' bales fine at that point, but you can definitely tell she's workin' hard to pull two tons of hay, too).

es

 

[randallinMo]

My wife and I still do small squares on 40 acres of alfalfa. We bale about 6-7000 bales each year and store it all in the barns that have feeding mangers built within. I cut with a Hesston 1340 mower (12'), rake with a John Deere 700 twin bar rake, bale with a Hesston in-line baler and use an 8 bale accumulator (Netherex all manual.) My wife bales, I haul with a bale grabber mounted on my loader tractor. She and I can put up 600 bales an afternoon without touching a bale, (our butts will be draggin' though). We prefer to do 3-4 hundred each afternoon if the weather permits. I enjoy watching her bale while I haul. I never get too far from her as she drives good but "repairs" badly. I enjoy hauling the bales when I don't have to touch them. 'Makes that ol' Bud light go down real good. I like the versatility of feeding the small bales in the barns. You never have to start a tractor in the winter this way to feed.

 

[Absent Minded Farmer]

I grew up on, started with & will continue the tradition of the small square bale. I use an IH 47 baler, with a chute, that sure wasn't made on a Monday or a Friday. Ties good & cuts a clean bale. I may put the thrower back on if I pick up more land. If I were to get a round baler, it would be for my collection, i.e. an old IH 241 or a rotobaler with the overfeed would be neat. I sell all my hay to a horse farm down the road. I make an astounding 300 bales per annum! As for the mowing-baling ensamble:

Farmall H w/120 mower & IH #2 crimper

Farmall 400 & NH 144 inverter - the 400 is a stand in for the Cub which is down at this time

Farmal 400, IH 47 baler & two flat racks - a Gehl 600 & a Kasten 8 ton gear

 

[tjdub]

We do both squares and rounds, but have never sold any. Although I only make one or two thousand squares a year. I couldn't go totally to rounds because there's no way I would be able to feed rounds out through much of March and April without burying my tractor to the axles. We only square bale the nicest hay, so it's been pretty much all rounds so far this year.

I have a 24T baler without a kicker. It's a two person operation baling. Taking turns with my dad stacking 175 bales at a time on thrower racks pulled behind the wagon. Been looking for a used Bale Basket to use instead, but they're hard to find and we like the teamwork anyway.

 

[old]

There are good points to either of them. I feed rounds to the horses and squares to the goats. 1 round will last my horses about a month sometimes more but a square a day in the goat pin. I have to bale some today maybe if it is dry enough that is. Not sure which I'll use to bale them I have both set up in the filed the round baler hooked to my Oliver S88 and the square one NH271 to an Allis D-17

 

[LAA]

Roll 650 - 800 per year for myself, 250 per year for a couple of older men I have baled for many year, Hesston 856A. Square bale minimum 500 for myself and 2-300 for the same 2 men plus 12-1500 squares to sell if we have good fall hay weather. My sons were raised during the time when alot of people in our area still had cows and we would all work together to get each others hay in. Many long summer days and nights but some of the best times of my life. My sons still come help but my Wife ''retired'' from the hayfield. She worked like a dog for 30 plus years helping me in everything we did.

 

[Casey in Ky]

Well, my operation varies from year to year. I work for a major utility company so some years my time is extremly limited. So between the job and weather, it"s hard. Back when I had cattle I went to all small rolls, 4x4"s. Sold the cattle, then sold the round baler, so I"m back to an all square operation.

I sell to a lot of horse and goat owners, lots of small farms around that have a few horses as pets and a few goats but no real ground or equipment, so the local hay market for squares is pretty good. On a down year, I bale 1000 bales, on a good year, 5 to 6 thousand. I"m a one man operation that sells mostly in the field, so I never touch it. I do normally put 500 to a thousand bales in the barn, unless its a down year, and then I handle none.

My equipment is old for the most part. 2 tractors, a 1965 Ford 3000 gasser(currently down, needs a steering box and clutch), a 1992 Ford 4830 diesel. I cut with an old beat up Kuhn GMD 66 Disc mower, have a small Walton 2 basket tedder, a New Hoalland 256 5 bar rake, and I bale with an old New Holland 273 Square Baler. I use a flat bed trailer and pick up off the ground when I do put hay in the barn. I also have a bale elevator...best money I ever spent...

 

[Billy NY]

Still a market for small squares, dairy operations mostly use round and or other means for feed.

We still have more hay ground than can be baled if the weather cooperates, I help out a friend when he bales, he's got a new JD round baler, sells to a large dairy operation in the next county, 10-12 miles away, but still uses a NH 315 baler for small square orders, think he was supposed to do 2000 of those, all of that is on hold, due to his current health, I've helped out the last few years, he mows with a new JD discbine, has a tedder and a side delivery NH rake, wood wagons and and a kicker, sells those from the wagon. There is about 150 acres in hay, + custom work, weather has not cooperated this year so far. North of here, lots of first cut still up.

 

[Doug in IL]

I bale some of both round and square bales. Almost all of it is feed on this farm now. I cut back some on hay acreage due to better grain prices in the last few years. I usually bale first cutting with a Vermeer 504G and a JD 4020PS. Later cuttings get square baled. I cut with a NH 488 Haybine and a JD 4020 diesel. I usually rake with a NH255 rotary rake and a JD 4030. I also keep an old JD350 rake for merging windrows in light hay. I am baling with a JD 346 wire baler and JD 2510 diesel. I also keep a JD 24ws baler for backup. I have a NH144 inverter I use to flip over rained on hay. Bales are picked up and barned with a NH1002 bale wagon pulled with a JD 4020PS.

 

[Seth_ia]

I think you you need one more view point that hasn't been stated yet. I went with a large square baler. Basically I can handle big bales and feed small bales. I don't have a ton of hay so in my case I do 2/3rd custom. To get the speed I felt I needed I was going to have to invest a ton of money in a better small baler, NH bale wagon and grab. Then I'd only be doing my own. Its a better deal for me to let the neighbors make my payments. Frankly you can't give me a round bale anymore. They're to bulky to put in a shed and there is too much waste outside. Large square bales sell as well as small squares. I bale for some guys that sell horse hay. They're in the process of converting as many of their horse customers to big squares as possible from small squares. Just my two cents and another way of doing things.

 

[Billy NY]

The guy I've helped out the last few years had one of the dairy operators come down with a large square baler, and bale up about 40 acres, 1st cut and we had some ideal weather, in 2007. I know the preference for small squares, but the large ones were just the cats @ss, could fit 14 of them on his tandem, no wasted space, they dumped off fine could skid them to the areas with less slope to load, very manageable and easy to handle, problem was the cost of that baler, was like $80,000.00. I think that is a good way to go with hay, even with horses, so many are attached to small squares, these are not bad to deal with by any means.

 

[NEBeef]

We do small rounds and small squares. The rounds are for wintering the cattle, the squares are for either sale to horse folks, or for second cutting, which we use to finish the cattle.

Case 1194
Ford 641
NH 477 haybine
NH 273 square baler
Case 8420 round baler
Kuhn 5001 tedder
Kuhn 4120 rake

 

[Seth_ia]

Cool pictures! I've even made some six foot stalk bales for a guy to handle with his 20hp bobcat skid steer. When I first bought an big square baler I thought it would be easy to convert guys from rounds, but never really figured I switch many from small squares. I've actually had better luck switching guys from small square to big squares which really surprises me. The problem I've found is that people around here don't want to shed hay. They beleive that they get almost no loss by leaving a round bale out side all winter, which isn't true but they beleive what they want to. I'd hope that baler was well less than $80K since its a NH and there worth less than Hesstons. I'm on my second Hesston and neither have been new. My current was slightly used and still cost more than a brand new round baler. The hesstons are built heavy enough they don't wear out fast and last a long time with TLC. The first Hesston was sold in '79 so there is starting to get to be a better supply of used, which I think is the key to better acceptance. I'm told out west that 10K or less will buy a pretty fair baler at auction, but thats still alittle beyond the scope of this thread.

 

[MNfarmer]

Thanks everyone for your replies!!