feeding round bales, 'conventional' barn

[Anonymous-0]

The last of the kids around here have given up throwing square bales, and I'm thinking of switching over to rounds (feed about 3000 squares a year to beef cows).

The haying part makes sense to me, but I'm not sure on the feeding. We have pretty miserale winters with either heavy snow or heavy mud, so I don't want the field damage of feeding outside. However the barn is the old style so I'm not sure on how to feed them inside.

I know I'm going to have to store the bales outside (under tarps), but anybody have any good ideas for feeding small rounds inside a conventional barn. I don't like the idea of forking it all out.

Seems to me my options are either to unroll it by hand along the feeder, or load it into a ring feeder with the tractor (not sure if there is room for this).

I'm sure this situation has been faced thousands of times before, so I'm hoping to hear some ideas on what works and what doesn't.

Thanks.

 

[Anonymous-0]

If your mangers are wide enough you can use a power cart that unrolls 4x4 bales. Wic and Valmetal make them I believe.
My mangers are too small so I feed as many as possible outdoors and feed the rest the hard way.

 

[Allan in NE]

You're gonna think you've turned golden; Soooooooo much easier with the rounds.

Have you an old flatbed trailer? Or, a couple of extra feed bunks? Just drop a few bales on every few days and let 'em free choice.

Feed 'em outside. The critters will unroll the bale themselves.

Allan

 

[Allan in NE]

Should have added,

I wouldn't use those store bought feeding rings. The cattle just end up tearin' 'em up.

Allan

 

[Michael Soldan]

I have an old bank barn and a few years ago I put up a lot of rounds in the barn. I did two things to make it work. I used a small chainsaw to cut the big rounds into quarters as they sat on their ends, it was easy to pitch down into the manger. Make sure you got all the stings off because a saw will find them and wrap them around the sproket! The other method was rolling the bale out on the barn floor and tossing it down the chute. I hated geting the tractor out on a stormy day and if it was soft I just dug up the yard. I wouldn't hesitate to put round up in the barn again, it didn't take any longer to unroll or cut up than it would have taken to get the tractor started and out into the winter blast. I loved small squares for that very reason but as has been said, you can't find youn'uns who want to hay three weeks a summer

 

[Anonymous-0]

Have you thought about going to a grapple system for squares? After years of hunting down labor, I made the move this year and won't look back. Different story if you have to put hay up into a loft.

 

[GordoSD]

Allan. Please tell us you are boarding those animals for the neighbor.

Gordo

 

[randallinMo]

I think I'd consider building a round bale feeder that was square. Hinge one side of it to open like a gate and then you wouldn't have to "lift" the bale over the side. You could just simply set it in, close the gate side..........done. We actually need to know more about your "conventional" barn.

Maybe, just maybe, it's time to build a new hay/feeding barn?

 

[Chris in SK]

If you go with small rounds… 4x4 or smaller, and they are made firm and round, you can roll them around on flat ground fairly well on your own. Two people can roll them up slopes, snow banks, into barns etc. Saves starting the tractor when it’s really cold. (We roll them on to a calf sled, and tow them around with a snow mobile). Roll them into the barn and throw a ring feeder over them. Make the bales to the size that suits your needs best. If you go with bigger heavier bales then you’ll need to use a loader. Feed outside as much as possible….line the bales up in the field and use temporary electric to control access to them.
Chris

 

[Jerry/MT]

Have you thought about buying a bale wagon (like a NH 1032, etc) to pick up small square bales to store them in your barn? It might be cheaper than a round baler and you can use your present barn and feeding methods. I swore that I would never use round bales because if my tractor didn't start, my cows wouldn't eat. I use them now because they are more readily available and the hay is cheaper per ton. It's also to cheaper to have somone custom your hay into big rounds which is what we do because we can't justify the investment in haying equipment on our small operation.You pay a premium if you buy small squares in this country. They're generally used by horse people and that makes the price higher also.
Anyhow, it's just a tought that might allow you to keep baling small squares and utilizing your existing barn and feeding methods.

 

[Loren MN]

I went with the square feeder idea for round bales, and it works well. I bought a 10' feeder panel, which has 10 slanted openings like a round bale feeder has, and connected it to three corral panels to box in the round bale. I open one of the panels and set the bale up against the feeder panel. As the cows eat the hay, I can slide the panel closer to the bale. I like it because it is more versatile, since I then have four 10' panels available to build a temporary pen if needed, and I can take it down and move them by hand if needed. If you had this setup in a barn, you could make a low cart to set the bale onto with a 3-point spear, then roll the cart into place. This setup should also work good with a stack of square bales too, just stack them up and take the strings off, and the cows can only access one side of the stack. I prefer small squares, but I've had to buy round bales to get by until my new alfalfa field is producing, since rounds are cheaper to buy by the ton. I'm still feeding my bull & steers by pitchforking from a round bale twice a day, which is more work than throwing them squares, so I might put a feeder panel in their fenceline to set a bale against on the outside of the pen.

 

[Loren MN]

Feeder panel made by HW. Very heavy duty, 2" tubing. Paid $150 for the 10' panel.

 

[MN Bob]

If you get the round inside along the manger, a bar through the center (core) and a winch one the wall will pull/unroll it, getting it in, if no tractor use a 4 wheeler to roll it, cut the strings when its in place. Just an alternative.
I sold squares till last year, convinced my biggest buyer to try 4x4 rounds using an atv.

 

[RodinNS]

If you could stack the square bales with a grab on the loader I'd go that way. 3000 is not a lot of bales.
Otherwise, for all you'd be doing, a 4x4 round baler would probably work best. bales are small enough and manageable enough to roll out and feed. It's not as bad as some make it out to be...
We did it for years. 2000 bales per year and a lot of them silage. Store them on end so long as they're under cover. They hold their shape better that way and roll out easier.

Rod

 

[kyhayman]

Not sure how your barn is set up. My next door neighbor has headlocks by his freestall barn. He sets a round bale with the skid loader at one end and unrolls it. Just got to make sure you set it the right way so it unwinds.

 

[Vernon in Ks]

Allen, Your using the wrong store bought then. I"ve been using my "Winkel" round feeders for 18 years with no damage.

 

[Anonymous-0]

Good ideas - Sounds to me like just unrolling it along the manger would be the easiest, and wouldn't require a lot of changes to the barn.

Never unrolled one before - Do you have to go back and forth? I guess what I'm wondering is how much length would an un-rolled 4 foot bale cover?

Thanks again.

 

[Nancy Howell]

A 4ft round bale takes quite a bit of room to unroll. Don't know about your feed set up or how high the ceiling is. There are mechanical unrollers that fit on the back of tractors and aren't real expensive.

I feed 5x4 rounds to my horses out of one end of my barn. The ceiling is not high enough to use a front end loader. When I need to put out a bale, I tilt the ring up and move it out of the way. I roll a bale manually myself to the spot, then drop the ring around it.

Do not cut the strings before you put the ring around it. Wait until after the ring is in place to remove the strings. Makes a mess if you cut them first.

If you have a set of hay hooks, its not hard to roll a round bale unless you try to roll it uphill.

 

[haymaker421]

Yep, a grapple is the only way to go. You can pick up a round bale from the side or the end. And it comes in handy with so many other things.

 

[Jim in michigan]

barn near here has a steel I beam mounted on the cieling, they have a trolley on it with a gripper that is actuated by a hydraulic jack,squeezes the bale,the beam sticks out of the barn so the bale can be put on with the front end loader and then its slid into the barn on the trolley, guy used a electric chain saw to cut the bale and the just unrolled it, worked great

 

[ne_mn]

old fella where are you located.

We live west sw of duluth, mn and just about everyone feeds their cows outside. Just need to have a good windbreak and good water cups.

Feed em out side with round bales. Get a 4x5 or a 4x6 baler. Nice width for transporting down the road, better resale if you have extra hay, and easier on equipment than a huge 5x6 bales that are heavy on the loader and baler.

 

[BobH in NH]

Switched to rounds for the same reason as you - My kids grew up, got married, etc. My daughter and son-in-law gave me the round baler when they switched to large 4x4x8' squares. I have Hesston 5530 Rounder which makes 39" x 48" bales - Great size to handle. Store outdoors on pallets or similar to keep off the ground, stacked 3 high in pyramid X around 100' long and cover with a specially designed hay tarp from FarmTek, tractor supply or similar. I had virtually no spoilage last year. Pyramid shaped pile sheds water and snow. Keep ends open to allow air flow.

The smaller bales are easily handled by a 3pt hitch bale spear on a small utility (I have an 8N), or spear on skid steer or front end loader. We feed sheep and goats inside and our old barn design necessitates unrolling or unwrapping with a fork and feeding. I'm currently building a covered outdoor feeder.

We still have 2 square balers but seldom use them. Sheep and goats waste much less hay from rounds as compared to squares..