Opinions on Square Baling Operation

[brandonh]

This past year I sold quite a few square bales and established some customers who seem to be very happy with my hay and the prices. This year Im planning on doing more squares and not as many rounds. More work in the squares but the money is double. Normally I work 100% alone. To tight to hire help. But Im looking for any easier way to put up squares. I considered building a combo accumulator/grapple like the Grappalator. That would make things alot easier. But Im also considereing getting a hand bander. Going thru the field and buncing the bales into about 10 bale bunches, banding them together, and then I can load them with my bale forks. Also when some buys, I could set them right on there trailer. Right now im loading on a 24ft trailer by hand, unloading them into the barn, and then re-loading onto the buyers truck/trailer. Handling bales 3 times atleast. I have to cut this down somehow. I think the banding would work out better in the long run. But a grappalator sure would be nice also. Any ideas??

 

[GordoSD]

I'm able to sell 80% of mine right in the field. I call my buyers and tell them that I just cut, and I will be baling on such and such a day. Be there to hook up trailer to baler or pick up behind the baler. Give them 20 cents a bale to pick them up. Daylight until 10:00 pm in the summer helps.
I've had them stay to load up more than they bought to get that 20 cents.

Gordo

 

[Adirondack case guy]

Here in the North East we use bale throwers to load bale wagons,No labor involved, unless a bale flys over the back of a wagon. Mostly Dairy operations here and hay is transfered from the wagons to hay mows, by hand, labor intensive. Resale hay sometimes gets sold by the wagon load locally, or loaded directly from wagon to hay dealers truck/trailer. Most of the resale hay here gets sold from now; end of Jan. on. It has to be pulled back out of the mows, loaded on trucks, transported in our case down state to support the horse industry there, which is shrinking dramatically, due to the economy here in NY. There is starting to be a lot of familyless horses in the area. Just a side note; most of the dairy hay is chopped and stored in silos or bunks as haylage. Round balers are in wide use here, but good dairy cows don't produce a lot of milk when fed round bales, unless they are wraped and stored properly. Around here there are 1000s of round bales stuffed in hedgrows. "total wast of time, fuel, and feed crop."
PS we had a great crop year here. This is 5th cutting pure alfalfa being baled on the family farm in the pic.

 

[Shetland Sheepdog]

Have you thought about a New Holland Bale Wagon?

 

[Shetland Sheepdog]

There are used bale wagons out there! If you are not familiar with them, here's a link.
HTH, Dave

http://agriculture.newholland.com/u.../Pages/1037_pull-type_bale_wagon_details.aspx

 

[brandonh]

Nice setup you have there. Unfortunatley I dont have a thrower so I would have to have flat racks and and a couple guys if I went the wagon route. I have considered a NH Bale Wagon but they are few and far between here in Middle Tennessee. Ive found one of the bale grapples that gathers 8-10 bales for $1500 and its like new almost. I couldnt build one for that I dont guess. Personnaly my storage setup would probably work better with bales bundled together much like a large square bale. But Im not sure what to do. So many different way to do things. Ive got a young boy almost beggin to help. He's bout 5 years younger than me, he's 15 I think. I'll be 21 this April. I may try him some this summer and see how he does helpin out. I wokr part time for my dad in construction so it would sure be nice have someone stacking while Im at work. Or gathering/stacking/ loading whatver while Im bailing. Whats the going rate for a decent hired hand for stacking hay

 

[jd-tom]

I paid my baling help $10/hr the last two years. Probably will raise it to $10.50 this year (he has experience now).

Try to get as much sold out of the field as you can - that eliminates a lot of the hand work!

 

[dixon boy]

I have a small bale accumulator grapple loader and hay trailers all for sale if that would help. life took different path and better money than the hay business. only reason selling

 

[hayray]

This type of setup is how I do it. Does not involve any labor to load and unload and you do not need a thrower. Is alot cheaper then the accumulator setup because you don't need all the extra equipment and tractors and if you are baling a long ways away from the farm it allows you to have a truck hauling wagons back and forth for you. Not the end all but works in my situation.

 

[Adirondack case guy]

The labor intensity is still high even with the bale throwers. My two uncles that run the farm are both in their late 70s. The pic was of the older of the two, Both of them run similar balers every afternoon when the weather permits.One uncle mows mornings with a 12'disc mower each morning. They have around 16 wagons that they will fill in an afternoon. We have a large Amish comunity here, and those kids work hard and reasonable. They mow all the hay and help load trucks. Without the Amish the uncles would not be able to work and harvest the 800 acers of tillable land they own.

 

[RodinNS]

My opinion... mechanize the whole thing as quickly as money allows. That way you know at the start of the day what you can get done rather than waiting on help that doesn't show to gather hay up... or even better yet... buyers that never show. I've yet to see a buyer yet who promised to buy off the field and didn't screw someone over at least once. There is always a reason why they couldn't come. When there's rain coming... I DON'T CARE how bad you needed to go to the beach today. Wet bales are wet bales... and now it's my problem...
So... just figure out a system you can manage yourself without help until you have help you know can be depended upon.
I've been looking at Kuhns accumulators and grapples myself and will probably go that direction. If you have buildings where you can easily get in and out with a loader I think that's probably the best way to go.
The self loading baskets like someone pictured also work reasonably well... but from my bit of experience with them... they do not track so well on the road at any rate of speed. The other problem with them is that once they get about half full the bales start piling up and it takes more force to push the bales in... thus you get variable density bales. That is one big downside to those things. However, working close to the barn where you could just go and dump it with mabey 70 bales in the basket... they work quite well. Still have to handle them tho...

Rod

 

[hayray]

What type of bale baskets have you been around? I have EZ Trails with the double caster wheels on front and they track down the road real well. I can go 50 mph on a smooth road. As far variable density bales I have not seen any of that. Yeah, if you have the barns that are able to get into with the grapplers that might be a good way to go. However, you are not getting the hay off all in one pass, if bad weather is on the way I could see a problem. Rained on windrows are alot better then rained on bales in the field. Several times each season I am getting chased out of the field by rain and would have been no time to go back and pick up bales. And would'nt you still need to hire an extra person to run the grappler and load if you wanted to keep baling? All important considerations.

 

[Nebraska Cowman]

When I was putting up small squares for the dairy I hired kids by the bale. I planned it so they got paid pretty good when they were working but nothing for setting around. Seems like I paid them a nickel a bale.

 

[Shetland Sheepdog]

Off the wagons, into storage, stacked neatly, remnants cleaned up, etc, is worth 50 cents a bale to me! That's how much more I charge for stored hay compared to "on the wagons". I figure that every time I have to handle them bales, the value increases 1/2 a buck! Into storage = 50 cents, out of storage = 50 cents, into customers storage = 50 cents!
JMHO, HTH, Dave

 

[Anonymous-0]

I built a grapple based on the old farmhand design, and a fork-type accumulator for a skid steer 2 years ago. I put up only about 3K bales yr for farm use. Works great, and the best part is I'm not dependent on finding labor.
I bale and let them lay on the ground while the wife, or if the forecast is good, I go back and accumulate into 8 bale "packages", then pick them up , put'em on the wagon and strap them down for the ride back to the barn. My ground is hilly and "turny", so a pull behind acculator wouldn't work well. Had the wagons from when I used the thrower, just pulled the sides off. Total cost about $400 in steel, and a weeks welding work.
Would never go back.

 

[brandonh]

hey have you got any pictuures of your homade grapple? I have alot of good scrap metal. Should have plenty to build one. Even if I built an accumulator, gathering the bales into 8 or 10 bale bunchs would speed things up and save alot of walking. Im not lazy, I just have alot on my plate for one person when hay season comes around. I love it, but stressing out about how to get it up sometimes takes the enjoyment out of it.

 

[dixon boy]

I ran three of the bale basket wagons and loved them then went to accumulator setup thought would save time really did not caus have to chase them now also. Currently have accunulator and grapple system now for sale,actaully all hay equipment is for sale. Had a Kuhun accumulaotr for couple season they came took it back, (Kuhn)

 

[RodinNS]

Forage King baskets. Single caster wheel. They actually belong to a neighbour and he offered the use of a pair of them too me last year. One would trail at 25 mph behind tractor and baler. The other would take to the shakes if it got over 10 mph. Dunno why.
The bale density problem was fairly simple. Once you start filling these baskets over the height where the bales enter the basket you start pushing more bales... and that changes the compression factor a LOT. These would hold mabey 70 bales without much fuss... but where we work on hills... they don't always fall away easily or they bunch up so they need pushing. The basket can hold probably 120 bales if you really want to fill them up which is what we were doing for the distance we were traveling.
I think it's a decent system in a certain set of conditions... but that wasn't well suited for what we were doing here. One should be aware of that ahead of time...

Rod

 

[hayray]

Here is the EZ-Trail basket in operation.

 

[hayray]

Let me try this link again.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6AxLRQ3UhCg

 

[Anonymous-0]

I hear you, brother!
I'll see if there's enough poking up through the snow to grab a couple pics of my rigs.

 

[Erik Ks farmer]

Brandon, I have been and am in the same boat. We put up 350 acres +- and it doesn't take much to figure that there is more return on squares. You mentioned you have a kid willing to help, that would work great for you on a few conditions. My brother who is 16 works for me. We switch off stacking on the wagons, I stack a load while he bales, then he stacks and so on. He also rakes for me while I round bale and may do some swathing this year. He works only with me by his side (in thes same field) as condition number 1 for his saftey. Condition number 2 is that he keeps a time card and is paid weekly $8 per hour. Condition 3 is that he keeps up his studies and does well in school.

 

[RodinNS]

Those baskets are a bit different than the Forage King. The shute enters higher on yours and that may very well eliminate most of the problems I had...

Rod

 

[hayray]

Now I think of it, I have had these for near 18 years or so I did widen the chute at the base so the bales would slide up easily. But the tops of the chute are broken off on some and it does not seem to make any difference. I bought all 3 of mine at the same time and have no experience with any others. there are some real cheap things on these and I have done a tremendous amount of welding and fabricating on them to beef them up but mine do go down the road way more then these things were designed to. I might add that you do need to use them a while before you learn the benefit of them. Just no way I could see using throwers or accumulators in comparison to speed and savings.

 

[hayray]

My cost average around $.40 per bale labor.

 

[RodinNS]

I'm pretty lost in seeing much benefit to a system that makes me run 2-10 miles with 75 bales at 10 mph, then handle the damn things at least twice. I'm sure they work very well in some situations; just not mine. I haven't used an accumulator and grapple setup yet but in theory it's much closer to where I want to be. I think the accumulators work pretty fast... I was watching a vid that he put on youtube with the 18 bale model and it appeared to me to be chunking out a pretty honest 15 bales per minute though I had no real sense of how fast they could be loaded on wagons. The baling speed was fairly easy to guess because I could count the plunger strokes per bale and the bales per minute... and judging by the HP in front of the baler and row size... I'm sure it was correct.

Rod

 

[NIK O.]

re: the silver white pulling basket...am 68, did it aall by hand, then. am only an older aggie from texas a&m...guys, why not put a simple flat chain, ground driven from the front wheel, makes it a ground drive elevator, outruns baler, no back pressure, little power loss...like a barn bale elevator...be blessed, thankful, prepared. envy u in hay field, luved it. a kneib bale loader hitches on side of bobtail trk or trailer. elevates, still need staker, nik 21 nichols & shepard 25-85 steamer, 4 sale

 

[JayinNY]

How in the world do you unload that thing? Or do you just dump it? As ACG said below, we throw the bales into a rack wagon and unload them by hand, we also can store them under cover if needed.