ROUND BALER QUESTION

[Anonymous-0]

I FOUND A DUETZ-ALLIS GP2.50 ROUND BALER ON CRAIGS LIST.IT IS A COMPRESSION TYPE BALER WITH ROLLERS INSTEAD OF BELTS. DOES ANYONE HAVE EXPERIENCE WITH THESE? DO THEY WORK GOOD? HOW MUCH HORSEPOWER DO THEY REQUIRE? THANKS,MARK

 

[RodinNS]

Not familiar with that baler but I've put a lot of bales through a Claas Rollant.
They want power. 4x4 will work on 60 but wants 70-80.
They work fine if you don't mind a soft core bale. I've never found that to be a problem.
Above all else they're a silage baler...

Rod

 

[Anonymous-0]

I've got a Gehl 1310, simular design. Easy to bale with. I use it for balage, but it is built a little on the light side compared to a Claas. Not sure how the Deutz compares.
Now I'm going to hjack the thread here. This question is directed to Rod. I was curious what your opinion was of the Krone balers (chain type ,fixed chamber) for silage use compared to the Claas? I might upgrade my baler sometime.

 

[RodinNS]

I've never worked with the Krone's. I do know one guy that has one and he gets along with it OK as far as I know.
It's one of those things... he bought it at an auction. Cheap. He did a bit of work on it... but it fit his budget because he wasn't doing a lot of hay. Far as I know it makes a decent enough bale. I think it bales silage tho he doesn't...
ON that basis they're ok.
Personally I'd not really want one. You've got all the moving parts that go clank and bang like the old NH chainers without the ability to make a real fancy looking bale. I'd be hard to convince that it has the durability of the Claas and certainly not the capacity... but it might fit if you buy it right.
Myself... for baling silage, I can't see using anything but a Claas rollant. Belt balers just simply were not made to bale silage and no matter how much lipstick they try to put on that pig... well you know, it's still a pig.
As you know, baling silage is not about what they can do on the good day when the sun is shining. It's what tehy can do on the bad day, after the shower... before the thunderstorm. Claas will handle it. Mabey not the tightest, prettiest looking hay bale, but I think there's more optics that substance to that argument. We always found that our hay bales compared pretty well to anything else.

Rod

 

[Nancy Howell]

We have two Krones, a 260 and a 125. We bought both used. The 260 makes 5x4 rounds, the 125 makes 4x4 rounds. Prior owner was real hard on the 125, its on the rough side. Both balers work well. Make nice bales. See some of James' posts on Tractor Talk. He's posted pics of the balers. We use a JD 70 to run either baler.

We baled bahaia last w/e and there should be a post on last Mon or Tues on Tractor Talk with pictures of the 125 and some of the bales. If you do a search under James Howell, you should be able to pull up an old post with pics of the 260.

Both balers had tying problems, but both were the result of dull knives. The 260 had a problem with one of the string dogs that moves the string back and forth across the baler. Found that a take up pulley for one of the chain drives had slipped and caused the drive on the dog to bind. Once we got the pulley back in place, no problems. Took less than an hour to find the problem and fix it.

Balers are easy to work on, when needed. A 13mm and a 15mm wrench will fit 90% of the nuts/bolts. You can download operator's manual and repair/maintenance manuals from the Krone website.

 

[Anonymous-0]

Thank you both for the information.