looking for a round baler, need advice.

[WTA]

I'm looking for a used round baler to expand my custom baling services a bit. I've worked on tons of geihls but that is the only brand I have experience with at all. I want another brand I think.

I have never used a round baler and have very little idea of what to look for in one. Should it have an in cab display or not? Fully automatic or is it too much of a hassle in a used one?
If I get a manual machine will I be wishing for the automatic one?

I prefer a baler with net wrap but have never used it before. Everything I bale is for horses or sold to horse owners and quality is my biggest concern. Right now I am doing a couple thousand small squares a month with my hesston 4570 and it's a great baler but my old stack machine almost never gets through a day without breaking something and I'm getting too old to pick up that many by hand anymore. Plus the round bales will sure make life easier for me if a crop does get rained on. I have everything I need to get it dry but in a square bale after it's been rained on you can really see the difference. Not so much in a round bale. I still tell people if the hay has been rained on though before selling it.

So what should I look for in a baler for horse folk? Any tips?

 

[chh]

Personally I would not buy a baler that did not have net. The net is expensive, but done properly the hay keeps better and there is not as much loss while moving bales. On my baler there is a 1 minute difference between net and twine in the wrapping sequence. In the course of a day 1 minute a bale really ads up. Many custom balers charge less for twine than net, I do not. My time and the extra wear on equipment, I think, offset any savings I get from using the twine.
I only do round bales, what little I sell as "horse" hay generally is done is smaller bales than I do otherwise. Most of the horse owners I sell to do not have equipment to move hay so it is loaded in a p/u bed and rolled out when they get home. My standard bale is 4x6 and I do the better quality hay in 4x5's. I am not sure 4x4's would not make them happier.
I currently am running a MF 2746A baler, it is the full auto model. Basically I just drive and stop when the monitor beeps at me to. Of the 4 different balers I have owned over the years, so far it is my favorite. The baler I ran(a partners machine) before this was a JD 566. It was a good solid dependable baler. The last one I owned before that was a Vermeer 504 Super I and it was a good baler. The only problem I ever had with it was in the electronics, but the electronics seem to have gotten better in the last 15 years, IMO. The in cab monitors with shape sensors take a lot of the judgement and guesswork out of making a good square shouldered tight bale.

 

[Grrrr]

I'd echo what chh said.

Find a nice straight baler, without lots of rust etc on it, make sure it looks like it's been well maintained.

Your budget will probably dictate whether you can get one with a monitor or not.

A monitor / computer in the cab makes it so much easier to use, like chh said, you just have to drive, look at the monitor to see which side needs extra hay, wait for it to beep, drive a bit more, wait for a solid beep, drive another 5 yards, lift pickup and shift to reverse and back away 10 feet to line up the bale ejection, it'll have started it's wrapping cycle, and then when it beeps again you pull the spool valve to dump the bale then close it again, drop the pickup and your on your way.

With a manual you are a lot more involved with the process I should imagine it would get very tiring after a long day.

 

[RickB]

You have gotten good advise here. My comment is specifically related to Gehl. While they used to make good equipment, they are out of the hay and forage tools business and a majority of the company has been sold outside of the Gehl family. There is no telling how long there will be parts support for Gehl hay tools, and no good reason to buy Gehl if you don't already own it.

 

[Dill]

I have a Krone KR 125 which is a 4x4 bale. In this area I can sell 4x4s to people with very small "farms" or horses that don't have tractors. Becuase the bale can be pushed around by 2 people. We bought the krone last year brand new did 500 bales and it handled everything we threw at it, silage, heavy roped windrows, light to heavy hay, and its the easiest round baler I've used to start a bale. The only options I wish I had got would have been net and a wide pickup.