Re-baling round bales.

[Bubbleboy78]

Hi, I have heard of people rebaling their round bales into square bales if they can find a buyer, and I've also heard that this doesn't necessarily take much in the way of fuel to convert them and often yields a profit if a square bale buyer can be found. I have a few 3 pt spears, a New Holland 311 Hayliner, a Vermeer 504 Super I round baler, and a 3pt bale unroller. Any suggestions or ideas? Thanks.

 

[rockinmywaypa]

advertise and find out what kind of demand there is in your area for small bales and then get to work. If I had a square baler and unroller I think I'd give it a try.

 

[zzvyb6]

There are some videos on YouTube showing this process. Seems like it would take the same amount of energy to perform such an operation as square baling initially. Would help if you had a second tractor to run the baler. Then use the loader to dispatch the rounds to the unloader. Then what? Up an elevator or into a buyer's pickup or trailer? Up into their barn? Seems like it would help with labor. Round bales would still have to be dry, clean, chemical free, and nutricious.

 

[DanD78]

I did this once but not by choice. By brother in law and I bought a round bale to feed the horses. We wanted to get it inside the barn through a 4' door. Because it would not fit we unrolled it across the pasture and by the time we had it to a size that would fit we had half a bale well away from the barn door. At that time the only tractor I had was a JD- B so we finished un rolling the round bail and turned it in to square bales.

I saw a machine in the Farm Show paper that would unroll round bales right in front of a baler. You might search their web site.

Dan

 

[jdbnh]

i have some customers who do this and make a killing. they buy 5x6 round bales saw for 60 to 70 a roll, unroll them and can usually get about 20 to 25 squares out of them, and sale the sqaures for anywhere from $5 to $10 a square. you can at least get $35 to maybe $70 in profit. not a bad idea

 

[Briana03]

I moved your thread to the new Haying forum!

 

[AGRIMAN]

It starter around here back in 80's with wheat straw. It's a lot faster and easier to roll the straw in order to get it out of the field quickly. Back then, we unrolled bales down hill with the front of the tractor.

The first custom machine was made from a salvaged peanut inverter tied to a baler.

 

[plowindeeper]

I have a friend who does this. Cuts, rakes and rolls his hay with a round baler in summer. Places hay in a metal building(old warehouse).
As orders come in fall/winter he has at the other end of the building a tractor with a hyd. unroller on the loader. Unrolls on a 8 FT conveyor Square baler hooked to a JD power unit that runs his irrigation pumps in summer. At the end of square baler is a 4 ft conveyor that goes to the loading dock.He will put the bales in the barn for you or you can pick them up. His hay comes with a piece of paper from the state telling you what you are getting. A+ quality hay. He manages his hay to be horse hay. Has a list of people that buy hay only from him cause they know what there getting.