Round baler advise

[Paul N]

Now that I'm past 50, my back can't take handling 10,000 small square bales per year. I would like to start doing some round baling. I've already decided on a 4x5 size bale, and I have 2 New Holland dealers reasonably close by for parts availability. Now I need to decide on a model & twine or net wrap. A dealer near me has a 2007 BR7060, with both twine & net wrap for $17,800. That's more then I ever planned on spending, but it sounds like a good price for that new of a baler. It has 8900 bales on it. Is that a lot of bales? I've heard both positive & negative comments about net wrap.
I will be baling around 400 bales a year, stored outside in Minnesota, fed to my own cattle, occasionally sell a few, possible custom baling.

 

[RickB]

Net is desirable for hay stored outdoors, especially in your area. At 400 bales per year, that BR7060 should last you a good long time.

 

[DT86]

I agree with Rick.

 

[Tx Jim]

8900 bales on a rd baler should be "just broken in" at least it would be on a JD. I prefer netwrap because one can bale 25% faster all things equal and IMHO net is a lot easier to remove "if the bale can be suspended off the ground" during the removal process.

 

[Paul N]

Tx Jim,

Since your a Texan, you don't have to deal with twine or mesh that's frozen on. I already know how difficult it can be to take off frozen on twine. I'm just wondering how removing frozen on mesh would compare.

 

[RickB]

Tx Jim,

Since your a Texan, you don't have to deal with twine or mesh that's frozen on. I already know how difficult it can be to take off frozen on twine. I'm just wondering how removing frozen on mesh would compare.

I think it is easier. If there is a heavy accumulation of snow or ice, I used to raise the bale up to the loader's full height and drop it. The net remained intact but wasn't frozen fast after that. I consider frozen wraps of twine to be MUCh worse to deal with. Others will surely disagree.

 

[DT86]

I think it is easier. If there is a heavy accumulation of snow or ice, I used to raise the bale up to the loader's full height and drop it. The net remained intact but wasn't frozen fast after that. I consider frozen wraps of twine to be MUCh worse to deal with. Others will surely disagree.

Are you comparing the net to plastic twine? If so yes, net wrap is easier to deal with in the winter. If you're talking about sisal twine then I'd say why bother taking it off.

 

[RickB]

Are you comparing the net to plastic twine? If so yes, net wrap is easier to deal with in the winter. If you're talking about sisal twine then I'd say why bother taking it off.

My comparison is to plastic twine. Not many folks around here use sisal round baler twine. The cost is over double that of plastic, and the bottoms rot almost instantly when the hay is stored outside.

 

[DT86]

... the bottoms rot almost instantly when the hay is stored outside.

That's why I like it. No mess to clean up. I move it at soon as I'm done baling and don't touch it until time to feed.

 

[Jerry/MT]

Now that I'm past 50, my back can't take handling 10,000 small square bales per year. I would like to start doing some round baling. I've already decided on a 4x5 size bale, and I have 2 New Holland dealers reasonably close by for parts availability. Now I need to decide on a model & twine or net wrap. A dealer near me has a 2007 BR7060, with both twine & net wrap for $17,800. That's more then I ever planned on spending, but it sounds like a good price for that new of a baler. It has 8900 bales on it. Is that a lot of bales? I've heard both positive & negative comments about net wrap.
I will be baling around 400 bales a year, stored outside in Minnesota, fed to my own cattle, occasionally sell a few, possible custom baling.

We don't bale our own hay we have it done on a custom basis because we can't jutify the cost of equipment. I do however agree with everyone comments on net wrap vesus twine. Right now I have 35T of twine wrapped bales and I started out the feeding with about the same number of Tons of net wrap.
One thing I leaned (the hard way) using both is that you must lay net wrap bales on the ground in rows to minimze water damage and that means for a given amount of hay, your stack yard needs to be big. Twine wrapped bales, while harder to prepare for feeding (frozen string, etc) compared to net wrapped bales, shed water from the exterior at the widest part of the bale so it can be "T stacked" without the bottom bale being ruined from water intrusion. This because of the roughnes of the bale exterior for a twine wrapped bale. T stacking allows you to store a given number of bales in a smaller area so your stackyard is smaller.
Net wrapped bales allow water to flow around the external circumferance of bale and enter the unwrapped end of the lower bale when T stacked. This becauseo f the surface characteristics of the smooth net wrapped bale.

Our biggest problem with round bales is to get the cutom guy to slow down when he's baling. Our hay guy has been doing our haying for us for the past three years. For the first two years, our bales were nice and firrm and I could open them in the stack yard and drive to the feed ground and not lose any hay. This yea'rs bales fall apart when I unwrap the net. So I have to go out to the feed ground and unwrap the bale there or spend a lot of time cleaning hay off the lanes , etc to pitch over the fence. This defeats the whole purpose of spinning off round bales. I have had three different custom haymakers over the last four years and they all seem to have this problem. I believe the the one I have now will respond positively to my complaints however.The bales weigh the same as in preivious years. I believe this is caused by baling too fast. I don't believe this has anything to do with round balers per se. It's more about taking ones time to get uniformally dense bale.