Question concerning getting the right round baler

[Texasmark]

I'm in the same boat. Bought my dad's old place with 10 acres of formerly beautiful jigs grass. He used to have someone square bale it but they didn't take care of it and now I'm trying to get it back into shape. It is tempting for me to look at small square balers because I think if I can get my grass quality back up, it would be better margins. BUT, with a square baler comes the added headache of handling them. You can try to get them sold in the field , but timing on that is always stressful. And stacking and storing that many bales inside isn't an option for me. So I am looking at small round balers that my DK45 (36 PTO) can handle. That way I can stack and store them much easier if I need to and horse people will still buy good quality jiggs grass in round bales.


The issues I am seeing is there are very few small used round balers on the Gulf Coast.

Small Farm Innovations, Caldwell, Tx. Give Phil a call. He delivered for me; didn't buy a baler but bought a 6' drum mower, wheel rake, and spike toothed harrow....there was obviously a delivery charge but it was much cheaper than my trying to go and get it. He makes good on his warranties too. He has a little round baler that ought to suit you to a T. Just what you need for getting hay to horse folks, small time operators with small equipment, and not having to put up with squares.

 

[StuartDK45SE]

Small Farm Innovations, Caldwell, Tx. Give Phil a call. He delivered for me; didn't buy a baler but bought a 6' drum mower, wheel rake, and spike toothed harrow....there was obviously a delivery charge but it was much cheaper than my trying to go and get it. He makes good on his warranties too. He has a little round baler that ought to suit you to a T. Just what you need for getting hay to horse folks, small time operators with small equipment, and not having to put up with squares.

Thanks. They aren't all that far from me (150 miles). I would definitely entertain one of their drum mowers. Any used drum or disc mower I can find for what I want to spend is usually worn out or abused or too heavy for my tractor. I'll check them out.

 

[kthompson]

Might be out of place on this but before I jumped into equipment would try to find out what the market in my area wanted. Here most horse people and some smaller operations want small square. Have friend who bales round and was one who told me to go with square for he always had people trying to find square in good quality. Another friend does my cutting and baling and he also sells out of square bales.

The other night was looking at hay loading think it was on youtube and came across small square bales that were wrapped. Never seen that. Think it may have been Europe.

 

[StuartDK45SE]

Might be out of place on this but before I jumped into equipment would try to find out what the market in my area wanted. Here most horse people and some smaller operations want small square. Have friend who bales round and was one who told me to go with square for he always had people trying to find square in good quality. Another friend does my cutting and baling and he also sells out of square bales.

The other night was looking at hay loading think it was on youtube and came across small square bales that were wrapped. Never seen that. Think it may have been Europe.

I'm not the OP but I WOULD PREFER to do square bales for horses but the handling is just too much with the equipment and manpower (me) that I have. My neighbor has lots of high dollar horses and used to square bale my place, but the last time he baled it, he just round baled it. The horses ate it all up with very little spoilage. So I think I will try to get my grass back in shape, round bale and concentrate on people that have several horses. They usually have the equipment to haul and handle the round bales anyway.

 

[Texasmark]

I'm not the OP but I WOULD PREFER to do square bales for horses but the handling is just too much with the equipment and manpower (me) that I have. My neighbor has lots of high dollar horses and used to square bale my place, but the last time he baled it, he just round baled it. The horses ate it all up with very little spoilage. So I think I will try to get my grass back in shape, round bale and concentrate on people that have several horses. They usually have the equipment to haul and handle the round bales anyway.

The asset here is that the bales are small enough that they can be consumed before they spoil and they are not labor intensive, nor require heavy equipment to handle like large rounds would require.

 

[StuartDK45SE]

The asset here is that the bales are small enough that they can be consumed before they spoil and they are not labor intensive, nor require heavy equipment to handle like large rounds would require.

Man, I don't know. The last time I slung square bales in the summer heat, it seemed pretty labor intensive to me. :laughing: What is everyone's experience with selling square bales in the field? My fear is I would make a deal with someone, they would drag their heels and not show up for a day or two and the bales get rained on and then they say "oh, no thanks, the bales got wet"

 

[kthompson]

Man, I don't know. The last time I slung square bales in the summer heat, it seemed pretty labor intensive to me. :laughing: What is everyone's experience with selling square bales in the field? My fear is I would make a deal with someone, they would drag their heels and not show up for a day or two and the bales get rained on and then they say "oh, no thanks, the bales got wet"

Require payment as they are getting the bales at discounted price before you bale it or you move it to storage with the price to reflect it.

 

[powerscol]

Small Farm Innovations, Caldwell, Tx. Give Phil a call. He delivered for me; didn't buy a baler but bought a 6' drum mower, wheel rake, and spike toothed harrow....there was obviously a delivery charge but it was much cheaper than my trying to go and get it. He makes good on his warranties too. He has a little round baler that ought to suit you to a T. Just what you need for getting hay to horse folks, small time operators with small equipment, and not having to put up with squares.

With 36HP you can run a standard inline baler. I run a Hesston 4550 inline at 6500' elevation with no problem - I have 26.5 HP at the pto. I just control the windrow size . I bale in second gear (hydrostatic) too. If thing get tough I just slow down.

 

[powerscol]

I'm not the OP but I WOULD PREFER to do square bales for horses but the handling is just too much with the equipment and manpower (me) that I have. My neighbor has lots of high dollar horses and used to square bale my place, but the last time he baled it, he just round baled it. The horses ate it all up with very little spoilage. So I think I will try to get my grass back in shape, round bale and concentrate on people that have several horses. They usually have the equipment to haul and handle the round bales anyway.

I got a small hay grapple from these folks Specialty Grabbers | Kuhns Mfg LLC | North Bloomfield, OH I can quickly gather the bales right off the ground. They also have matching accumulators too.

Its rare that I actually need to man handle a bale now. The small sizes makes it easy to stack in the bare too. I also load out to the customers trailer.

 

[Slowpoke Slim]

If I had to do square bales, one of these would be on it's way to me before I planted the first field:

Rocky Mountain Bale Sweep | Home

I want to know where these were when I was a kid, tossing square bales in the AZ desert.

Lol.