40 acres of hay. What should I do?

[barticus73]

Anyone have an estimate of what one of the smaller size Hesston square balers sells for new?

 

[MFMan]

List is around $15,500 (MSRP) for the MF 1835 (14"X18") in- line baler, which is made in the Hesston plant.

Here is the page for the baler and the specs. are at the bottom.

http://www.masseyferguson.agcocorp.com//default.cfm?pid=1.7.49

 

[cowboydoc]

$15,500, even list price, is very high for a square baler. That's even higher than the JD 328 baler. I bought mine new two years ago and only paid $10,800 for it.

 

[Egon]

Small acreage and hay and expensive equipment and small bales that are very labour intensive.

With a small tractor and loader and grapple forks an easy way to keep hay could be adapted from the picture.

Egon

 

[rambler]

Small size does not mean a small price on new equipment. There are 100's of small square used balers out there that will bale 30-40 acres a year for $1000 in good shape, and a utility tractor to pull it goes $5000 - can go much cheaper than that, but I'm thinking good sound ready to go used stuff. Use the CUT for raking & such.

--->Paul

 

[MFMan]

$15,500 is LIST , not what you would buy it for. When was the last time you paid list for anything?

 

[Robert_in_NY]

Cowboydoc acknowledged the fact it was list price if you re read his post. His point was even at list price, it is too high. On these items you will not get the price down much more then $1k below list so you are still looking at $14k for this baler when you can get a JD or NH for around $2-3k less. That money would buy you another implement you would need for haying like a mower, tedder or a rake. I have seen the ads for the inlines but I do not see where they are worth that much more then the standard baler that has been used for ages. Its a preference thing I guess. Some people will buy into it and pay more while others will not see it being as valuable as Agco thinks it is. Around my area and north of me there are no small inline balers here that I have seen. The big farms that bale smalls for sale use NH's or JD's, NH is king around me and gets a lot more in resale then the JD's. You can find used JD's on dealers lots but the NH's don't last long on a lot here. Having said that I would like to see a Hesston in line here some day as it would be nice to see how it performed along side a NH or JD.

 

[Woodbeef]

There are a few of the bee-line balers around here. Mainly the guys that ship the race-horse hay to the States use them.

 

[MFMan]

I guess I don't understand the comment that " even at list price, it is too high ", when list price (MSRP) would be the highest price you would normally pay.

Just some other list price comparisons of units you mention:
- MF1835 (92 strokes per minute) $15,570 (w/ bale chute)
- JD338 (80 strokes per minute) $15,866 (w/ bale chute)
- NH570 (93 strokes per minute) $15,604 (w/ bale chute)

As you can see, models of similar specification share similar pricing and not the desparity that one might think.

Performance on the in line baler is very good simply by it's design. The most valuable part of most hay crops (legumes in particular) is the leaves. The less movement the crop makes as it goes into the bale chamber, the better, as far as leaf retention is concerned. With a conventional baler, the crop must change directions 2 times before getting into the chamber, thus increasing the chance for damage.

Along with less changes in direction, the throughput of crop is higher and your ground speed should also be greater with the in line design. You also don't have to change from field to road settings on the tongue like you would with conventional units.

The in line design also produces squarer bales with less chance of "banana shaped" bales due to the design that allows a bale flake to be pre-formed before going into the chamber. In fact, when you cut the twines on the bales out of a MF1835, the flakes fall apart like books. All seperate, with leaf distribution throughout the flake. Very convenient for feeding to animals.

All of the square balers on the market are good, the in line just has some distinct advantages.

 

[Robert_in_NY]

I know all the advantages of the inline as well but it does have some disadvantages. If you have a heavy crop (like we do here this year), you can not combine the windrows because the tractor would be hitting them as it straddles. A conventional would not have this problem as the tractor would sit outside the row. Another thing is handling the bales, the inline puts the cut, jagged edges of the bale up and down where the strings are so if you handle the bale with bare hands you will know it.

Are there quite a few inlines in your area? If so what is the price you can buy it for (not list as that is meaning less). Our MF dealer does not have any balers on his lot nor have I ever seen one there. The only MF balers here are the older conventionals you will find show up from time to time on the used lots. I am not saying the inlines are bad balers just that they are not popular here. It could be lack of dealer support or it could be the fact the farmers are very happy with their current NH and JD balers as we have quite a few JD dealers to get parts and a very good NH dealer with a couple other NH dealerships spread about the county.