Round Bale Size - What do people have their set at?

ddivinia · Jul 12, 2009

I have a JD 467 baler. I am running it at 65" bale - JD guy recommended that. These bales are for my consumption. I am thinking maybe I should bump it up.

Comments?

D.

RickB · Jul 13, 2009

Bale size for 'home use' should be decided with the following in mind:

The capacity of the equipment you will be handling the bales with.
How the bales will fit in your storage.
The size of any feeders you have.
Will the animals consume a bale before weather spoils part of a bale?
The convenience of handling fewer larger bales.

It hardly matters what other folks are doing.

ddivinia · Jul 13, 2009

All good points.

I was wondering from how the baler would handle it.

I am going to go weigh a load of bales when I haul these out of the pasture to see how much they really weigh.

Thanks,
D.

chh · Jul 13, 2009

I currently run my monitor on 68" and end up making about a 70" bale with the lag time between the monitor, sensors and me getting stopped. I started out last year on 70" but my baler will not wrap bales if they top 73" and that happened a couple of times in heavy hay. A friend of mine with a new JD467 runs his on 65" like you do per JD's recommendations.
Quite a few of the custom operators here run their 5x6 balers on 60" making a 5x5 instead of a 5x6.

ddivinia · Jul 13, 2009

chh said:
I currently run my monitor on 68" and end up making about a 70" bale with the lag time between the monitor, sensors and me getting stopped. I started out last year on 70" but my baler will not wrap bales if they top 73" and that happened a couple of times in heavy hay. A friend of mine with a new JD467 runs his on 65" like you do per JD's recommendations.
Quite a few of the custom operators here run their 5x6 balers on 60" making a 5x5 instead of a 5x6.

I am running a JD 5525 tractor which is 75hp PTO. I wonder how much bigger a bale it will turn without any headaches. I have not had any problems yet, but I suspect I might be somewhat marginal if I went too much bigger.

D.

JESSE1 · Jul 13, 2009

I make a 5 x 5 1/2 bale with my JD 535 baler. My 85hp JD 6400 doesn't even change sounds from an empty baler to a full bale. The hay is for my own use so I make the rolls almost as big as possible. Less hay to handle, rolls last longer when I feed.

mlauk · Jul 13, 2009

My Vermeer 604K is all manual, but I try to make a 6 foot bale.

lightninboy · Jul 14, 2009

My baler is supposed to be set at maximum to make a 5' wide and 6' diameter bale, but I haven't seen any bales out of it as tall as I am, and I am 6' tall.

ddivinia · Jul 14, 2009

lightninboy said:
My baler is supposed to be set at maximum to make a 5' wide and 6' diameter bale, but I haven't seen any bales out of it as tall as I am, and I am 6' tall.

I measured mine when I first got it and the numbers were pretty close. I am thinking I will bump up the size of my bales to increase how much actual hay I can shove in my storage areas.

D.

chh · Jul 14, 2009

lightninboy said:
My baler is supposed to be set at maximum to make a 5' wide and 6' diameter bale, but I haven't seen any bales out of it as tall as I am, and I am 6' tall.

There can be several reasons for that. The most simple being the pointer or if you have a monitor and electronics that the height setting is out of adjustment. The Vermeer 504 Super I that I had several years ago needed the bale size calibration checked at least every year. Another common problem is if the bales are not tight enough they will squat excessively.