Vicon (now Kubota) Pendulum Spreaders

[5030]

It wasn't directed at you and I wasn't referring to running a small square baler. I try not to read or react to anything you post and I sure don't need schooling on small square balers. I spent half my life running them and much of the other half keeping them running properly for others.

FYI the slower PTO standard is 540 RPM, not 640.

I stand corrected on that. Far as your experience, I only know what I read on here, Don't know you from mud and don't want to actually.

 

[Hay Dude]

I disagree. Not dying at all. In fact' I could sell every small square I used to make. I don't want to. Too labor intensive, hard to store and then the getting paid an equitable amount is the deciding factor for me.

Horsey people will always use small squares because they lack not only the ability to handle rounds (equipment and infrastructure) to deal with rounds and besides rounds are wasteful for a horse owner so there will always be a market for small squares. Not going away so long as horsey people exist.

I don't know of one horsey owner around here that uses or wants round bales. They all want small squares, they all want premium hay and none of them want to pay for it either.

I got out of it because the grief factor outweighs any benefit.

The stuff you bale (mostly grass) isn't what they want anyway. Cattle don't care, horsey people do.

It’s all but dead here.
I’m not talking about demand, demand is high for them, but nobody wants to make them anymore on a large scale.

Only small time guys making small bales HERE, and I live in one of the biggest horse racing/breeding areas in the country.

My horse owning round bale buyers have switched to hay huts and couldn’t be happier. I have personally switched 3 buyers over to hay huts and none have gone back to small squares.
Another popular bale is the lightweight (600lb) 3x3 bale. They get a few on their truck or small baler and pull off one flake at a time for stall feeding, and put the others or partial 3x3 in a feeder.

 

[5030]

Not here, but again, I don't want to make them from the manual labor standpoint.

 

[Hay Dude]

We are still baling a few thousand off the wagon and thrower concept circa 1975 NH small baler and we aren’t investing in any new small square equipment. I’m not in any way disparaging small squares, but some of the local clowns that make them in MY area and sell them for $3-$4 per bale out of the field for beer money give us little motivation to make them anymore.
The few guys left that make them circa 2021 modern farm machinery are now at $8-$10/bale and still at the local coffee shops crying in their eggs they ain’t making enough.
The heck with that.
Only people winning there are the rich horse people that take advantage of them.
This generation of farmers is not being replaced at a rapid enough pace to keep hay coming. You just wait & see. Hay will be much more expensive because these crazy high fuel prices drive hay input costs UP, and no younger people want anything to do with 120* barns and spiders crawling on em.

 

[bunchgrass]

Market here will support plenty of small square bales. Most hobby farmers are doing rounds due to no storage or labor to deal with small squares. The guys making money are making large squares for export to Asia.

 

[Hay Dude]

Market here will support plenty of small square bales. Most hobby farmers are doing rounds due to no storage or labor to deal with small squares. The guys making money are making large squares for export to Asia.

Pretty true hereabouts, too with us small pion farmers barely scraping by on our tiny eastern US farms. No kids want to work anymore and hay barns being taken out of circulation pretty fast.
Asia is where the action and the money is at, thats for sure!
This country looks like a hospital patient with a grave prognosis.

 

[5030]

Pretty true hereabouts, too with us small pion farmers barely scraping by on our tiny eastern US farms. No kids want to work anymore and hay barns being taken out of circulation pretty fast.
Asia is where the action and the money is at, thats for sure!
This country looks like a hospital patient with a grave prognosis.

That covers it nicely.