Best Hay Method

[ozzie tractor]

Does anyone have one of those really larger square balers and what do you think of it. I think the bales are 4' by 8' maybe 2000 lbs.

i just finished a job driving a MF187 3'x4'x8'. i wasn't super impressed with it really. having to adjust the chains and oil them every 600 bales is a pain. as well as lubricating the knotters every 250. i guess i have been spoil with my krone VP1500 round baler. it has auto chain oiler (you just have to keep the tank full) and all the chains have spring loaded tensioner. the 187 was brand new and i have driven a 190 before. nothing changed and they still work ok but i wasn't stunned by the performance or anything. the one thing i did notice is the harder you drove it the better it went, but this is hard to do on really rough ground. my they suck hp when you start shoveling it into them though (60 bales/ hr and over). i had a valtra 170hp and it really wasn't enough some times.

 

[Hay Pirate]

Using the large square bales probably won't be the answer for us.
The Bale Bandit looked cool but judging by the break downs and our location, its not practical.

We are looking to get a gooseneck. My Dad really wants to get a International MXT (somehow) and put a gooseneck on that for the horse trailer and a flat bed. Truck strap the hay down, go and unload. Still we're touching the hay will need people to stack it.

An "accumulator" would help a little. It would help us stack trucks easier because we won't have to follow around the bale line, just go to the deposits.

The problem with the NH Stacker is making the new barn and then buying the stacker on top of that.

Here's what we have as equipment, maybe it will help you visualize the size:
1 5520 John Deere (Cab)
1 4320 John Deere (E-Hydro, No Cab)
1 1600 Oliver (No ROPS, temporarily out of commission)

256 Rolabar NH Rake
328 JD Baler
525 John Deere Rotary Mower (MoCo)

1 Hay Wagon that fits 240 stacked bales.
1 Hay Wagon that dog tracks down the road and has one flat tire as of now, can't fit as many.
(Both have side walls, I guess they're "kicker" wagons).

We have a total of three barns, one you can drive into with a truck and unload, its tight though. The other 2 barns you gotta throw up to.
Then we have a mulch hay barn, a barn with nothing but the hay you can't feed. We sell that for contractors and construction.

Maybe this will help to show the scale of our farm. We need a lot with little.

 

[Grrrr]

Using the large square bales probably won't be the answer for us.
The Bale Bandit looked cool but judging by the break downs and our location, its not practical.

We are looking to get a gooseneck. My Dad really wants to get a International MXT (somehow) and put a gooseneck on that for the horse trailer and a flat bed. Truck strap the hay down, go and unload. Still we're touching the hay will need people to stack it.

An "accumulator" would help a little. It would help us stack trucks easier because we won't have to follow around the bale line, just go to the deposits.

The problem with the NH Stacker is making the new barn and then buying the stacker on top of that.

Here's what we have as equipment, maybe it will help you visualize the size:
1 5520 John Deere (Cab)
1 4320 John Deere (E-Hydro, No Cab)
1 1600 Oliver (No ROPS, temporarily out of commission)

256 Rolabar NH Rake
328 JD Baler
525 John Deere Rotary Mower (MoCo)

1 Hay Wagon that fits 240 stacked bales.
1 Hay Wagon that dog tracks down the road and has one flat tire as of now, can't fit as many.
(Both have side walls, I guess they're "kicker" wagons).

We have a total of three barns, one you can drive into with a truck and unload, its tight though. The other 2 barns you gotta throw up to.
Then we have a mulch hay barn, a barn with nothing but the hay you can't feed. We sell that for contractors and construction.

Maybe this will help to show the scale of our farm. We need a lot with little.

Do any of the tractors have loaders. If they did, you could at least automate the field stacking of bales onto the trailers and then let hands stack it in the barn. You can get an accumulator and grab quite cheaply.

 

[Robert_in_NY]

If you honestly want to put up 30k bales a year I think you need to update your equipment or barn. One decent size barn will replace the other three barns. To go with an accumulater you will need a few wagons or a couple large trailers with the drivers running non stop as well as a loader tractor and truck running around the field to each drop. If you start driving the tractor all over the field and back to the truck you will take a lot of time as well as having the truck driver sitting there getting paid to do nothing.

My best advice, figure out how much hay you want to put up in a day and figure out how much money you will need to invest to keep your current barns working. By that I mean, how much are you paying for labor, you will need to buy an accumulator and at least one set of grabs (hopefully you already have a good size loader tractor to handle a set of grabs). You will need to upgrade your wagons and trailers depending on how you want to haul.

If you go with a stack wagon (you can get nice used units for around $25-$35k) then all you need to do is put up one new barn and you are done with it. Only two people working on baling day (no messing around looking for help or having people not show up). You don't have as much equipment to maintain and you can easily put 2500-3000 bales up per day with just the stack wagon following the baler maybe more depending on how close you are to the barn and how long you can bale that day.

To me the biggest thing in this is the amount of labor and equipment needed between the accumulator vs the stack wagon. Depending on how nice your other barns are you might be able to use them for storage also. My buddy uses his large barn to store his equipment and charges others to store their large equipment inside like planters, campers, semis and combines. The added storage fees will help offset the new barn as well as the money saved from not having all the manual labor. I am not sure about your operation but I wouldn't think it would take long to pay off that new barn just in labor savings.

Crunch the numbers and do some more research between these two setups and see how it works out.

 

[Z-Michigan]

We're using the hay for horses. We got over 120 of them, most of them not ours. So the hay needs to be good and dry and plenty. The boarders complain if they see a single harmless weed in the hay.

Is the reason you don't want large squares or round bales simply the cost of equipment to bale them? As long as the hay is stored inside the quality should be just the same as if it's baled in small squares, and it sounds like you are taking the hay off your own hayfields.

I just can't imagine dealing with the number of small square bales that you're talking about. We have gone to round bales for our 1 horse (yes, 1!). They get stored inside the day of baling and will be flaked off for appropriate feeding amounts, to avoid bale wastage. But with 120 horses I would imagine you could toss 8-10 round bales out in paddocks daily and not have any left the next day.

 

[Hay Pirate]

If you honestly want to put up 30k bales a year I think you need to update your equipment or barn. One decent size barn will replace the other three barns. To go with an accumulater you will need a few wagons or a couple large trailers with the drivers running non stop as well as a loader tractor and truck running around the field to each drop. If you start driving the tractor all over the field and back to the truck you will take a lot of time as well as having the truck driver sitting there getting paid to do nothing.

My best advice, figure out how much hay you want to put up in a day and figure out how much money you will need to invest to keep your current barns working. By that I mean, how much are you paying for labor, you will need to buy an accumulator and at least one set of grabs (hopefully you already have a good size loader tractor to handle a set of grabs). You will need to upgrade your wagons and trailers depending on how you want to haul.

If you go with a stack wagon (you can get nice used units for around $25-$35k) then all you need to do is put up one new barn and you are done with it. Only two people working on baling day (no messing around looking for help or having people not show up). You don't have as much equipment to maintain and you can easily put 2500-3000 bales up per day with just the stack wagon following the baler maybe more depending on how close you are to the barn and how long you can bale that day.

To me the biggest thing in this is the amount of labor and equipment needed between the accumulator vs the stack wagon. Depending on how nice your other barns are you might be able to use them for storage also. My buddy uses his large barn to store his equipment and charges others to store their large equipment inside like planters, campers, semis and combines. The added storage fees will help offset the new barn as well as the money saved from not having all the manual labor. I am not sure about your operation but I wouldn't think it would take long to pay off that new barn just in labor savings.

Crunch the numbers and do some more research between these two setups and see how it works out.

Ah, I don't want to use large square bales or round square bales because then we gotta buy a whole new baler. Might as well just stick with what we got, its the easiest to feed and regulate for all the horses.

You're right, the lack of labor costs would pay off the new barn. If any new method, I'm going to try to go with the stacker wagons. I'm going to research the costs ask some dealers and then if its worth it, start building a 30k bale barn hopefully with room to fit the equipment in the winter as well. I'm thinking something like a run-in shed with big doors.
Can you stack on top of the other bales with that stack wagon, or it has to be all on the ground?
It'd be perfect if the stack wagons tied the bales up like that bale bandit did, that way I could just fork the stack and put them up high.

Or I could go with the traditional Orange County, NY way and go with a Kicker and a bunch of wagons and an elevator, but still we would need people to stack the hay, not as much because we're not picking it up at all.

I definitely want to change our method though. Its not working and its definitely not going to work when I can't put as much time into the fields next year.

 

[Robert_in_NY]

You can use a set of grabs to remove an entire layer from the NH stack wagon at one time and take it to where you want it. You can also use the grab to stack on top of the load after it has been dropped to fill in some more ceiling height if needed. The biggest thing here is the self propelled NH stack wagons will hold around 160 bales at a time so you really don't want them all tied together. But as I said, if eventually you did want to move a large amount at one time a set of grabs would work with the stack wagon.

Roeder Implement, usually has a good selection of bale wagons both pull type and self propelled but it doesn't look like they have a lot of self propelled units in right now. Give them a call and see if they have anything coming in as they will save you a ton of money compared to new and they have a great reputation.

 

[farmerjim]

if you need labor to stack/unload at the barn gather up some of your boarders and get them to help that way they get to know what goes into making hay and all the work involved. you could even give them a break on the months board for some help.

 

[Hay Pirate]

if you need labor to stack/unload at the barn gather up some of your boarders and get them to help that way they get to know what goes into making hay and all the work involved. you could even give them a break on the months board for some help.

You're kidding right?

Robert,
I checked out that site, pretty helpful, way cheap! I emailed them and asked them a bunch of questions retaining to the wagons, I'll let you know how it goes, those things sure do look like the answer. Would look snazzy in our Hay Equipment 4th Display that we do over here.

The deciding factor is defintely speed. We need to go on the road, and fast. Faster than a tractor. And just how fast we can pick them bales up. So, we'll see.
Making the barn shouldn't be too bad, considering it costs just as much money to buy 30k bales as to build a new NH Stack Wagon Compliant barn.

 

[Robert_in_NY]

I know what you mean about using the boarders for help. One of my customers has a small operation and boards 17 horses. He use to do his own hay but relied on his boarders to help with the labor. It got to be such a headache trying to get them lined up and willing to help he just sold his equipment and started buying his hay. Most of the people boarding horses don't want to do the hard labor. They are paying good money to keep their horse there and they expect the hay (if provided by their rates) to be taken care of by the person cashing their check. I have no problem with this as you wouldn't expect the mechanic fixing your car to have you crawl underneath and change the oil as he works on the spark plugs

Also, I would think if you relied on your boarders to help with 30k bales you would lose some boarders. But then you wouldn't need 30k bales

I have never ran a stack wagon personally but I have some friends up north that have two self propelled stack wagons that follow 5 balers and keep up just fine as the balers needs to maintain a constant speed to make consistent bales while the baler can speed up to each bale and slow down just long enough for it to go into the chute then off to the next while the machine moves the bale around.

 

[Grrrr]

I know what you mean about using the boarders for help. One of my customers has a small operation and boards 17 horses. He use to do his own hay but relied on his boarders to help with the labor. It got to be such a headache trying to get them lined up and willing to help he just sold his equipment and started buying his hay. Most of the people boarding horses don't want to do the hard labor. They are paying good money to keep their horse there and they expect the hay (if provided by their rates) to be taken care of by the person cashing their check. I have no problem with this as you wouldn't expect the mechanic fixing your car to have you crawl underneath and change the oil as he works on the spark plugs

Also, I would think if you relied on your boarders to help with 30k bales you would lose some boarders. But then you wouldn't need 30k bales

I have never ran a stack wagon personally but I have some friends up north that have two self propelled stack wagons that follow 5 balers and keep up just fine as the balers needs to maintain a constant speed to make consistent bales while the baler can speed up to each bale and slow down just long enough for it to go into the chute then off to the next while the machine moves the bale around.

With five balers and two stack wagons you would be able to clear a lot of hay of a field fast

It would be pretty impressive to see five balers going next to each other.

 

[Robert_in_NY]

They don't usually have all 5 in the same field. They are usually split between straw and hay fields. This farm is over 9000 acres and do row crops, hay/straw, dairy and a few other things. I use to have a picture with three of the balers in the field but I can't find it.

 

[slowzuki]

We often double with the neighbours putting 2 balers in a field. Dropping on the ground, boy does that ever make a mess of work in a hurry.

 

[idaho04]

I hay about 1,500 small square bales a year. I use a flatbed trailer behind my truck or tractor and hand stack 120 bales on it. My wife drives the truck. Works for me, save money on excersize gym.

 

[Robert_in_NY]

But how would your back feel after 30,000 bales. The size of the operation dictates the best way to do things. I am use to my thrower but one day I just dropped 60 bales on the ground instead of bringing a wagon all the way back. Then picked them up and stacked them by hand. Yes, I can do it but there is no way I would want to do 10k bales that way let alone 30k

 

[wolc123]

When I was a kid we would draw it in loose, picking it up with an old sheet-metal, ground-driven loader. We unloaded the wagons with big sets of forks on tracks in the barns. At chore time, it was nice to just get up in the mow and pitch down as much as you needed without messing with twine. The loader was very dependable, and even if it broke, we could always fix it quick. I hated the little square bales when we used them, but things improved a bit with the big round ones. Don't do hay anymore, but the old way was definitely my favorite.

 

[Hay Pirate]

But how would your back feel after 30,000 bales. The size of the operation dictates the best way to do things. I am use to my thrower but one day I just dropped 60 bales on the ground instead of bringing a wagon all the way back. Then picked them up and stacked them by hand. Yes, I can do it but there is no way I would want to do 10k bales that way let alone 30k

Well, I'm a little younger than you I presume, me being 17. I could lift these 30k bales, but just me doing it would take a long time. Getting people to help? That's like trying to find a needle in the needed 30k hay!

"Aww, no man, I can't I woke up late and didn't get your message now I'm out already, sorry next time!". Man I wish I could come into work when I wanted to.

 

[Robert_in_NY]

You are just a little bit younger. I am 29 but there is no way I would want to handle 30k bales. Heck, I try to hire extra help just so my guys don't have to work as hard unloading the kicker racks. Of course, the more help, the more people there are to complain about how hard the work is

 

[FL4400]

We have a NH Stack wagon on our farm and that is the only way to go for a big hay operation. We bale close to 120,000 bales a year. We can average about 2,880 to 3,040 bales a day with the stack wagon. This is with 2 balers running all day and the the stack wagon starting right behind them.

Skeeter Ranch Hay Farm

 

[Hay Pirate]

I see you run hay equipment with the FEL on too. I've always doubted myself for leaving the FEL on, but I guess I'm not the only one.

which stack wagon do you have? How fast does it go?