Round Bale Weights?

[BurningBushFarm]

There are many variables to round bale weights such as type of crop(legume or grass), brand/type of rd baler, moisture content of hay when baled, capability of baler operator. I've seen 4X5 rd bales advertised for sale @ 1500#s that I'd want to witness those supposedly 1500# bales being weighted on a scale. It's difficult to make a 4X5 rd grass bale that will test below 15% moisture that will weigh over 1000#s. I think some of the newer rd balers will make heavier bales than my '05 rd baler.

Replying to Jim and

There are many variables to round bale weights such as type of crop(legume or grass), brand/type of rd baler, moisture content of hay when baled, capability of baler operator. I've seen 4X5 rd bales advertised for sale @ 1500#s that I'd want to witness those supposedly 1500# bales being weighted on a scale. It's difficult to make a 4X5 rd grass bale that will test below 15% moisture that will weigh over 1000#s. I think some of the newer rd balers will make heavier bales than my '05 rd baler.

(Well dang. Ignore the duplicate of TX Jim's post.)

Replying to Jim and xfaxman and all ...

Thanks for the chart xman. Excellent summary. I always assume the weight would be based on the least dense number and had thought it was somewhere 400+ for 4 x 4s. I have horses so have bought a gazillion square bales locally (mountains of NC) over the years and can tell you when I see square bales listed as "60 lbs" I snicker. So I understand the craziness of the "1500 lb" 4x5 bale! I'm a girl and know how much I can comfortably lift. A sold 40 lbs is a good bale around here, many are closer to 30.

I am small peanuts. I bale for myself and do the mini round bales with one of those "European" (Chinese knock off) mini round balers that will work with my small compact tractor. In past years I have been able to even sell some to friends. Tractor issues kept me from baling until the very end of the season so I am looking to buy hay. At this point I am thinking smaller round bales: 4x4 which are hard to find, or 4 x 5 which are harder for me to handle but I can push them off the truck into the hay ring. I just needed an approximate weight so I can calculate how much I am paying based on square and mini prices. Regardless I think we all get how this wonderful economic situation these days ( /s on full) affects us day to day.

Thanks all. (Oh and Tx Jim ... i signed up for the mower list and needed to fix something and could never get an answer from Mo either so you're not the only one ;- ) )

Janice

 

[IndyIan]

I use the rough estimate of ~18 small squares to a 4x5 hardcore round. You could ask what model of baler they use and if its got a hydraulic tensioner and probably the sellers bale weight estimates may become more reasonable!
Before the tractor, we used to buy 4x5 rounds and just peel off what we needed for the day, and used less hay that way. Now I have a elevated round bale feeder so the goats spend all winter pulling bales apart and eating the parts they like... But we never have to buy bedding!
I found I could use a pitch fork to roll around 4x5's, but once they went on their side, I needed the atv with a rope and hook to stand them back up.

 

[5030]

Actually Janice, round bales can be rolled (with most round balers) in any diameter from 4x3 to 4x5 and even bigger depending on the bailer. My new round bailer has a minimum diameter of 3 foot to net. Below that the bale won't pick up the net. Same with density. I prefer soft centered bales because they are easier to handle with the density getting more compressed as the bale grows. You can also get them in 5 foot widths if the baler will run that width.

 

[Lineman North Florida]

To the OP I roll coastal bermuda down here in Florida and my rolls are 4' by 54 - 56" and sometimes my neighbor who sells square bales will run out and will ask me if I will roll out some of my round rolls so he can square bale them to keep the customers he has, almost always he will get 16 square bales out of one of my rolls, I try to roll good dense rolls to sell to people, hopefully this will help you in your figures. Charlie.

 

[Tx Jim]

To the OP I roll coastal bermuda down here in Florida and my rolls are 4' by 54 - 56" and sometimes my neighbor who sells square bales will run out and will ask me if I will roll out some of my round rolls so he can square bale them to keep the customers he has, almost always he will get 16 square bales out of one of my rolls, I try to roll good dense rolls to sell to people, hopefully this will help you in your figures. Charlie.

IMHO your statement is meaningless unless you know the average weight of the sq bales that your neighbor bales.

My neighbor regularly in Winter buys 4X 64'' rd bales from me that he unrolls to sq bale & he rarely makes over 18-20 sq bales per my rd bale & he states his sq bales weight around 50#s each. My baler is a JD 467 that I operate at very close to maximum pressure.

It irritates me to no end to go look at rd bales that are advertised as 4X5(60'') for sale that measure 54''-56'' in diameter. 4 or more inches in diameter missing from a rd bale is several #s of hay that's missing.

 

[Hay Dude]

IMHO your statement is meaningless unless you know the average weight of the sq bales that your neighbor bales.

My neighbor regularly in Winter buys 4X 64'' rd bales from me that he unrolls to sq bale & he rarely makes over 18-20 sq bales per my rd bale & he states his sq bales weight around 50#s each. My baler is a JD 467 that I operate at very close to maximum pressure.

It irritates me to no end to go look at rd bales that are advertised as 4X5(60'') for sale that measure 54''-56'' in diameter. 4 or more inches in diameter missing from a rd bale is several #s of hay that's missing.

I started making 4x5 square bales for feed hay from my Krone square baler this year. Wish I had made more. They are selling well. There doesn’t seem to be any resistance at all from customers going from 4x5 round to 4x5 square. I have a scale on the baler, so I can tweak the density to achieve 500-1,000 lbs.

 

[Lineman North Florida]

IMHO your statement is meaningless unless you know the average weight of the sq bales that your neighbor bales.

My neighbor regularly in Winter buys 4X 64'' rd bales from me that he unrolls to sq bale & he rarely makes over 18-20 sq bales per my rd bale & he states his sq bales weight around 50#s each. My baler is a JD 467 that I operate at very close to maximum pressure.

It irritates me to no end to go look at rd bales that are advertised as 4X5(60'') for sale that measure 54''-56'' in diameter. 4 or more inches in diameter missing from a rd bale is several #s of hay that's missing.

Just consider it a meaningless statement then as I would only be guessing as to the weight of his square bales, and just so it's clear there won't be any reason for anyone to be irritated to no end when they come to buy what I bale as I advertise them as 54-56" rolls just what they are, never want to give anyone the impression that they are 60" rolls.

 

[Tx Jim]

What would be very helpful to this thread is if you weighed some of your 54''-56'' diameter bales.

Several yrs ago I was in a discussion on this forum of how adding rear ballast to 3 pt hitch relieves strain on frt axle and my test weight results shown below. As I determined my 4X5.5 mixed grass bales randomly picked from my hay stack lot varied in weight from 870#s to 1090#s


My M7040 & LA1353 loader with cast rear wheels weighs 7670#s
Kubota M7040 tractor/loader with bale on frt & rear 9630#s
Frt bale weighs 1090#s
rear bale weighs 870#s
Frt axle only on scale with bale on frt and bale on the rear 5380#s
Frt axle only on scale with bale on frt no rd bale on the rear 5990#s

 

[JimRB]

Not necessarily an answer to the question. I move 4x round bales with my JD 870 tractor. Not sure if they are bigger than 5 foot. We generally buy rye grass hay which will be light round bales. Fescue or bermuda is a bit heavier than the rye hay. When handling heavy fescue or bermuda squares I assume I got a bale that is wet.

Fresh from the fields round bales weigh more than the bales that are a few months old.

 

[Texasmark]

Well several months back I got logged out from this forum & my password wouldn't function to log me in. I attempted contacting moderators several times via emails with no success. So I registered under a different handle. After several posts site moderator(Mohammed) contacted me & stated he would combine my post of new & old handle to my old handle so I agreed. It was several post later I noticed the term "new member" but I didn't bother trying to get it changed. It's been several months since this happened. It doesn't bother me that I'm classified as a "new member with 9760 posts".

I had a similar problem with Yesterday's Tractors. Did contact a rep. and they combined my old posts and new posts with the same log-in ID. Really appreciated that. Didn't have to start over after a couple of years of activity.