3/4 size balers?

LorenC

Member
Does or did any company make a true 3/4 size square baler? Hard to believe it hasn't been made before with all the people with small properties wanting baled.
 
Have seen videos of small European balers. They sure ate hay for their size. Thinking at least one was an inline. Happy looking.
 
Is that the Abbriatta or Claas maybe? Theyreally don't seem really much smaller than our conventionals, maybe it's just the perception issue with the camera.
 
Of the vintage mainstream manufacturer variety:
a) New Holland 65 compact baler makes a 12"x16"xwhatever length bale compared to the most common size of 14x18xwhatever length bale. Unit was manufactured 1960 to 1965. I use one of these for my hobby hay operation. Most Parts are all same as bigger NH brothers.
b) Ford 520 also has 12x16 bale chamber but parts are impossible to find for one of these.

Many offshore mini-balers made today and available brand new but $15k to buy a lot of these....
 
On some balers you can shorten the bale length by adjusting the length (shortening)of the teeth on the wheel that tracks along the top of the bale and trips the tying mechanism.
 
John Deere made one at one time but may have just been to test the market. We had one at the local dealer and they tried it out on a few places. Not sure of the dimensions of the bale but they were really compact. I don't know that it was ever a full production item.
 
All you guys saying simply make a short bale with a normal size baler: That is always an option to help human manpower lift the bale if that is the only goal. That said it does absolutely nothing to help a tiny/marginal tractor power the baler. Those tractor hp requirements are still the same regardless of what the length is set at on the baler.

The smaller plunger size does greatly reduces the tractor hp requirements and even more so the tractor gyro effect of rocking back and forth that balers are notorious for.

The New Holland 65 will make a bale as short as 14" or as long as 48" or any length in between. That all said it is the 12x16 chamber size compared to usual 14x18 chamber size that is the critical dimension of savings.
 
Those older balers don't take much horsepower. I
have baled with a Farmall M and a 24T baler in past
years. The tractor was more than enough. I'm not
sure they make compact tractors these days that
have a whole lot less motor in them. I think those
old reliable balers are a perfect fit for small
operations. They also don't carry a price tag of tens
of thousands. It's hard to make that pencil out if you
are on a hobby scale.
 
Yep, and, downsizing the outside dimensions of a baler to go with a smaller tractor sure would be easier to maneuver around some
of these small lots a lot of people have. I quit haying several years ago but was getting calls pretty often from people with a
couple to 10 acres parcels needing baled. A small sized operation could do reasonably ok at that IF a couple/several places in the
same area could be arranged. Keep travel short and knock them out as if it was one property.
 
Messacks out east sells the chopped down New Holland baler, it makes less than 3/4 size bales for decorations/ hobby/ barley and flax bales.

Trouble is those bales cost as much or more than a regular bale, it just isn't efficient to try to make a 3/4 size bale.

You can buy an old baler with life in it for $1000 or less, sometimes a lot less. A tractor to run it with live to can be found for $2500 or less.

A 3/4 size baler is going to be new built, and cost $10,000. To use more twine to make small bales that don't fit any normal hay moving stuff. It would be a mess.

Paul
 
To me a small field is 2-3 acres. Even my JD348 can easily get around in those. For folks with smaller hp/compact tractors, I'd say say New Holland 67, 68, 69, 268, 273 type balers would do fine. Unless weight is an issue, I don't see a need for a 3/4 size bale and even that can be accomplished with shortening the bale length. I ran my NH68 on a TO20. I think it is a 25ish hp PTO tractor. Absolutely no problems.
 

Yrs back just for fun I baled hay with a JD BO(14 HP) & JD 214 baler. BO handled baler fine but I was in level field dropping bales on the ground.
 
IH made the 420 baler that made a smaller than standard bale, I can't remember the chamber size but it is smaller than the 14X18 chamber found on most balers. Then it used the 440's knotters with some kind of cable driven feeder setup that wasn't very popular.
 
The only ones with "smaller" dimensions would probably be the center feeds - but I believe what they lose in width they make up for in length.
 
That baler was thought to make a verry rerry compressed bale way tighter than any other baler could make for being able to get a lot of weight in a tiny space for shipping, possibly overseas. Never proved out, was a full size unit but made extra strong to compress what normally would have been 2 bales into half the space of one.
 
Everyone reading this as "did anyone make a baler to make 3/4 size bales", instead of "3/4 size baler". The size of the bale isn't the topic.
 
I bought a Hesston 4550 inline for the reasons you mentioned. It's still nearly 8' wide(60" pickup) a tight squeeze thru some gates and there are people around that want to be cut-raked and baled and I tell them to widden there gates and give me acess. These are mostly 1ac or less and have irrigation riser pipes to go around and it's a real pain. bjr
 
The small bale New Holland 65 was normal size every place but bale chamber being smaller. The Idea was that ladies and men with limited strength could handle the 12"x16"x 30" bale where they could not be able to do that with a 14"x18" x30" bale. They had to keep the rest the same size to get it to handle the width of the winrow in pickup and bale chamber opening and chute had to be same length as it made same length bales. If you shortened the normal bale enough to get that smaller weight bale they would not stack. And the extra cost of the twine used was minimual compaired to not being able to keep their livestock any more from not being able to handle bales to feed them. If I was making and handling hay now I would need that small size bale, could not lift a normal size bale.
 
(quoted from post at 07:15:12 08/04/16) I bought a Hesston 4550 inline for the reasons you mentioned. It's still nearly 8' wide(60" pickup) a tight squeeze thru some gates and there are people around that want to be cut-raked and baled and I tell them to widden there gates and give me acess. These are mostly 1ac or less and have irrigation riser pipes to go around and it's a real pain. bjr

If you can't hardly get an 8' baler thru the gate how are you going to get the hay out, most wagons are as wide as that Hesston baler.

I think the OP was talking about a baler for small sized tractors, a 9n, D-12, H or VAC will handle a NH compact 65 on decent ground.
 
Ones I saw were being pulled by a 4wd garden tractor, probably 20 hp tops. Baler looked half the size of my NH 268. Bales smaller as well.
 
Nope, smaller baler not the bale or tractor. Not very common to use hay specific trailers or wagons here for small hobby
operations. If you're well off a NH stack wagon is the most common.
 
That is fine you are not talking about the bale width and height but it is possible to simply make the bale a little longer and still have the same volume of hay in a bale as a standard 14x18.

The NH 65 has a short 2 joint tongue that does not stick very far behind the tractor or very far to the right side of the tractor either had to move my wheels in on both my farmall h or farmall m to use it. This baler will work best on tractors 6' foot wide or less -not so well on a wider tractor unless you like running over the windrow as you bale.

Weight the NH65 is like 1980 lbs where my Super 68 is 2560 lbs. (basiclally close to a 71% less). All things including the pick-up are smaller on the NH65. Everything is bigger on the super 68 including the 3 joint long tongue to both stick back behind the tractor farther and to stick farther to the right of a wider tractor.

Only other way to get what your asking for is an inline which I do not believe will be 3/4 size of a traditional baler in every facet either.
 

The old JD 116W "Side-winder" could be narrowed up Scarey-Small..about the width of the tractor for road travel, was short, did NOT work back and forth against the transmission and could punch out MAN-Sized bales (Wire!!)..

That is about as small of a Baler that you are going to find..
 

Baler your looking for is made by Abbriata
Made in Italy
Several different models with the smallest one called the M60 Mini
13x17 bale averaging 40lbs
20-25hp tractor
1874lb
66.6 inches wide
155 inches long
53 inches high
42 inch wide pickup
New around $15,000
Don't know if you could find any used ones.
Search the net for Abbriata square balers, lots of info and utube video's of them in operation.
 

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