thoughts and opinions

bobwny

Member
like a lot of people in the northeast i am having trouble making dry hay.been wet the last two seasons.been thinking about a small bagger? or wrapping.i only feed around 30 head over the winter.already have chopper and wagons so bagger might be lower entry expense,but never been around one.what sould i look out for on a used one? i have a round baler but it won t do wet hay.so to wrap i need baler and wrapper.so what s the best option? thanks for your opinions.
 
I do both , and I find that cows will not take to chopped hay silage as well as they do to wrapped wet bales. I mix the haylage with corn silage and they love it this way. Bags are spendy $$$ and you will need at least 100hp tractor on the bagger. I store all of my chopped feed in trench /pit silos, cement floor, with earth walls. Works well for me. For ease of feeding ,I would go to wet wrapped hay, all you need is a loader tractor and a bale ring. My wet bales are very Heavy, and you need a fairly large tractor to handle them , like a 60hp 4wd.
 
Bruce, thanks for the imput.didn't know it took that much h.p. to run a bagger, even a 6 footer ? i've tried bunking[on dirt]just too much waste and spoilage.my biggest tractor is 70 h.p. nice spreader!
 
I should correct myself, as I said I keep all my chopped feed in trench silos. Last year I had more core than would fit into my pit,so I had a bag made. You can see it in the picture below ,behind the bales , and spreader. This bag is 200 feet long and 10 foot dia. I was told it will hold 360-400 tons of corn silage. Cost me $4000.00 for the bag, the bagger and the 200hp tractor to run it. Also many years ago, before I had the pit silos ,I hired a bagger, and had my CaseIH 5140 tractor on the bagger. The bag was 8 foot, and really gave my tractor a work out. All the best ! Bruce
 
If you want to try it without the big investment they sell individual bags that you put on by hand. I've never used them but I'm told if your careful you can use them for a couple years. For haylage bales, that is
 
I bag corn silage but bagging is too expensive and too hard to feed out for haylage because the ground never freezes in my area and it is a muddy mess to try and self feed with a hot wire. I just pile and pack ryegrass and clover haylage in the spring and cover it like a trench, no more waste than feeding hay in rings and you can control self feeding better by piling on high ground and working the cows around it with panels or hot wire or feed it in bunks with a grapple on your FEL.
 
I'm not sure what your round baler is worth, but selling that could offset the cost of a silage baler, although you'll probably need a hugger to handle them.
I was surprised how much power the baggers take - one of my neighbors has a small one that he runs with a 75hp tractor - it really makes it bark
Pete
 
I would get a good baler and hire someone to wrap the hay. Kid that I hire charges 3 dollars a bale for 4 by 5 footers, I supply the wrap, cost 6 dollars per bale total. I can make hay by myself this way.
 

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