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I've had very good success selling a lot of hay out of the tubes to a small number of customers. As far as longivity. The face bale will dry out when its exposed to air. November thru March here I havent noticed any quality loss or spoilage in even the first bale. By the time the first of April comes around that end bale needs to go about every 3 days or its going to mold. The way I normally do it is the customer drops off a wagon and I load it, he picks it up and drops off another. If I know he's feeding a bale a day and I put 7 on a wagon I'll load him 1-2 days before pickup (got 3 people who do this). These bales will keep good for a week in cold weather, I wouldnt want to go any longer than two weeks with both surfaces exposed. I could easily move 1400 a year(I have standing orders for that and I cant fill them), more if I knocked the price some but I normally sell wrapped hay at a premium over barn stored dry hay. Summer is harder, in a week 7 bales with both sides exposed will get funky in about 3 days. One guy that buys a lot and is close, we wrap his at his place, he signs the ticket and then pays me over the next 10 months equal payments for that tube. He takes all I've got of cuttings 2-5/6 (if I get it) off of 60 acres that joins his place. Then there are a couple of mennonites who buy 1 roll each, once or twice a week of wrapped hay, delivered. Singles to me took too much room to store, cost way too much in plastic, slow to wrap, and what I felt were unaceptable spoilage loss. 4 wraps on the sides of them takes more plastic (since that puts about 25 wraps on the ends) than 6 wraps on the inlines.
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