 Flail choppers are only used for green feed around here. That and maybe chopping corn stalks for bedding. Like the others said. Direct cutting or chopping too early after mowing with your choice of mower, it'll be too green and won't make any kind of edible feed. Another thing with chopping any ind of hay, is that it's a PITA to dig out. We put some in a bag this year instead of the silo and we have yet to see how hard it really is to dig out with a loader, but it's still gonna be a bunch harder than digging out corn silage from the same bag. Baggers work great, but you either gotta have a big enough tractor to run it, or rent another one. An 8' bagger is supposed to take about 80 HP minumum, and if it's got a questionable PTO it'll get torn up fast. A 10' bagger needs a minumum of 100 HP. We have to rent a tractor to run the bagger because we've only got 1 100+ hp tractor and it's on the chopper. Our 285 could probably handle an 8' bagger, but we don't trust the PTO for that severe of duty. It costs us around $800 to rent the 10' unit w/ a 150' bag, and around $1000 for the 10' with a 200' bag. Plus the tractor rental (6 hours on it filling a 150' bag at $20/hour, plus fuel, for a total of around $225) so to fill a 10'x150' bag costs us a little over $1000. Then you gotta factor in the fuel on the other 2 tractors (running the chopper and pulling the wagons) and if you need to rent or borrow another wagon or 2 for about $100/each/day for an 18' wagon. Several dealers rent anything and everything around here, including manure spreaders and forage boxes. Either way, you will need to be able to feed out 1 ft/day in the winter, or 2 ft/day in the summer to keep it from really going bad too fast. We can barely keep up in the winter, and we try to be done with the bag by early May. We've never tried a pit or drive over pile but it'd get so big on us(if not wide or tall then long)and we'd have so much waste doing it that way that it really wouldn't be a good way to go. If you do chop any kind of grass or hay, the shorter the better(goes for any type of forage really). If it gets to long, it's almost impossible to try and feed it out without a facer for your loader or a silo unloader. We chopped off a 1/2 load of volunteer oats from a field of new seeding 2 weekends ago, and the chopper wasn't set up quite right anymore after running about 35-40 acres of hay through it then another 30-35 of corn through it without adjustment. Good thing was we kept it in the wagon and just fed out of that for a few days so we didn't have to try and pitch it. Woulda been a nightmare. Overall, bags are great but you gotta be able to fill them and feed out of them. They take pure, raw HP to fill. They make great feed with little to no spoilage if you can keep up with them. For Harvesters, we run an old Fox 3000 and it makes great feed. Only thing that could be better is if it had a kernal processer. Sorry I was so long... Donovan from Wisconsin
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