Strange baler questions

I still see them in the weeds occasionally.
Is anyone out there still using these old machines?

The reason I ask, is I am going to buy a spare baler to play around with. I will not buy one if nobody will buy the hay it bales. Is there any market for the small round bales?

As far as handling, I'd take a round bale any day over a square bale, simply because you could readily use a hay hook and just one hand to throw the bales around (the small rounds were lighter, generally, than an "average" size square bale). Certainly easier on the hands with a hay hook rather than putting you fingers under that tight twine or wire (Ouch!).

The convenience of the square baler far surpasses the stop and go of the old Rotobaler.

So far I have found that there is a market for all hay. Once you get under the customers precieved Ideal type/format for hay. Its then just a matter of price.

Ideal in my market.
Horse= Small square tight bales of timmothy. That has not been rained on. Oh and not one single weed in there.

Cattle = Big round bales of alfalfa. Not rained on.
Needless to say with the way the weather was. The fact that I had to do some crud fields just to get my name out and my foot in the door. I did not have any ideal hay in my barn.
Sold out my last bale yesterday.

So I would say if you feel like Rotobaling. By all means Rotobale away. Just not in the choice Timmothy crop. Roto up some rained on grass.

You can always tell the farms where they were used because the barn walls in the mows are pushed out. There was no way to stack them so that they wouldn't shift and push out, and they destroyed a lot of barns before their time.

I wouldn't touch them with a 10 foot pole. They were a pain to handle because the twine never seemed to cut right on any of the balers and you used to get 5 or 6 bales strung together that you had to cut apart, then you'd just about kill yourself in the mow when they shifted and rolled on you. Then to try to feed them you always have twine rolled into the bale and it takes 4 or 5 times as long to open a round bale as it does a small square.

I was a happy boy the day Dad decided the rotobaler wasn't worth fixing anymore, and hired a guy to come in with a square baler.