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Implement Alley Discussion Forum

How to handle small square?

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sheep farmer

10-06-2004 20:27:25




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I just finished by 3rd cuttingof hay. In the process I fell through a hole at the edge of the rack. I almost broke my ankle. I desided I need a better way to handle small bales. I have some corn stalks to bale yet. More importantly I think I might be expanding my hay acres to 70 or 80 next year. I do not have enough acres to justify a newer NH bale wagon. I have looked at some older ones. I am concerned that my baler my not make uniform enough bales, but do like the idea of a bale wagon. This leave me with a bale accumulator. I am in central Iowa. Does anyone know where to find a sled type accumulator cheap. Also a grab. Or better yet if I could find an older bale wagon, do you think it could work with my baler?

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Bob Semrau

10-10-2004 20:24:15




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 Re: How to handle small square? in reply to sheep farmer, 10-06-2004 20:27:25  
For sheep I would advise you to move to round bales if at all possible. That's what I feed our flock with. I don't need to store them inside, and there is practically no hand work - everything is mechanized. Sheep don't have picky stomachs like horses, and will even eat the waste hay on the outside of the bale. Premier has a really good round bale feeder that consists of wire panels that collapse in as the sheep eat the bale. I flip the bale on it's side, connect up the panels around it, and don't have to fool with it again for a week.

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ben uk

10-09-2004 12:21:43




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 Re: How to handle small square? in reply to sheep farmer, 10-06-2004 20:27:25  
OVer here in the UK, you rarely see people handling square bales unless its by hand or with a sledge as we call it, i beleive you call it an accumulator and a grab as we call it, grapple i think you call it. You really can move some bales. All you need is one tractor, about the least you can get away with is MF165 sort of size, and you do need power steering, preferably with a pick up hitch, and a trailer, and the grab, and the accumulator. There are loads of them over here, normally an accumulator would go for abour �200-�300, and about the same for a grab/grapple. There very easy to use, not much to go wrong as long as you have the tractor power. With one tractor you can easily put 2000 bales in the barn in a day, 3000 or 4000 would be possible with the right tractor, right trailer, right barn and right operator. Ben

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RickL

10-09-2004 10:05:13




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 Re: How to handle small square? in reply to sheep farmer, 10-06-2004 20:27:25  
I run a Holesher system. Works out fine for me since I don't have large buildings annd It gives me some more versatility. I do know wher ther is a older Farmhand accumulator and grapple sitting in shed for sale. He just went to a large square baler. Located in southeast Iowa



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RJ-AZ

10-07-2004 18:55:12




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 Re: How to handle small square? in reply to sheep farmer, 10-06-2004 20:27:25  
In my younger days my dad and I stacked small squares with a Farmhand F10 loader with a hay sweep head. That loader went through three tractors in its lifetime. I know theymake a hay sweep for the Farmhand F11 as well. The bales need to be on their cut sides and you just scoop em up about 12 to 14 at a time and build a stack where you want it. Our best day was 3200 and averaged 2000. Stacked a lot of hay at .05 per bale.

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Gerald J.

10-07-2004 15:29:06




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 Re: How to handle small square? in reply to sheep farmer, 10-06-2004 20:27:25  
I farm in central Iowa. I gave up on hay because too many early Junes were too wet to cut and cure hay for baling. I still have a PT-10 and a hay rake in excess. Trying to cure hay in two days from 80 acres, won't happen more than one June out of three or four. Some first cuttings took a week and a half and left me with bleached hay on top the windrows. That's hard to sell.

Gerald J.



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paul

10-07-2004 12:14:47




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 Re: How to handle small square? in reply to sheep farmer, 10-06-2004 20:27:25  
I think it depends on how you are storing the bales. Do you have a big tall shed, or are you still hand stacking, or?????

By the time you spend the money for a good accumulator with 2 tractors with loaders & grabs, buying a better baler won"t be much more money. Same with a good condition NH wagon. The wagon _needs_ a proper sized shed, the accumulator is much more efficient with a tall proper sized shed. Some NH wagons will single-unload into an elevator if that is a need.

If you will still be hand stacking, a kicker & wagons or a set of bale baskets can work just as well. Tho if you are going to that many acres, you are propbably beyond these options.

--->Paul

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JJL

10-07-2004 10:17:29




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 Re: How to handle small square? in reply to sheep farmer, 10-06-2004 20:27:25  
Most balers will work if they can bale a good heavy tight bale. What you are probably used to to handle with a kicker or the like will be too soft and light. A soft bale will get torn to pieces in the pick up attachment, and if that isn't bad enough, the conveyer chain carries the broken bale pieces over and it drops through to the small chains underneath. That can cause an instant screw up if you are unlucky. The other thing that happens with soft bales is the push off feet will sink into them and catch the bale strings, which can topple the load when you pull away. So make sure you can bale a tight bale before thinking bale wagon. Would you be running these up an elevator and storing by hand? Remember that those tight bales are going to be heavy. I make mine as big as I can to take full advantage of space in each load coming down to the barn. This means a good long bale that will weigh anywhere from 65# up towards 80# or even more sometimes if they are a bit green. You get too many 85 pounders up in the mow and tempers can get short. :)

If you stack them, there are tricks you learn to make the loads stand up better. Always stack on a flat surface. Always prop the load before backing away. Always angle it backwards as best you can, and always pick up in the field either with the baler travel direction, or against it, depending on which side of the barn the load is going in, because this helps control sideways lean of the load. There may be others but those are the ones I use. In the past few years I run about 2-3% falling loads with a wagon that has a beaten up rolling rack that has seen better days.

JJL

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OHIO JD 40

10-07-2004 10:02:27




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 Re: How to handle small square? in reply to sheep farmer, 10-06-2004 20:27:25  
I have a good friend that makes 40,000 square bales a year of hay, and another 3,000 to 4,000 of straw. He uses a Hoelsher (sp?) accumulator system, running one grapple in the field and one in a massive barn. I"ve helped him out several times, and it a very impressive system. The up-front cost was not that prohibitive, if you have the tractor trailer rigs to go with it. I helped him a couple of days in June, where 4 of us put up close to 3000 bales each day. One man baling, one man picking up the packages (10 bales) out of the field, one man ferrying trailers, and one man unloading in the barn. Other systems wouldn"t work for him because his farms are so spread out. I think he told me that he had 370 acres of hay this year.

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Dale in IN

10-07-2004 07:22:33




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 Re: How to handle small square? in reply to sheep farmer, 10-06-2004 20:27:25  
I bought a used NH 1034 three years a go in Dec. at an inventory reduction sale for $2300. It is not in new shape but it does the job. I had looked for several years and most of them ran from$4500 up. So I thought I got a good buy. Then I pulled it home 100 mile be hind my PU Truck. took alittle over 3 hours and the last 35 mile it had gotten dark.
You need a good big shed with big doors and good celing height and a tractor with a slow reverse in it when it comes to backing. The 1034 is 10' wide and 18' long. Also a good instructer to help guide you as you can not see where you are backing. The stack wagon is an experence in itself to learn to run. They have their own hydraulic system that is driven by the Tractor PTO. Mine has 7 Hyd. levers That you have to operate and you have to have them in the proper sequence to get some of them to work. Sometimes the stacks stand perfect and some times they explode and you have bales ever where all over the ground. You also need a good heavy tractor on the front end and a good heavy drawbar. I was using a JD730 D and it was a bear to back and light on the front end. I just bought a 1600 Oliver and I used it the last cutting and got along better backing it. You can get good operators and parts manuals from NH. They are worth the money.

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Indydirtfarmer

10-07-2004 03:56:30




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 Re: How to handle small square? in reply to sheep farmer, 10-06-2004 20:27:25  
I run a Steffens accumulator and grapple system. It has greatly simplified our bale handling chores. We square-bale (in a NORMAL year), about 4000 to 5000 squares of hay, and about the same of straw for sale. This year was WAY off because of weather. I round bale quite a bit too. It wasn't the easiest system to get working. Bale size and density are critical to making one work correctly. I have 2 square balers. (One DEERE 336, and an older New Holland 273) The Deere baler is quite a bit more consistant. It worked out fairly good. The New Holland makes (typical) curved bales, as well as 2' to 3" variation in size. It wouldn't work out so well. I WAS going to buy a 2nd accumulator for the New Holland, but decided it would be a waste of money. I bought my accumulator 2nd hand. It had about 1000 bales ran through it before I bought it. I got a tremendous break in price by purchasing it at auction. I do about 25 auctions a year, and mine has been the ONLY one I've seen sold in 3 years of searching. If I was to do it all over again....I'd buy a New Holland bale wagon....Better investment, easier to work with, and faster in the long run. There is no easy way to work with small squares. Just some are easier than others..... John

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kyhayman

10-06-2004 20:42:12




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 Re: How to handle small square? in reply to sheep farmer, 10-06-2004 20:27:25  
I've got a 1034, that I bought from a certain dealer in KS for a little over $5000. Not sure what your baler is. Most will do ok if adjusted and set TIGHT. 80 acres is serious hay, even at a modest 3 tons per acre at modest $80 a ton thats over $19,000 a year. Here its doble that yield and almost double that price. Could all be lost with a broken leg or an bad breakdown of equip. Bale wagons dont have many, except for 4 chains everything else is just valves. Might think about a baler upgrade if its too inconsistant.

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