BIG square bailers

I never see anything about the large square bailers. Are they still in use that much.It seams to me the bails would be hard to handle. Stan

Can't imagine the bales being that much harder to work with that a big round bale...but then, i've never been close to a big square baler, and have no idea what dimensions we're talking, nor weight comparisons.

I've only seen one large square bailer in use (that I remember) in my travels around Eastern Canada. Large Rounds and Small Squares still seem to be the order of the day around here.

AR

They are still in use in New Jersey. There are several big farms that use them the most common size I thimk is 4-8 they give 12.00 a bale for it.My neighbor bales 5500 acres every summer just in straw. They use a case 580 backhoe to pick them they pick 2 at a time. They put them 2 high on a trailer.

I was impressed last summer watching one being used near our place. The field was just under 80 acres, heavy wheat straw. Started baling after noon. Baled at fast speed, big windrows, and never stopped (like round balers) while it dropped bales. Another guy with a Bobcat loaded the bales, 2 at a time on 2 flat bed semi's they were hauling with. Before dark the field was baled and hauled away. In my day with a New Holland 68 sm.sq. we would have done about 10 or 15 acres in that amount of time- and worked hard.

There are 8 or 9 of them on the go custom baling around here, within about a 15 mile radius. Once the price gets down far enough, there'll hardly be a round bale made 10 years from now. They're actually easier to handle than a round bale, stack nicer, won't roll away on you, and you can break them down into flakes for feeding easier than peeling apart a round bale.

There are 8 or 9 of them on the go custom baling around here, within about a 15 mile radius. Once the price gets down far enough, there'll hardly be a round bale made 10 years from now. They're actually easier to handle than a round bale, stack nicer, won't roll away on you, and you can break them down into flakes for feeding easier than peeling apart a round bale.

Learn how to spell

Learn to be less judgmental... arrogant... egotistical...

Learn how to punctuate with a period at the end of your sentence.

There is at least 6 or maybe 10 on the go on PEI that I know of.They are the Cadilac of bailers.I know of one farm where they rake 4 rows of 12' cut silage into one and let 'er pound.They can do 100 acres a day easily.You cover alot of ground fast with that much capacity and the added bonus is you don't have to stop to tie or wrap.Some models have an acid aplication system on them so you can do dry hay at 25% moisture and still have perfect hay.There are a couple of late models forsale at Kensington Agriculture in the 50 000 range.I apologize in advance for any and all mis-spellings lol.pd.

All the big dairies in my area are either big spuares or right to bunkers. No one messes with smalls on a big scale. Several customer operators in my area. Most are 3 x 3 bales. One or two are 3 x 4 claas balers. I have a round baler,but have gotten big square made. Biggest problem I have is they were so tight I had trouble getting the spear in. Way tighter than my round bales. They stack great too. No wasted space like round bales. The neighbor has an old forage wagon he made into a flat bed. He gets 28 3x3x7 bales per load. Talk about some weight..

a guy down the road has one. Much better than round bales, solid enough to stack a barn plumb full with a big boom type of lifter he has.

Takes 150 hp I think just To run the baler.

We are using them almost exclusively around here. The take them to to a compressor that presses them to half size then they ship them to Japan and China, who says we don't ship our products out.
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These are 1 tom bales
My friends works on a farm near by and hauled loads of 48 bales at one time to the compressor.
No more round bales go over seas takes to much space on the ship.
Walt

Like one of these;



The tandem with sileage/grain body next to the tractor & baler holds 14 of the 4x4x8 size. I thought they were easy to deal with, on the hills skid em to where it's safet to load, they are heavy.







Not too much for this MF to handle though, got a lot of hay off the ground in one day, 50 acres worth of thick orchard grass.

A few years late for that. Stan

Actually quite a few big squares around. They even have
accumulators for them so they stack two bales at a time to save
driving for the pickers.

The capacity the things have is absolutely amazing without
stopping to tie.

Almost all the dairy alfalfa from eastern Washington and Oregon is put up in big squares, no round bales to speak of. Easier to haul, easier to stack. Beef guys locally still use rounds, but the big operators have all gone to big squares. Dairyman friend of mine said he had gone to big squares on doctor's orders- he has a bad back, and Doc said "I don't want you to have a bale on the place that you even think you might be able to lift."

In my area of Eastern Washington, a lot of bluegrass seed is grown. The farmers used to be allowed to burn the straw and stubble on the bluegrass fields, which was inexpensive to do and caused much higher seed yields. But it did produce some smoke for a couple of days a year, and the urban people complained. The farmers tried to be very careful about wind direction and just when they burned, but eventually the Washington State Health Department decided that it would be illegal for the farmers to continue to burn the bluegrass fields. Fields are still burned in Idaho, but maybe that is because Idaho actually cares about their farmers livelihood.

Farmers have continued to try to grow bluegrass seed, since it seems to do very well in our climate and the sod it produces virtually prevents erosion on the steep hills. To continue, the straw has to be removed from the fields, and the usual solution has been to bale it up using the large, square bales.

At first, there was no market for the straw. Farmers hauled it to gullies and unfarmable places, but soon those were all filled with rotting, huge bales. The farmers tried to manufacture strawboard, but as I understand it, there was little market for the boards.

Now I understand most of the bluegrass straw is being trucked out of the area and is being used as part of cattle feed. The large bales fit well on semi trailers and the farmers have machinery that handles them easily. But I doubt that the farmers get much for the bluegrass straw bales.

It wouldn't be so bad if the yield stayed the same, but the non-burning farmers get much less seed yield per acre than their neighbors across the border in Idaho that can burn. Apparently burning stimulates the plants to produce extra seeds. The burning also killed many insects and their eggs, as well as weed seeds, so now lots more pesticides must be used. And the straw must be removed every year. It's pretty bad that the state government would make the price of farming go up and profits go way down. I have seen friends just decide to quit farming and lease to the megafarmer corporations.

It will be interesting to see how much bluegrass land gets plowed up to raise wheat. The high prices for wheat this last year were a big, welcomed surprise. I hope that decent prices continue. Wheat was the traditional crop before the farmers discovered the advantages of bluegrass seed production. If they go back to wheat, I supposed the very real problem of huge topsoil erosion will come back.

I'm not a bit sorry for the rant. It was a BS decision by the health department!