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Lacombe, Alberta | We milk around 120 plus replacements and are on our third season with a 2005 McHale Fusion 1 baler/wrapper combo. We have two of us and we can rake, wrap or pick up/stack around 25 4x4 bales an hour per person per job. We use a 40 foot semi trailer with dolly and haul 27 per load.
Good things: doesn't take many people so we do things between milkings
-moisture doesn't matter as much as silage so if it starts to dry too much it doesn't gum up like a harvester
-can do small fields and separate good and bad parts
-bales are always fresh unlike our old piles on dirt
-I try have a couple bales stacked on concrete for rainy days so I don't make mud trying to grab a bale
-baler/wrapper combo means that as soon as its baled its ready for storage so we don't have to rush to pick them all up before a thundershower
Bad: takes a long time to mix well and get it short enough even with all baler knives in. The more we mix the higher our milk production
-plastic is around $1 Cdn per layer. We do 8 for cow feed, 6 for heifers. Chopping is cheaper but we lost too much in spoilage that the baler has paid for itself | |
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Haylage vs. Balage
