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SC Kansas | A couple years ago we started wet wrapping our oat bales instead of letting them dry in the windrow. Swath and bale within 24 hours, then wrap them in plastic, I think some call this "baleage". I'll tell you, there is nearly no waste. They eat it down to dirt in the bottom of the hay ring, and don't pull any out and trample it. I think I've read that round bale feeders waste 10-15%. I'd guess it's closer to 1-2% now. If you haven't seen or tried this, you may look at it if you are tired of sloppy feeding areas where there is a foot worth of hay that gets trampled all winter. |
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w. wi. | + 1000 |
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S.E. Iowa | x2 |
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Boone/Hendricks Counties, IN | The best way...they love it...purchased a wrapper the wet year we had before the drought...even used it the first cut of drought year and you can tell the difference in the way the cattle attack the baleage, wished I had done so years earlier! |
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| Are you talking about the white plastic tubes? Do they wrap air tight? My baler (jd468) doesn't like green hay at all. How do you deal with that? Sorry for so many quetions. |
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Boone/Hendricks Counties, IN | I use a McHale wrapper I picked up at an auction. They wrap well. I moved from JD to a Krone Baler. It does not have belts, it has rollers and makes nice bales for the roller. If I had the money and time I would look at one of those McHale Fusion 2 balers that do both operations...think I could make some money doing some custom work as well. |
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S.E. Iowa | tj33 they are real close to air tight. Spoilage is close to non existant. My sons Vermeer baler bales wet hay better than tough hay. It is an expensive way to bale, that being said the cost per day of keeping a cow is probably close on wet versus dry hay. Getting hay made timely, improved quality, palatibility so much better with wet. Another thing is you can carry over bales from one year to the next. There are some things to consider as negative factors, turkeys or something else can cut wrap then you can have crap around the hole. A wet bale is HEAVY. We make bales around 50 to 52 inches. |
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SE montana | We did some wet barley bales, the coons got into them and ripped the plastic off so bad it spoiled a lot of it, I think I shot over 90 coons off them that summer.
Edited by MontanaRed 12/17/2013 08:08
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Marianna Arkansas | We do that with oats too. We can cut oats in the boot stage here in late March/April. This year we added a acid applicator to the bailer so we could try to dry bail because the wrap is so slow. With the wet late spring it was early May before we could bale and the oats were dough stage. Anyway both ways sure make good hay. We are mixing in a TMR with grass hay and corn. Really putting some weight on for not a lot of money. |
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candor ny | It should bale wet hay especially first cutting. Second just grass wreaks havoc on most belt bakers wrapping around the rolls. Dont make them full hieght 48-52. Have had 4x4 weigh 1400-1700 depending on how wet. |
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wet wrapped bales
