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| Guys around here try to tell me the net is too expensive to use but; my math is 64"x 7000' roll of net for $193.00 will do 132 bales at a cost of $1.46 a bale. When I bought my baler for $28,800 new and will have made 30,000 bales, it will have cost me $.46 a bale more than a ton bale for net vs. twine on a ton bale at a $1.00 a bale for twine on a ton bale. So over 30,000 bales it added $13,800 to cost of baler. Which breaks down to 138 ton of $100 hay. If I bring ton bales into my place, my loaders can only lift three high. If I leave ton bales til spring to feed, I wreck close to 1/3 of the hay(top bales) for my dairy cows. It has to go to feeder hay at dairy hay prices. Yet with the round bales, I can put all the hay though the dairy cows no waste.
The down side to round bales is time to tie net on, it takes me 30 seconds to wrap and dump bale with net. So at 30,000 bales it will have taken 250 hours extra to wrap bales over ton bales. Now I would like to see repair costs on ton balers and tractor costs for 30,000 bales, vs. my 250 hours extra running time for round bales.
The big square balers win hands down ton per hour, but you need to factor hay loss from spoilage too. As for my 500 acre hay ground, round bales fit my bottom line. I thought I died and went to heaven when we sold two small square balers, and self-propelled bale wagon and went to round bales. | |
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Tell Me about Big Square Bales
