# hay bale size or selling by tonage



## robert23239 (May 10, 2009)

Selling hay by weight sounds like a great idea ! 

a single bale scale or whole trailer scale ? 

Seems like round bales will be around here for a long time. the big squares are making it in but not big yet.


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## Charles Prestridge (6 mo ago)

I have heard in Texas, they just reach down and pick up each round bale, with their hands. They have done it for so long, their estimate will be +/- 20 pounds. 

Some areas use a 3-tier grading system for weight
Normal
Heavy
Back breaker


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## Tx Jim (Jun 30, 2014)

Charles 
I think you must be referring to picking up ""small sq bales"'. I agree rd bales can have very different weights. 

I'd like to see you attempt to pickup one of my Texas 4X5.5 rd bales with your hands. 

The thing that chaps me is rd bales advertised for sale as 4X5 & when I arrive to inspect the bales they not even get to 56'' in diameter.


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## AndyH359 (Jan 3, 2012)

All depends on what your local market is. In my area, hay is sold by the bale. But my local market is mostly to individuals buying by the pickup truck or small trailer load, not large commercial buyers with semi's.

If you wanted to weigh each round/big square bale, consider putting a scale in your loader hydraulics.


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## Charles Prestridge (6 mo ago)

Jim, Merry Christmas. 

I was just joking, due to everything is bigger in Texas. 

I hope everyone in North America stays safe in this cold weather.


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## Tx Jim (Jun 30, 2014)

Charles
Merry Christmas to you & all other forum members.


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## Hayjosh (Mar 24, 2016)

Charles Prestridge said:


> Jim, Merry Christmas.
> 
> I was just joking, due to everything is bigger in Texas.
> 
> I hope everyone in North America stays safe in this cold weather.


I picked up on the joke


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## IH 1586 (Oct 16, 2014)

robert23239 said:


> Selling hay by weight sounds like a great idea !


Does it? How is hay already sold in your area? What is your market, cattle or the horse person?

Hay sold by weight is great. Your getting paid for what you sell and the buyer is getting exactly what they paid for and I would absolutely like the idea to sell by weight as every bale is slightly different. However, How are you going to train your customer? You have a customer expecting to buy a round bale for $60 and you tell them it is $190/tn. The only thing they will hear is $190 and nothing else.

Different scenario but kind of same idea. Had a beef customer back out on his order because he didn't understand hanging weight vs take home weight. Or he didn't understand what 484 lbs. of hanging beef looked like after boxed up. He could not correlate the $2000 cost with the 4 boxes of product he was looking at and kept referencing 484 and asking is this half of it. Would have liked to sell to him again and throw the hanging halves in his truck.


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## rjmoses (Apr 4, 2010)

I bale at 950-1050 lbs for round bales. Then it's so much a ton...or so much a bale/2. One ton = two bales.

Ralph


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## swmnhay (Jun 13, 2008)

99% of my hay is sold by the ton.Plenty of scales around to use 24/7 at grain elevators mostly.They have outside readouts on a lot of them or look in the window if after hrs.
once in a great while someone will want 1 bale and pick it up so will use the average weight of that field/ cutting and round it up a bit for the PIA factor of loading 1 bale
I have one horse gal comes with trailer and stops at elevator along the way and takes pic of empty weight on scale.She loads the hay at my place by herself usually with my skid and she send s me another pic of loaded weight at scale.Leaves me a signed blank check on skidloader seat and I fill in the amount.My other horse people by a 10 ton load a time delivered to them.

if a guy was selling a lot of hay by a bale a time you could get a platform scale to set a bale on and weigh one a time.


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## danwi (Mar 6, 2015)

Some horse people associate heavy hay with high moisture, and some may have a reason after getting a load of wet hay, but that hurts the guy that makes good tight bales that are slightly bigger. We have found with our 3x3 bales we shortened them to 7and 1/2 feet coming off the baler and when cured out usually stretch to almost 8ft. some people like them better because the fit thru doorways and fit better where they stack them. So, if we sell by the bale we get the same price as anormal 3x3x8. But there again with the newer high-density baler you get more in a bale any way. No different than comparing a 4x5 round I'm sure weights vary by a couple hundred pounds depending on the hay and the baler. Gal came and got hay from me last week for the animals she has at home, and she has a couple horses at a friend's stable and she was saying the stable had gotten some small squares that were so lite they had to feed a whole bale per horse.


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