# silage baleing



## htkooslf (Aug 21, 2016)

This is my first post. I am from eastern Iowa and a cow calf man on a small very hilly farm here. All of the crop production here is used to feed the cows and calves. Calves are sold at 700 to 800 lbs. In recent years as I have researched various topics, I am often lead to this site and have found it a good source of comment and information.

This farm is all hay or pasture with the exception of corn raised for silage for storage in pit silo. I have been working with cover crops and am starting to experiment with no-tilling warm season annuals into decling hay stands after first cutting of hay. Bale wrapping and some "silage" bales are being made in this area, and I had my first ones made last year from a very heavy cover crop.

I am now considering getting a "for real" silage baler. The local dealer just started selling Mchale, and I am interested in the V660 model. I now have a JD 535 in good condition, but am loath to even attempt silage with it. Most of the people in this area are skeptical about trying to produce silage with a conventional round baler.

I think the general impression of people here is that if the hay is too tough to bale, it can be wrapped and made into silage. From my research so far, it appears this tough hay may not in fact be wet enough to produce proper fermentation etc..

Also it seems that the proper way to prepare the material for baleing is to cut and lay it out wide for quick wilting, and then to rake it into proper windrows when it has dried to maybe 40 to 60% moisture for baleing. This would probably rule out the use of my Vee rake to move this wet material. Is it such a bad idea to just attempt to make proper width windrows with the diskbine and pick up the material directly out of that windrow? Years ago, I think that is the method much used for chopping to fill the old tower silo's.

Hopefully, the baler I choose would be suitable for both silage and dry hay. I might like to include an in chamber moisture tester, which I understand won't read above 40 %, but it might still be a help with dry hay, or be an alert about hay becoming too dry for silage.

If the ideas outlined above could be made to work, I would probably discontinue corn silage production and rely on summer annual silage bales and dry hay or hay silage bales for wintering the calves, and use some combination of lesser quality hay or silage for winter cow feed. Any comments, recomendations or observations about any of the above would be appreciated. Thank you


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## mlappin (Jun 25, 2009)

On lighter cuttings a good v rake should handle wet rows.

On first cutting I just adjust the mower to leave a 4-4/12 foot wide row and bale that, no raking.

Making silage bales is just like filling a silo, 60% is best, can go low as 40%, tough hay just won't ferment properly.


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## Gearclash (Nov 25, 2010)

Vee rake is a vague term. A wheel rake has limited ability to rake wet hay, unless it has a rubber mounted tine or something like Vermeer's Durabull tine. A hydraulic bar rake will rake almost any amount of wet hay.


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## E220 (Feb 10, 2016)

Welcome to the forum. Around here we usually can rake our silage with a wheel rake but a hydraulic drive rollerbar is better because the teeth don't have to touch the ground to drive the rake. In heavy crop you can slow down and still move the crop.

I would recommend a chopper baler. Not everyone has had a good experience with the chopper balers, but Mchale, Kuhn, and Vermeer Pro owners seem satisfied. These balers have enough capacity that you will want to rake to get enough hay together. If you are planting sorghum sudan etc, a chopper is especially important.

About baling moisture, there are lots of opinions. Generally 50-60% is ideal. But some of our customers wrap 30% and are very happy with it.

Are you planning to single or inline wrap?


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## slowzuki (Mar 8, 2011)

Balage is very common here, very few people using specialized balers in the last 10 years as the balers have become much stronger.

The big dairies still buy euro balers with knives and make best feed. Beef guys not so much.


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## Widairy (Jan 1, 2016)

Around here there is a fair amount of baleage made. The guys that look for the cutter balers usually need the bales cut so they are more usable in tmr mixers. My neighbor makes ALL of his feed in wrapped round bales. They make about 800 to 1000 bales a year. He feeds without utilizing a tmr. The run a John Deere 468 silage special. They line wrap and usually bale theirs relatively dry, around that 30 percent range. Seems to work for them. The only reason I have been looking to trade my Vermeer 664 Rancher off on a silage baler with knives is so I can run the bales through my mixer. If I were just feeding heifers or beef I don't think it would make a huge difference. I did have a 535 John Deere before my Vermeer, and yes you are going to need a different baler. I just don't know if I would necessary recommend one with knives. Depends on actual specifics from what I've seen.


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## CowboyRam (Dec 13, 2015)

I am curious, is there much of a market for silage bales?


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## slowzuki (Mar 8, 2011)

Individually wrapped here they carry a 10$ premium over a 4x4 dry bale. You often get a forage test with a large purchase of them as you can't look at the bales. Bit of a pain to truck but done all the time.

Friend of mine used to put up maybe 1000 for sale in the 1990's and early 2000's, individually wrapped on a kneverland wrapper. Always smelled like alcohol in their yard.

Picture from 2001 or so of one corner of their yard with about 250 bales. All bales wrapped in field then trucked to their home place, then shipped out from there. ALO bale squeeze used to move them. I think they were good for 2 years if you kept up the bird and raccoon damage patching regularly.

Most places stack the bales in pyramid shapes to reduce the surface exposed to animal damage.

After his dad died I helped his mom clean up the farm around 2012, there were bales 5+ years old that seemed pretty good that I dumped in the woods for her.











CowboyRam said:


> I am curious, is there much of a market for silage bales?


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## htkooslf (Aug 21, 2016)

Thank you for shareing your thoughts. In reply, I have a Kuhn 12 wheel sr112, which is kind of an entry level rake, but I sure like it for prepareing dry windrows. I have a new NH 313 diskbine, which I think works beautifly, and can lay the hay out almost full width. It takes a 13 foot cut. I unroll much of my hay for the cows with a loader mounted hydraulic rotation spear. I am not at present using a tmr, and I am thinking that some cutting of the material, especially the course cover crop or sorghum sudan, would make denser more fermentable bales. The baler rep says that the bales I want to unroll should be cut with only a few knives installed.

I am a little worried about switching to the 4 foot wide bales. It is hilly here, and I am a little worried that they might have a tendency to tip over. However, I am hoping that with proper windrow and driving pattern, I could make a very solid cornered bale. My JD 535 doesn't have a wide pickup or gathering wheels, and sometimes it is hard to get the edges filled out as tight as I might like.

What are your thoughts about innoculants, or preservatives? Also does anyone take any special care of the bale chamber in regard to rust or buildup of gum etc. after baleing sillage?

Thanks again


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## htkooslf (Aug 21, 2016)

In reply to the person who asked what sort of wrapper I am considering: There are a lot of inline wrappers being used in this area, and I think I would start out renting one of them from a neighbor. The fact that they use about half as much plastic interests me. Also, I don't plan to sell any of these bales.


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## slowzuki (Mar 8, 2011)

Have never seen any extra precautions against rust in the baler. Also innoculants not very common here on baled silage even though the silo guys use them. The bales are a little more squishy than a dry bale so they don't roll quite as easily front to back. When they do roll they are very heavy and go a long way into the woods.

There a lots of tube wrappers around here too, a fellow up the road has a long field by his barns so uses tubes. I think his is the automatic style, you just set the bale on it and it wraps for you.


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## Redneck8888 (Jun 7, 2013)

That 535 is a excellent baler for silage bales around my area the 530 and 535 are used with excellent results.


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## mlappin (Jun 25, 2009)

CowboyRam said:


> I am curious, is there much of a market for silage bales?


Here, none. If your gonna make silage bales here you either feed em yourself or already have em sold to somebody else.

I can take what I consider junk hay to the auction, sell it, buy silage bales and still make money on the deal


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## timberjackrob (Feb 16, 2015)

all we have here is hills and the 4ft wide bales stand up good I was worried about the same thing when we switched to 4ft wide.


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## DohrmannEnt (Nov 23, 2010)

htkooslf said:


> What are your thoughts about innoculants, or preservatives? Also does anyone take any special care of the bale chamber in regard to rust or buildup of gum etc. after baleing sillage?
> 
> Thanks again


There seems to be alot of folks that put up balage in the Midwest that use inoculants. We see quite a few systems every year for guys with round balers that are going to apply on the wrapped round bales.

Remember that this is a fermentation process, so use a fermentation inoculant and not a hay preservative. Keep in mind that a good fermentation environment should be free of oxygen and I believe you are bound to have more oxygen in the wrapped bales than a packed silage pile. The addition of inoculant should only help the process. I do think this depends some on the moisture that you wrap them up - we are not additive experts, just dumb applicator people.

I know that the farms in the MN dairy pockets are converting over more of their hay to wrapped balage simply due to the high humidity in the harvesting months make it difficult to dry down their hay for dry bales.

-Good Luck


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## htkooslf (Aug 21, 2016)

*******, I see your recomendation for the 535 as a silage baler. I seem to have troubles with buildup on various rollers etc. if the hay is even a little tough. Mine doesn't have a silage kit. What moisture, size, weight etc., are people able to make with this baler?

Also, I mentioned that I was considering a McHale V660. I had a chance to demo one over the weekend, in both dry hay, and some very wet hay. This machine makes very dense bales in either dry or wet. The reps. are saying that this baler will put as much hay into a four foot bale as my JD535 will put in a five foot wide bale. I tend to think they are right. These bales don't even stab very good, and judging how they handle, I suspect they may weigh as much as my JD bales. These balers seem to be built very strong, the bearings are greaseable, most or all of the roller bearings are protected by an additional seal to keep out the junk. I am impressed with the build, and the monitor/ controller, seems to be easy to catch on to, and have a lot of options about tallying groups of bales, and storing your settings for making bales of different type materials so that you can just switch programs, rather than having to readjust all the parameters each time.

All that said, even though I am very thrilled with the performance of the netter, bale density etc.,etc.. I am still just a small farmer, and probably shouldn't wrap up so much money in a baler, especially if the one I have is capable of doing the job.

In another posting, a fellow was having trouble with the net on his 535. I haven't found that post back or I would comment on it. I have been around this baler quite some time as I ran it for the previous owner before he retired and I bought it. We would periodically have various problems with the net, and cast about for solutions. It doesn't seem to help to change brands of net, or to put powder on the rolls. It seems that all the adjustments recomended in the owners manual must be set carefully. The knife should be kept sharp. Both the belt that drives the net roll, and the belt which drives the hydraulic pump must be in good shape. If any of those pulleys are getting worn, and the belt is riding in the bottom of the groove, you may want to replace the pulley. Also we replaced the standard belt on the net drive with a kevlar belt 1/2 inch shorter than standard. When the knife cuts the net, it meets up with a rubber flap which it cuts against. Previously I had noticed that that knife didn't seem to be meeting up with that flap squarely. Check the condition of that flap and how well the knive meets up with it. After buying the machine, I slotted out the holes on the bracket which holds the flap on one side so that I could adjust that contact. This year, the netter has been working perfectly.

Any more comments on the suitability of JD535 for silage would be appreciated. Or any necessary mods to overcome the buildup on rollers problem.

Thank you


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## MtnHerd (Jul 6, 2011)

I don't know about your baler, but I bale haylage with a Vermeer 5420, and if it is very wet, I get a lot of build up on rollers, too. I try to cut most of the build up off after each day of baling. If you are going to be following up by rolling dry hay, you can cut the big bulk of the wet off and then when you roll the dry hay it will pull the rest off for you. Again, this is with my roller, so it might not work the same as yours. Also, if it is on the wetter side and big windrows, I start in a lower gear and lower rpms until the roll gets a good start, then I up shift and crank the rpms up to where they should be. If I don't do that, I run the risk of plugging it.


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## E220 (Feb 10, 2016)

csdeyton said:


> I don't know about your baler, but I bale haylage with a Vermeer 5420, and if it is very wet, I get a lot of build up on rollers, too. I try to cut most of the build up off after each day of baling. If you are going to be following up by rolling dry hay, you can cut the big bulk of the wet off and then when you roll the dry hay it will pull the rest off for you. Again, this is with my roller, so it might not work the same as yours. Also, if it is on the wetter side and big windrows, I start in a lower gear and lower rpms until the roll gets a good start, then I up shift and crank the rpms up to where they should be. If I don't do that, I run the risk of plugging it.


If you are baling silage with a 5420, you are a very careful driver. Although I have never personally tried it, I know enough about that baler to know that the engineers designed it so it couldn't bale silage.


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## Widairy (Jan 1, 2016)

If you're going to do silage bales get a serious silage baler like the McHale you mentioned you are looking at. I had a 535 John Deere, nice baler for DRY hay. I now have a Vermeer rancher 664 with the silage kit. It's good in tough hay, but if you get over 35 percent moisture it has a hard time starting bales and hay wraps on everything from the rollers to to bars of the pickup. Not fun.


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## timberjackrob (Feb 16, 2015)

a 504n vermeer will bale anything you put in front of it we have baled wet hay anywhere from 65% to 35% with no problems wrapping on rollers no trouble getting roll started.we have baled wheat,soybeans/millet,sudan grass,orchard grass,and fescue,first and second cuttings.you do not have to have super expensive baler to bale wet hay but having one that is designed to bale silage will make things a lot easier.


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## MtnHerd (Jul 6, 2011)

E220 said:


> If you are baling silage with a 5420, you are a very careful driver. Although I have never personally tried it, I know enough about that baler to know that the engineers designed it so it couldn't bale silage.


I do a couple hundred silage bales a year with mine as well as about as much dry hay. Have never really had a problem even in VERY wet hay as long as I take my time getting started on the roll. Just did about five acres Saturday and where it is a little thin I didn't even have to start slow, it just sucked it right in. When it is very wet, I do get some build up on the rollers. As long as you keep it halfway cleaned out you will be fine. There are several guys around me that do around a thousand bales a year with the exact same baler, that's what sold me on mine.

I bought mine new for less money than Sileage special balers that were a lot older and a lot rougher shape, plus 0% financing. If you do want to spend a little more money you can step up to a 504N, which is same baler except has a better pickup and extra sensors, but you can also get a silage kit for it. Of course if you have the money to spend I would certainly go for a high end silage special, especially if you are doing a lot of hay, but you can easily do it with one of the cheaper Vermeers.


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## E220 (Feb 10, 2016)

csdeyton said:


> I do a couple hundred silage bales a year with mine as well as about as much dry hay. Have never really had a problem even in VERY wet hay as long as I take my time getting started on the roll. Just did about five acres Saturday and where it is a little thin I didn't even have to start slow, it just sucked it right in. When it is very wet, I do get some build up on the rollers. As long as you keep it halfway cleaned out you will be fine. There are several guys around me that do around a thousand bales a year with the exact same baler, that's what sold me on mine.
> 
> I bought mine new for less money than Sileage special balers that were a lot older and a lot rougher shape, plus 0% financing. If you do want to spend a little more money you can step up to a 504N, which is same baler except has a better pickup and extra sensors, but you can also get a silage kit for it. Of course if you have the money to spend I would certainly go for a high end silage special, especially if you are doing a lot of hay, but you can easily do it with one of the cheaper Vermeers.


With the smooth starter roller in that baler, I'm still surprised that you can bale silage! I'm glad to hear it's working for you.


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## htkooslf (Aug 21, 2016)

Hi folks, thanks for all the info. I have succumbed to paint fever, and have bought the McHale

V660 which I mentioned trying out. I am hoping to grow some summer annuals in comming years for a high energy forage for the calves, and got some planted this year. ( a little late) It appears that if the frost holds off, I should have a pretty decent crop, and I will try to make some fine silage bales out of it. This was interseeded into a declining hay stand which I already had taken two nice cuttings off earlier.

I am enjoying the comments and insites I see here on HayTalk. I will share my results with baleing the summer annual mix, and may even try to send some pics.


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## Redneck8888 (Jun 7, 2013)

We have used a 530 john deere to do baleage for years the bale size approx. 50 inches but have made them 60 inches but they are real heavy. This year a friend weighted a 50 inch bale they were 1450 lbs. You have to start the bale slow and yes the rollers have to be watched for build up. It may not be ideal but is what we have and works well. I am sure there are new balers that do a better job but the 530-535 for a affordable 30 year old balers will get the job done.


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## MtnHerd (Jul 6, 2011)

htkooslf said:


> Hi folks, thanks for all the info. I have succumbed to paint fever, and have bought the McHale
> V660 which I mentioned trying out. I am hoping to grow some summer annuals in comming years for a high energy forage for the calves, and got some planted this year. ( a little late) It appears that if the frost holds off, I should have a pretty decent crop, and I will try to make some fine silage bales out of it. This was interseeded into a declining hay stand which I already had taken two nice cuttings off earlier.
> 
> I am enjoying the comments and insites I see here on HayTalk. I will share my results with baleing the summer annual mix, and may even try to send some pics.


Congratulations on your purchase! I have never been around any of those, but looking at them online they look very nice. I am sure it will work out well for you.

I was curious, what summer annuals are you planting?


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## htkooslf (Aug 21, 2016)

About the summer annuals: I planted a good assortment this year to see what would grow well. Bmr sorghum sedan, milo, some old seed corn, forage soybeans, cowpeas. Also I included some rape for late fall grazing, and harry vetch to bulk out next spring's hay crop. This is fairly shallow clay soil, the alfalfa is running out, and I didn't want to kill my grass stand etc.. I will probably do something similar again next year, and may soon try to plant some alfalfa back, while still keeping the old grass stand. We have been having much more rain this year than usual, so next years results may be different.

For the planting, I used a "Plant-O-Vator". This whole thing is kind of an experiment, and this was my first year with this machine. I like the concept and hope I can make it work, but I am not totally thrilled with the machine so far. If interested, Google Plant-O-Vator, and check out their website.


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## htkooslf (Aug 21, 2016)

I harvested my summer annual crop described in previous posts around Oct. 1. I've got some pics of the material as it was being cut, which I may include if I can figure out how to do it. It has been an especially wet summer here, and I didn't get the material dried down as much as I might have liked. I am guessing it was about 50% moisture when baled with the McHale. I made 4 1/2 ft. by 4 ft. bales. They were heavy and solid. I got 134 bales off 23 acres. All in all, I think that was better than I had earlier expected. I will see how they feed out. I used a neighbors line wrapper, and expect that if I ger my own machine I will also go with a line wrapper. In an effort to dry the material out, I flipped the windrows over with my wheel rake. That heavy wet material didn't rake very well, but I got it done. The new McHale baler worked pretty much flawlessly, even though I am just getting used to it. I put 13 knives in to cut the material, and observed that it took some power, and I had to go slower than usual for power reasons. I put 3.5 wraps of net on those bales. We didn't get them all wrapped the first day, and finished up about 24 hours later. We had a few of those later bales break when handleing. They were getting hot already, and being cut, the net was about all that held the bales together. I will feed up those later wrapped bales first in case they don't keep as well. I think this approach to producing a high energy feed source may have some merrit. I will get a feed test, and observe how they feed out.

Thanks again for your thoughts, comments, and suggestions.


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## IH 1586 (Oct 16, 2014)

I have been very interested in the V660 as well. Keep us informed on how you like it . Looking to make it the next baler if the reviews favor it.


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