# Thinking about a mini round baler, anyone used one?



## Leex2

I think for my small acreage and the size of my tractor, a small baler would be a good option IF they are dependable. Looking for opinions.


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## 8350HiTech

What size is your acreage and your tractor?


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## PaMike

I dont understand the thought on the mini rounds. Why not just buy a square baler. Mini rounds just seam like a real pain. How do you stack them? How do you move them??


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## Northeast PA hay and beef

My brother uses a yanmar mini baler in his vineyard. I'll get a picture the next time I'm there and he is using it. 60 lb round bales. I used it one time pulled behind a 25hp sub compact kubota. They have the whole yanmar mini line, little discbine, rake/tedder combo and the mini baler.


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## Northeast PA hay and beef

They are used in vineyards, pecan farms, and christmas tree farms. Narrow spaces that you can't get a full size tractor in.


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## Swv.farmer

If you have the room and a 35hp tractor just get you a good used hesston 530 it will be much cheaper and it will serve you well.


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## Leex2

I have 20 acres and have a 50 hp John Deere tractor. I did a search on the Hesston 530 and coulnd't find specs for it, but found statements on forums and sale sites that ranged from a 40HP minimum to 65HP. I don't want to have to make empty trips up the slope every other run if my tractor can't make it up a slope with hay in the baler.

My days of picking up square bales are over. I need to be able to pick up a bale with a spear.


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## 8350HiTech

Leex2 said:


> I have 20 acres and have a 50 hp John Deere tractor. I did a search on the Hesston 530 and coulnd't find specs for it, but found statements on forums and sale sites that ranged from a 40HP minimum to 65HP. I don't want to have to make empty trips up the slope every other run if my tractor can't make it up a slope with hay in the baler.
> 
> My days of picking up square bales are over. I need to be able to pick up a bale with a spear.


What model of 50hp Deere?


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## StxPecans

Just how does one pencil out the cost of the equipment compaired to the tonnage of hay produced? 
Like for me i bought a new h6830 new holland disc mower, a new 12 wheel rake, and a used vermeer 665. I have 40k into it with finance charges. Over 5 years i need to produce 500 5x5.5 bales a year to break even. Then you take account of fuel and wear on your tractors and time. It doesn't really pencil out unless you consider hay quality.
Not sure on prices on mini balers but if they are half the price, say 20k for cutter,rake and baler you would have to produce alot of mini bales to overcome the value of just buying the hay. Also do you have a spare tractor to use?

I already have a bunch of tractors so no biggy.


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## dubltrubl

I agree on the Hesston 530. I had a 540, same baler but with hydraulic compression versus springs. Could easily run it behind the JD 5103 and that was only 50hp under the hood. Made very nice bales and a very simple machine to maintain. Could probably find a 530 or 540 used but serviceable for 1/2 of the cost a mini and do more with it. No need to make full sized bales unless you wanted to.


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## slowzuki

We ran one of the 40"x40" Heston with a 50 (42 pto) hp compact Kubota for a few years even in hills. Worked well.

The tiny mini round balers you can't spear the bales that I can tell.


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## Palmettokat

Look at hay accumulators/grapples as option for the square bale handling. There are different sizes, brands and new and used to be found. Based upon your comments think you would want at max an 8 bale size.


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## 8350HiTech

Palmettokat said:


> Look at hay accumulators/grapples as option for the square bale handling. There are different sizes, brands and new and used to be found. Based upon your comments think you would want at max an 8 bale size.


A Hesston 530 is going to cost a lot less than square baler, accumulator, and grapple.


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## Tx Jim

I can't imagine how much """"fun"""(boring) it would be to stop every time a 60# bale was made


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## Leex2

I've got a JD 5103 too. Also, with square bales, I'd have to build a barn or sell them immediately. They say that the mini bales can be stacked in the field. I know, salestalk.


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## StxPecans

Pretty sure a 50hp tractor could make a 4x4 bale.


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## Idaho Hay

20 acres of 60lb round bales?!!! I don't know what your tonnage would be, but even if you only got 35 ton off of it, that would be almost 1200 of those little buggers! :huh: How do you handle and stack them?!!!


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## KYhaymaker

I think the first round baler my family had was 78 or 79 and was a New Holland 850 which I believe is a 5x5.5 bale. The old chain baler type. Anyway, that baler ran for years behind a Ford 4600 (50ish pto hp). So 50 horsepower will do the job, even putting up a few hundred bales.

The issue for a small producer only producing a few bales each year isnt horsepower, but weight. For safetys sake you dont want to be pushed around by a baler with a heavy bale. That old Ford is probably 6 or 7 thousand pounds, Id bet a modern 50 horse tractor is less.

That said, I dont see the point of a mini round baler. I cant imagine having to use a bale spear to pick up a hundreds of 60 lb rolls. It would be WAY easier and more efficient to make lightweight (600lb ish) 4x4 or 700lb 4x5s. Youd lose money on fuel alone on minirounds, much less your time and no one will want them. A smaller tractor could do light regular rolls, especially if you arent baling on hills, and you would be moving hay at 10-12 times the rate of a minibale.

I just see no purpose for a mini round, except for the guy selling them. Id rent out the job or even just mow the field with a bushhog first.


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## swmnhay

Leex2 said:


> I think for my small acreage and the size of my tractor, a small baler would be a good option IF they are dependable. Looking for opinions.


You should be more specific on size.A mini Rd baler might mean a 60 lb bale to some and a 3' or 4' x 4' to others.

To me this is a mini Rd baler.


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## Leex2

swmnhay said:


> You should be more specific on size.A mini Rd baler might mean a 60 lb bale to some and a 3' or 4' x 4' to others.
> 
> To me this is a mini Rd baler.


Wow, that is tiny. I was thinking more like a 3x3 or 4x4.


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## 506

Leex - bump HCRIDDLE here on HT. He has a round baler that seems to be something like the 3' x 3' size you speak of.


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## slowzuki

Think I've posted this before, these little balers aren't the best round baler in the world but they work and make a roughly 40x40" - 400 lb round bale. Compact tractor runs it very well even in pretty good hills. They were built by hesston I believe and are pretty darned cheap to buy usually.


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## 8350HiTech

Leex2 said:


> Wow, that is tiny. I was thinking more like a 3x3 or 4x4.


Well that certainly changes the theme of the thread!


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## BWfarms

When we hear mini..... this is what we think of:







... a cool $14,999.... just say 15.

You can buy a real basic 4x5 new for a few dollars more.

Just because specs say you need X amount of HP, you don't have to make a full bale in a variable chamber. A 30-36" bale won't hurt a 45 hp tractor. Should you decide to buy a larger tractor, you can fully utilize the bale chamber.


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## Leex2

If the smaller balers aren't mini, what are they called? I've noticed that a lot of the balers that are smaller than the 6x6 size and bigger than the little one swmnhay posted are twine only. If I do get one that will make a 3x3 bale, doesn't it need a wrap to leave it in the field?


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## Leex2

506 said:


> Leex - bump HCRIDDLE here on HT. He has a round baler that seems to be something like the 3' x 3' size you speak of.


Is his user name something different? I can't find that name in a search.


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## 8350HiTech

Leex2 said:


> If the smaller balers aren't mini, what are they called? I've noticed that a lot of the balers that are smaller than the 6x6 size and bigger than the little one swmnhay posted are twine only. If I do get one that will make a 3x3 bale, doesn't it need a wrap to leave it in the field?


They're just called balers.


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## luke strawwalker

Leex2 said:


> I've got a JD 5103 too. Also, with square bales, I'd have to build a barn or sell them immediately. They say that the mini bales can be stacked in the field. I know, salestalk.


A round bale can *theoretically* be left or stacked "in the field" but the losses will be atrocious... MOST of the volume of a round bale is in the outer 1/4-1/3 of the outside diameter of the bale... the same outer layer that is getting exposed to the weather and sun and deteriorating from the moment it's baled until the moment it's fed...

More smaller bales= more of the crop being sun bleached, rain washed, and ground-moisture damaged when stored outside. The most EFFICIENT storage to minimize losses when stored outside is to bale the largest, widest, and densest round bales you can make-- this minimizes the bale count and a larger bale has more hay protected on the *inside* rather than exposed on the *outside* layers of the bale... The smaller the bale, the higher the bale count for the same total tonnage of hay, and therefore more bales= more surface area exposed to weathering/deterioration.

Look at it another way-- the outside 2-4 inches of a round bale take the most damage from weathering, as that is what is exposed to constant sun in daylight and to rain/snow in bad weather, and the moisture INEVITABLY penetrates *somewhat* into the bale... (crop type, density, and tying/wrap method (twine or net) have a lot to do with this-- some crops, like fine grass hay, tends to "pack tight" and make a good rain-shedding "thatch" to prevent water infiltration very far into the bale-- other crops that are coarser/stemmier or not as fine or doesn't make a thatch (like alfalfa or sorghum-sudan) will allow considerably water infiltration into the bale). If you figure the outside 4 inches of a bale will be "straw" by the time it's fed due to weathering/damage, which will have more loss?? A 72 inch bale or a 36 inch bale?? Proportionally, which will lose more overall?? Simplify the math and look at it... if the cows don't eat the outside 6 inches of the bale, that's a foot when you figure "all the way around." That means the 6 foot bale has 5 feet in diameter of "palatable hay" in it... that's 5/6 or 83% of the hay should be "good". For the 3 foot bale, that outer foot of bad hay accounts for 1/3 of the hay, or 33%... so you're only getting use out of 66% of the hay you baled-- the outside layer is junk.

There is NO WAY I'd even THINK about storing "little rounds" outside. The losses with BIG rounds sitting outside is substantial-- with LITTLE rounds it'd be HUGE...

The costs for those little machines *new* are *almost* as much as "full size" haying equipment, and their productivity is a TINY fraction of what a "full size" machine's is... when you figure productivity and life expectancy into the costs, those little machines cost WAY more than a full size machine...

IMHO they're tinker toys just made to sell... if a guy doesn't mind dropping a ton of money on them to make their own hay because they have nothing better to do or spend money on and don't mind "losing it" (what's the resale on those things?? Little/no demand for them) then more power to them I guess... but IMHO the best "bang for the buck" would come from getting a decent used "full size" NORMAL machine that would work for the job in hand... even if it is at the smaller end of the spectrum or whatever...

You plan on selling any of that hay, I hope you have buyers lined up already, because I don't see many people being excited to have to deal with dinky round bales-- all the "problems" of storing round bales (they don't stack as tight as squares, lots of "dead space" between bales) and all the problems of small squares (gotta deal with a sh!t ton of them because they're so small) rolled into one...

Reminds me of the old Allis Chalmers "Roto-baler"... LOL (Look it up on YouTube...)

Later! OL J R


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## luke strawwalker

See now you're talking about maybe 4X4 bales... not the tiny "mini bales" like in the videos...

Same discussion applies... at least with 4x4's you're going in the right direction...  Particularly if you're storing them outside...

Later! OL J R


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## Palmettokat

8350HiTech said:


> A Hesston 530 is going to cost a lot less than square baler, accumulator, and grapple.


No doubt you are correct. I know nothing on the baler you mention, will it make the "mini" bales he wants? Of course the square baler is not what he was asking for either. But he did not want to handle the bale and that was the reason I mentioned the accumulator/grapple and was not suggesting a separate accumulator and separate grapple but the combo reason I grouped the two terms together.

I realize there is much I do not know about hay and find these discussions interesting.


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## swmnhay

Leex2 said:


> If the smaller balers aren't mini, what are they called? I've noticed that a lot of the balers that are smaller than the 6x6 size and bigger than the little one swmnhay posted are twine only. If I do get one that will make a 3x3 bale, doesn't it need a wrap to leave it in the field?


Some of the mini balers have netwrap option.I have a friend that has one.And the co I work for with netwrap sells the small rolls of netwrap to a lot of guys in the SE that bale pine needles with them.I think they use the pine needles for landscaping projects.


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## Tx Jim

Leex2 said:


> If the smaller balers aren't mini, what are they called? I've noticed that a lot of the balers that are smaller than the 6x6 size


IIRC there was only one Vermeer model 6X6 rd baler ever manufactured & that was several yrs back.


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## swmnhay

Tx Jim said:


> IIRC there was only one Vermeer model 6X6 rd baler ever manufactured & that was several yrs back.


New holland had a 6' wide baler also.I think it was 5' tall.I hauled some couple yrs ago made from one and had 12' wide load.DOT didn't like that at all.

I think Vermeer had a 706A 7,wide and 6 tall.Seen one on tractor house onetime.70's vintage?


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## 506

LeeX - I just PM'd Buddy (hcriddle). I'm sure he'll chime in on this thread once he comes on line. He raises Tifton 85. From what I remember his round bales are twine tied 3' x 3'. I think he's found a market for them with horse and miniature horse owners.


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## Tx Jim

swmnhay said:


> New holland had a 6' wide baler also.I think it was 5' tall.I hauled some couple yrs ago made from one and had 12' wide load.DOT didn't like that at all.
> 
> I think Vermeer had a 706A 7,wide and 6 tall.Seen one on tractor house onetime.70's vintage?


I was thinking NH made a 5.5X5.5 but not 6


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## swmnhay

Tx Jim said:


> I was thinking NH made a 5.5X5.5 but not 6


maybe it was 5.5, been a couple yrs ago.They suck 2 wide on a trailer anyway.You wouldn't think it would matter that much but 10 wide vs 11' wide makes huge difference.


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## woodland

swmnhay said:


> maybe it was 5.5, been a couple yrs ago.They suck 2 wide on a trailer anyway.You wouldn't think it would matter that much but 10 wide vs 11' wide makes huge difference.


A 855 NH makes a 5.5x5.5 bale (we used to have a couple of them). The 858 NH makes 8x5.5 bales (neighbor has two but no longer uses them). Both were great and unique in their day but I'll stick with our 568 Deere's instead ????


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## Orchard6

My buddy just sold a Hesston 5530 that would fit the bill nicely for the op. 39”x54” bales and the decal on it said NOT to use tractors over 65 hp. So a 50 hp tractor would work great with that size baler.


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## kentuckyguy

I run a John Deere 335 on steep hills with no problem using a John Deere 5105. A nice used 4x4 baler should be around $6000.


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## climer97007

I have a little John Deere 1025 tractor that only has 25hp. This is what I call a "Compact" tractor. I am ready to buy a true "Mini" Round Baler. When I say "Mini" I mean the Baler can operate with as little as 18hp. Here are examples of the Mini Balers that I am looking at: 
IBEX TX31
FMRB-330
RXYK0850 from KENO Tractors (Chinese import?).
 These are what I call true "Mini Balers". These typically retail in the $5000-$7000 price range (2022). I would like to hear more from actual users of these kinds and sizes of Balers. Thanks! Gene in Oregon


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