# Baling large squares into smalls



## DSLinc1017 (Sep 27, 2009)

Wondering if any one has had any success re baling large squares into smalls?

The hay is first cut mostly OG and canary-reed with some clover. It was not processed and baled without preservative (applicator was broken) moisture fortunately at the time was around 14%.

The reason i'm toying with the idea is fairly obvious, I have sold all my smalls and have the potential to sell more, only its in large squares.

I'm assuming the smalls would have the potential to fall apart, as well become dryer and dusty?

What am missing? Is it even worth trying?

Thanks in advance for the insight.


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## 8350HiTech (Jul 26, 2013)

My first question would be how much time and effort will it cost you to do this vs time and effort to find and buy smalls somewhere else to resell.


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## DSLinc1017 (Sep 27, 2009)

8350HiTech said:


> My first question would be how much time and effort will it cost you to do this vs time and effort to find and buy smalls somewhere else to resell.


Good question! yes there would be some of my time involved, not to much though, as I would kick the small bales into a wagon and deliver. I have way more large squares than I need. In this area selling large squares is a lot harder than selling small squares.

On another note, selling hay is not a major part of my plan, however I do have several faithful customers that i would like to keep. One of whom is family.


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## Shetland Sheepdog (Mar 31, 2011)

I'd say "give it a try" for a wagon load, worse that can happen is having to sell the smalls at a discount!

JMHO, Dave


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## mlappin (Jun 25, 2009)

If you can find one, maybe borrow a small open top silage wagon? Or a large one with a back that opens. Place the bales on the web, cut the strings then let the beaters pull the large squares apart. It might try to wrap around the beaters too much though. I've run a bunch of already broken bales thru a silage wagon into our free stalls before, but being large squares the material length will be longer and might have the wrapping problem then.


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## Josh in WNY (Sep 7, 2010)

I have seen setups that convert round bales to small squares, so I don't think it would be too far of a reach to do it with large squares (I think it was a link in a post on this site to a youtube video). My concern would be how much leaf are you going to loose processing hay that has fully dried out? You normally bale with a little moisture in the hay so that you don't loose the leaf, but now your dealing with hay that has sat in a barn and finished drying out. With all the handling involved, you may end up with small square bales that look more like straw than hay.

However, as Shetland said above, give a try and find out. If there is little to no investment in equipment to do a trial run, then all you have to loose is a few large squares. Once you see how it works and if it is viable, then you can start adding equipment to the process to make it more productive.


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## hay wilson in TX (Jan 28, 2009)

Quote>>You normally bale with a little moisture in the hay so that you don't loose the leaf, but now your dealing with hay that has sat in a barn and finished drying out<<

To some extent this should work IF you have a way to rehydrate the leaves. maybe water the bale with a hose and allow to sit over night. Then bale it the following morning.

Give it a try.
A 2000 lb large bale should yield 35 small 55 lb bales.

Something to consider is what kind of average 14% moisture was the hay wnen originally baled. What will you encounter during the second baling.
you have average moisture. Then there is leaf Misture and Stem Moisture Idealy is th have the hay to be stem snapping dry Sunset the day before baling. The next morning with the humidity in the 65% RH range the leaves will be up around 30% moisture and the stems will still be stem snapping dry. Here the leaves will be limber and stay with the stems.
Second option is for the stems and leaves both being 14% moisture. With a center feed baler the leves will shatter but stay in the bale. In this case you can not afford to push the humidity on the high side.
Third option is for the leaves to be dry as gun powder and the stems just dry enough to have the average 14% Moisture. Say stems at 30% moisture. This is not unusal if the operator was justwainting for the hay to test at 14% Average Moisture. This hay will need a good dose of acid to keep from molding. Good chance for the hay to heat. here the best you can hope fore is the heat will just lower the feed quality.

HERE we see roundbales rolled out and baled for the Houston Horse Hay Buyers.
I have small square baled in the same field at the same time. If the humidity is at or a a little higher the square bales will test 1% higher protein. Usually there is a full 2% drop in protein for the round bales. At a $18 baling cost. Up front $0.90 per bale, plus cost to unroll, rake into a windrow and bale say $1.45/bale.
With out rehydration there is another 10% DM loss and another 2% loss in protein. That means TWO or Three bales fewer than if you had squared them in the first place
So spreading their cost over 35 bales they spread their cost over 32 bales.

They really NEED the $15/bale minimum they get for those bermudagrass bales.

Better than nothing.


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## DSLinc1017 (Sep 27, 2009)

Hay W, its always a pleasure to get the in depth scientific explanation. As usual I typically read your comments twice, just to soak it all in. Moisture loss and leave shatter was my suspected downfall. 
The only way I thought of applying moisture was to use my applicator on my baler. Haven't even begun to try to figure out how to calculate that one! 
As 8350 said, perhaps it's easer to just purchase and re-sell. 
I think if I really need to, I'll just give it a try. Of course I'll wait till its 20 bellow with two feet of snow on the ground!


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## PaCustomBaler (Nov 29, 2010)

We've tried it before, the bales come out pretty ugly looking since it's not 'true' loose hay coming into your small baler. Bales come out misshapen and not consistent. You're call through, desperate times call for desperate measures!


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## whitmerlegacyfarm (Aug 26, 2011)

I'm in the same boat kind of. I've sold all my small square bales of hay. I can get round bales for $150/ton and I have buyers for my small squares for $300/ton. Is it possible to take the round bales and just roll out in the field and drive right over with my small square baler. It's an older NH 269, would this be to hard on my baler? I wasn't sure if i'd have to break the round bale up after rolled out or can I just bale it right up and not have to worry about teddin it out and re raking?

Sorry didn't mean to steal the thread just figured i'd chime in hear rather then start another.


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## Vol (Jul 5, 2009)

I would suggest unrolling a round bale out in the field and then raking with a rotary rake and then I would think that it would bale quite nicely.

Regards, Mike


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## whitmerlegacyfarm (Aug 26, 2011)

I have a NH 255 2 rotor rake/tedder. You think this would break it up enough? I'd really like to give this a shot. Maybe I should get a round bale from my neighbor and try first before I go get a load of these round bales. It is a 2nd cut orchard grass hay so should be soft hay, maybe it would bale up find just unrolling and not even reraking it.


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## DSLinc1017 (Sep 27, 2009)

whitmerlegacyfarm said:


> I'm in the same boat kind of. I've sold all my small square bales of hay. I can get round bales for $150/ton and I have buyers for my small squares for $300/ton. Is it possible to take the round bales and just roll out in the field and drive right over with my small square baler. It's an older NH 269, would this be to hard on my baler? I wasn't sure if i'd have to break the round bale up after rolled out or can I just bale it right up and not have to worry about teddin it out and re raking?Sorry didn't mean to steal the thread just figured i'd chime in hear rather then start another.


I've done this with with great success. One thing you do need to watch out for is leaving the center of the roll or for that matter any part if it rolled. I've broken and bent fingers with the roll still rolled. 
I haven't needed to rake it at all. I would make sure that its on some good dead stubble. If you roll it on tall green hay you end up baling green into your bale.


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## mlappin (Jun 25, 2009)

If the round bale is hard enough to need fluffing up to rebale its most likely not worth it as it heated. Just unroll it and bale, the pickup and feeder forks should take care of any "fluffing" needed.


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## hillside hay (Feb 4, 2013)

Rebaling what you haven't round baled in the first place will be a crap shoot. Last year I baled 10 semi trailer loads for somebody and wow. Wished I'd taken pictures of the mountains of waste. Some bales were a complete bust. Pretty glad all I had to do was run it through the baler.He probably had $6 per small square in it by the time he was done. I also used a NH 269 for that. It'll handle a round bale without anything other than unrolling it into the pickup. Also won't break the bank if you want to run it off electric. I used a 15hp TEFC from Marathon. Eliminated the pto and cost less than $4 diesel to run. Good luck


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## whitmerlegacyfarm (Aug 26, 2011)

hillside hay said:


> Well more less its $150/ton for roind bale so $3.00 per small bale when I rebale, n I have a buyer for $6.00/ small bale. I think its worth a try on a few bales?
> 
> Rebaling what you haven't round baled in the first place will be a crap shoot. Last year I baled 10 semi trailer loads for somebody and wow. Wished I'd taken pictures of the mountains of waste. Some bales were a complete bust. Pretty glad all I had to do was run it through the baler.He probably had $6 per small square in it by the time he was done. I also used a NH 269 for that. It'll handle a round bale without anything other than unrolling it into the pickup. Also won't break the bank if you want to run it off electric. I used a 15hp TEFC from Marathon. Eliminated the pto and cost less than $4 diesel to run. Good luck


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## hay wilson in TX (Jan 28, 2009)

It would be interesting to know what the loss in dry matter is and the loss in feed value is.
Don't ask if you can not stand the answer.

None of the figuring takes Dry matter and CP loss in the process.
I expect there will be a 20% DM & CP loss in the process. The $150/T RB would be $180/T in small bales.
Figure $5.15 /bale for a 55 lb bale. Still not all that bad. Plus $1.35 baling cost. Plus another $2 handling cost after baling. Say $8.50 /bale break even. Say $10.20 /bale FOB your barn or warehouse. Probably good tested small bales in the barn are worth $15 /bale in Houston. Compared to AZ or Ca 3 string bales at $20 /bale. It should work.

If I had some reasonable good alfalfa in the barn I could sell it to you. If frogs had feathers their but would stay dry.
Maybe next year.

The Trucker Would clear the most on the deal. Say a 2,000 miles Haul


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## aawhite (Jan 16, 2012)

I've posted on this topic before. We used to round bale our dry cow hay, and unroll it and small square bale it for our sm. square needs. This was smooth brome, and a NH 279 baler. It worked okay, but you did lose leaves/dm, even on the grass. I'm not sure I would unroll and run the baler down the "windrow". We used an unroller on a front end loader. I liked that method better. The biggest issue is the pickup grabbing slugs of dense hay and trying to move it is as a wad into the chamber. We could limit this with a guy pitchforking the hay into the pickup. If you drive the baler down the windrow, just make sure you have plenty of shearbolts handy. The whole process is time consuming. Also, the bales always came out ugly looking, so if this is for a buyer that likes pretty hay, be warned.

I wouldn't even think about it with alfalfa. We tried it once, ended up with about 100 bales of stems, and a lovely pile of powdered alfalfa leaves all over the pad site. Never do it again, end up with worthless hay. This was a 3x3x8 bale. Damn hard to get it to feed right

We did this for hay we were feeding ourselves. Not sure I would try it for hay I wanted to sell. I think I would only do it with round bales, as well.

Don't want to scare you off, but it worked much better on paper than practice for us.

Aaron W.


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## whitmerlegacyfarm (Aug 26, 2011)

Well I tried it today, did it with 1 roind bale I bought. made 25 small bales, very light so im just goin to more less charge or $300/ton. I biy tge rounds for $150/ton and it will hee happy and keep from finding sum1else. I know it seems dumb but she knows the quality of my 2nd n 3rd cut orchard grass so I would like to get her as a customer. Im goin to go probably buy 3 ton of round bales from this guy.


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## endrow (Dec 15, 2011)

whitmerlegacyfarm said:


> Well I tried it today, did it with 1 roind bale I bought. made 25 small bales, very light so im just goin to more less charge or $300/ton. I biy tge rounds for $150/ton and it will hee happy and keep from finding sum1else. I know it seems dumb but she knows the quality of my 2nd n 3rd cut orchard grass so I would like to get her as a customer. Im goin to go probably buy 3 ton of round bales from this guy.


How did you end up doing it .


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## whitmerlegacyfarm (Aug 26, 2011)

My wife and I layed a big tarp down and would roll the round bale a few feet back and forth and pull slices off and feed them into the baler. It out went well I thought, it was very dusty and just had to be careful and try and keep a steady flow of hay going into the pickup. Needless the say they weren't the nicest bales but we were using our old NH 68, due to waiting on parts for my NH 269. But all in all with my good NH 269 baler I think it will go twice as fast. It defently didn't not make us money doing one bale, but not that I know it's not to bad to do we will go get a full trailer load of round and should be able to make $600 per 3-4ton of hay after we rebale it and deliver it. Which should approx. be 150-200 small bales. I'm only making about 40lbs bales due to rebaling process and not having constant hay feeding into chamber, but I thinkg it's well worth it to pick up this customer and to try and pick up more possibly. The hay is slim pickings already in small squares around us.

I'm selling this hay to Alpaca people, so it's even harder to come by pure orchard grass hay made right. It always feels good when I delivery hay the horses or alpacas start eating it right off the bed of the truck or off the trailer.

It was a very dusty job but we are going to atleast do another 3-4ton for this one customer. Thanks all for the help


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## DSLinc1017 (Sep 27, 2009)

whitmerlegacyfarm said:


> My wife and I layed a big tarp down and would roll the round bale a few feet back and forth and pull slices off and feed them into the baler. It out went well I thought, it was very dusty and just had to be careful and try and keep a steady flow of hay going into the pickup. Needless the say they weren't the nicest bales but we were using our old NH 68, due to waiting on parts for my NH 269. But all in all with my good NH 269 baler I think it will go twice as fast. It defently didn't not make us money doing one bale, but not that I know it's not to bad to do we will go get a full trailer load of round and should be able to make $600 per 3-4ton of hay after we rebale it and deliver it. Which should approx. be 150-200 small bales. I'm only making about 40lbs bales due to rebaling process and not having constant hay feeding into chamber, but I thinkg it's well worth it to pick up this customer and to try and pick up more possibly. The hay is slim pickings already in small squares around us.I'm selling this hay to Alpaca people, so it's even harder to come by pure orchard grass hay made right. It always feels good when I delivery hay the horses or alpacas start eating it right off the bed of the truck or off the trailer.It was a very dusty job but we are going to atleast do another 3-4ton for this one customer. Thanks all for the help


That's great to hear! I've got a bunch of rounds that I'm planing to do if I need to. I will hold off on the large squares as from what y'all have said the bales will be a bit messy. 
My biggest hold back, now that the weather is a bit colder is having to blow my baler out again. 
Thanks for all the advice and personal tales on this topic. 
Keep it coming!


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## Vol (Jul 5, 2009)

This is from Hay and Forage....

Regards, Mike

http://hayandforage.com/marketing/why-these-hay-growers-bought-bale-conversion-system


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## DSLinc1017 (Sep 27, 2009)

Thanks for the link Mike, 
It's the very reason I have a lot of my hay custome done into large squares. There is no way I could ever get that much small squares into the barn in the weather windows we have. Let alone the labor!


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## Bgriffin856 (Nov 13, 2013)

For round bales i would put them on end and unravel them with a fork and put in a pile then feed in the baler. That's how we feed ours in our tiestall barn just like feeding loose hay cows love it compared to small squares.


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## whitmerlegacyfarm (Aug 26, 2011)

I did a total of 5 4x5 round bales so far. Very dusty job, i'm guess it's dusty cause of being fine second cut orchard grass and that it's probably dried more beind in the bales for a few months now. Sure and a money maker but it's keep this new customer happy. Im struggling to keep consistent bales, weight and tightness. I need a round bale unwinder.

Anyone know what a bale unwinder might cost? The videos I watched on Youtube look pretty slick just set it up right infront of the baler and it keeps feed the hay in real consistent.


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## hillside hay (Feb 4, 2013)

Rissler makes one I was quoted 7500 for a new one. Pretty basic machine. How are you with a welder? Pretty simple to make out of stuff in the boneyard. Agway makes a real nice one for around 15k. I've heard of guys using a forage table to feed the baler. Benefits of doing that would be you could load 8 bales to a time. Do you have the thrower drive on your baler? I take my thrower of and use the drive to run the hydraulic systems for unrolling and elevator. Just a couple options for you to think about to keep overhead down.


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## Bgriffin856 (Nov 13, 2013)

Unless you plan on doing this regularly I'd just use a fork. It doesn't take long to tear a bale apart. Could always hire a high school kid and have them unraveling one while you feed the baler. Im guessing once you get going you could do three or four bales an hour at a minimum. I couldn't justify spending that much on something you "want" not actually "need" But im cheap lol.

As for large squares, wouldnt that be like rebaling broken small bales? Ugly falling apart mess.


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## swmnhay (Jun 13, 2008)

Did you do a search on here? You may get some other ideas from previous disscussions.I think this gets discussed every few months.There are various pieces of eq that are made for this.


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## whitmerlegacyfarm (Aug 26, 2011)

My wife and I done 5 bales so far, got 3 more to do. Deliver the small squares we rebaled tomorrow to a 2 different customers. Not going to get rich, but oh well.


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## bigikehay (Nov 23, 2013)

type in bale destroyer on youtube,,,you will love it


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## DSLinc1017 (Sep 27, 2009)

bigikehay said:


> type in bale destroyer on youtube,,,you will love it


Thanks for the link! Pretty much answers my question, on a large scale. My scale if I have to will involve a lot more elbo grease.

Edit:
Welcome to Hay Talk!


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## mlappin (Jun 25, 2009)

Thing is, that dust they need to suck out of the building in the bale destroyer video is a lot of leaves being pulverized. I'd be really interested to see feed value before and after rebaling. I'm sure certain grasses could be rebaled but would lose practically every leaf on alfalfa.

Only system I've seen that doesn't loose a ton of leaves is one that shears the bale to size.


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## somedevildawg (Jun 20, 2011)

Seems as though I saw a video of a machine that cut or sheared the big bale into smaller squares.....seems like leaf loss would be a significant concern....


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## dbergh (Jun 3, 2010)

somedevildawg said:


> Seems as though I saw a video of a machine that cut or sheared the big bale into smaller squares.....seems like leaf lose would be a significant concern....


Steffans builds a bale processor that shears large squares into smalls and reties them. Leaf loss would be virtually eliminated but I believe they run around $500K for a setup  !


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## mlappin (Jun 25, 2009)

somedevildawg said:


> Seems as though I saw a video of a machine that cut or sheared the big bale into smaller squares.....seems like leaf lose would be a significant concern....


You'll lose some, but since you're not busting the entire bale apart then rebaling it leaf loss is at a minimum with shearing.


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## somedevildawg (Jun 20, 2011)

mlappin said:


> You'll lose some, but since you're not busting the entire bale apart then rebaling it leaf loss is at a minimum with shearing.


I agree, meaning rebaling via tearing bale apart and putting it back together would have too much leaf lose, seems to me I saw that on the tube or who knows these days.....media overload, looks like with alfalfa that would be the only way to go. Grass is purty commonly rebaled down in these parts....although still very dusty and lots of leaf lose


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## mlappin (Jun 25, 2009)

Here's another example of how many leaves can be lost from a large square of alfalfa.

My friend who is in the dairy business will place a large square on a tarp, cut the strings off then place half at a time into his vertical TMR wagon. after a few bales there is definitely enough leaves on the tarp to be worth having the tarp under the bales. He also parks the TMR wagon on a tarp to catch anything that might puke out the top of it. I pulled in the one time and you could see the leaves floating out of the top of the mixer as well.

When I grind feed I place the first bale in then immediately add glycerin and jam to cut down on the amount of leaves floating out, he's organic so doesn't have that option.


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## Tkekic (Sep 16, 2013)

I agree with PAcustom and the trouble he had with bale shape. I have made nothing except small square bales. We make hay for horses and while the quality of the hay does not seem to suffer the stacking of the bales is nightmare. The consistency is gone. Some are well packed and hold their shape well while others fall apart when you try to move them in any manner. The rate that the loose hay is fed into the baler also seems to make a difference. I try to keep a heavy load of loose hay feeding into the baler. If I don't the bales are a mess. Hope it all works out for you.


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