# Baler for Baleage and costs for wrapping bales



## Widairy (Jan 1, 2016)

I'm looking to get into doing more or mainly baleage for our 60 cow dairy. My chopping equipment is getting wore out and replacing/updating the line looks just silly expensive. I have hired someone in the past who baled and individual wrapped for 16$ a bale. I wouldn't hire him to wrap again basically because the bales only ended up with 2 layers of plastic and from what I've read they really should get 8. He ran a New Holland with the crop cutter and the bales fed nice through my vertical mixer. I plan on making around 500 bales a year. I do have a Vermeer round baler I have to trade towards a baler with a crop cutter. I almost traded it last winter on a New Holland 7070 until a friend talked me out seeing as he had a 7060 and offered to do my bales as a custom job. And by spring sold his baler, nice...

My big questions are is it worth my effort to trade my Vermeer 664 Rancher in on a baler with the crop cutter, and which balers are good silage balers? I need the cutter for my tmr mixer.

The other question is how expensive is the wrap for line wrapping on a per bale and if I have the baler should I buy a wrapper as well?

Any and all thoughts will be much appreciated. Thank you in advance.


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## IAhaymakr (Jun 4, 2008)

I will give you my opinion on your situation. You have it right that you need a cutter baler for your system. However I would advise individual wrapping. Yes, it costs more in wrap. But it will allow you to successfully harvest a much wider range of moisture forage without problems. I have seen line wrapped bales spoil when the moisture wasn't right, usually being too dry. Plus individual packages allow you to feed as needed from any batch rather than having to keep up with an open tube. And a hole in one spot means one bad bale rather than several in a row. 
If you are interested, I have a Krone 1800 variopak with cutter for sale and a couple round bale grabbers to go with it. We do large squares here and only used the round baler as a backup.


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## endrow (Dec 15, 2011)

We have a new Holland br7060 with bale slice I like that it is a much more simpler process less horsepower and a lot less maintenance. Works good feeding in upright jaylor mixer.We wrapp individual.agree with above statement. 900to1000 bales individually wraped per year,.6 layers coverage per bale works for us.


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## Widairy (Jan 1, 2016)

I was thinking the wrapping could be hired if I'd go line, there are 3 guys in my area I could get if they aren't busy with their own. It seems hard to get the custom guys to show up, either they are busy with their own or I don't have enough acres at once. If I just hire I want to do at least 40 acres a day so the quality would be top notch.


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## LaneFarms (Apr 10, 2010)

I have an in line wrapper and my plastic cost is right at $2 a roll. I do not run a crop cutter baler but if I were and may in the future I would look at the 504 pro from vermeer.


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## Widairy (Jan 1, 2016)

Another question I have is how much maintenance do the knives in a crop cutter baler require? My buddy with the 7060 New Holland told me he had to pull the knives out every 100 bales or so to sharpen them. Seems like that sounds quite often but I don't have any experience.


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## E220 (Feb 10, 2016)

We tell customers of the Vermeer Pro balers to sharpen knives every 500-1000 bales. I had one in for maintenance this past winter with 6000 bales that never were sharpened. They were worn enough that we replaced them.

If you inline wrap, you need to feed a bale per day during the hot months to stay ahead of the "face" spoilage. In the winter most local farmers make out fine with a bale per day. Also you are correct about the layers of wrap. Don't cheap out on the amount of wrap.


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## Widairy (Jan 1, 2016)

One of the concerns I have is that if I hire the baling and wrapping done the custom operator will cheat me on the plastic. The guy who wrapped single bales did that last year, I could only count 2 layers and I'm glad I fed those up within a few months. I really can't justify buying the equipment for 5 to 6 hundred bales a season, unless you get left hung out to dry and your hay get rained on or you get shafted on plastic and the hay doesn't ferment properly or doesn't keep.

Thanks E220 for the info on the cutter maintenance, that's more what I was thinking. As far as keeping up feeding with the line wrap it shouldn't be a problem. The plan is to feed at least one every day through the tmr mixer for the dairy cows.


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## timberjackrob (Feb 16, 2015)

my brother and I purchased a individual wrapper last year it fits our needs nicely there is nothing like having your own wrapper I like the individual because I can keep different types or hay separate easily and sometimes I may cut a small field and only roll 10-15 rolls that would hardly be worth anybodys time to bring an inline wrapper to do,but its no problem with individual.


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## Widairy (Jan 1, 2016)

Timberjackrob, what brand of wrapper did you guys buy? More importantly what features are important to look for when buying a wrapper? I've seen a lot of different setups on tractorhouse just poking around and quite a variation of prices.


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## CaseIH (Feb 6, 2016)

timberjackrob,

How many wraps do you put on each bale? I used one this year and thought it really used allot of wrap, of course I am used to the inline wrappers. I had a friend tell me you only need two complete wraps per bale, but I can tell you I put allot more then that on per bale on my inline wrapper and still come out farther ahead as for the wrap. I'll be following, good info..


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## timberjackrob (Feb 16, 2015)

Vermeer sw5000 it has self loading arm but we usually just set the bales on it with tractor if there are 2 of us working that way we can dump a bale off pull up a little and set another on keeps bales in a neat row.we wrap most bales 16 turns for a 48"x52" bale the book says count how many turns it takes to wrap the bale completely then add one and times it by 2.we usually get 20-22 bales per roll of 30"plastic film so yes it uses more plastic that is the trade off you make for a less expensive machine but one that is a little more versatile,i guess it really boils down to how much hay you are going to wrap.there is no doubt the inline is the way to go if wrapping large amounts.i watched a video titled round bale silage on youtube put out by the university of ky that has some good info I think they said on there that if you were going to wrap over 500 rolls the inline was cost effective to own less than that the individual was more cost effective.as far as the features go ours is pretty much automatic after roll is loaded just push a button and it starts wrapping all settings and functions are controlled from tractor seat with a monitor box,after the wrapping is done push another button and it dumps it off.


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## swmnhay (Jun 13, 2008)

Widairy said:


> I'm looking to get into doing more or mainly baleage for our 60 cow dairy. My chopping equipment is getting wore out and replacing/updating the line looks just silly expensive. I have hired someone in the past who baled and individual wrapped for 16$ a bale. I wouldn't hire him to wrap again basically because the bales only ended up with 2 layers of plastic and from what I've read they really should get 8. He ran a New Holland with the crop cutter and the bales fed nice through my vertical mixer. I plan on making around 500 bales a year. I do have a Vermeer round baler I have to trade towards a baler with a crop cutter. I almost traded it last winter on a New Holland 7070 until a friend talked me out seeing as he had a 7060 and offered to do my bales as a custom job. And by spring sold his baler, nice...
> My big questions are is it worth my effort to trade my Vermeer 664 Rancher in on a baler with the crop cutter, and which balers are good silage balers? I need the cutter for my tmr mixer.
> The other question is how expensive is the wrap for line wrapping on a per bale and if I have the baler should I buy a wrapper as well?
> Any and all thoughts will be much appreciated. Thank you in advance.


inline wrappers run about $2 a bale for film and individual wrappers run about $4 per bale.We recomend 6 wraps of 1.2 mil or 7-8 wraps of 1 mil


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