# Round Bales & Return $$$'s



## VA Haymaker

We are getting our ducks in a row making square bales and having some success with it. Also looking to expand our acerage with some field clearings over the next few years.

Squares are great - seems like that's where the $$$'s are at, however.....

Looking down the road at some point my help (my teenage kids) are going to be out on their own and I don't want to hem them in on the hay deal if it's not something they are interested-in - long term. One thing to be in high school and bale hay with the 'ol man', but at some point, I'll be doing this hay on my own - and I ain't getting any younger - LOL!

So starting to feel my way around round balers and also potential prices for round bales. Looking forward - looking for info for another day.

Frankly what I'm seeing isn't very encouraging from a price standpoint. Would it be fair to say that for a given weight total, a round bale might fetch 1/2 what the equivelant load of square bales of equal weight? To be fair, I'm not talking about price per pound or ton, but price per square and per round bale. So if a 4x4 round bale (I probably should stick with a 4x4 round with my 50 pto hp tractor) was 800lbs and a square was 50 lbs, there would theoriticly be 16 squares in that 4x4 round. If you got $4 per square - that would be $64 for 800 lbs of them. I see (on CL) 4x4 bales going for an average $25 each. That's a big price difference!!!!! 4x5 rounds aren't much better. BTW - those prices are for primarily orchard grass or OG with some other grasses mixed-in.

Factor in your lime, fertilizer, weed spray, diesel, twine and are you going to make any $$$'s with a round bale?

So - give me the skinny on how to make $$$'s on round bales of hay. What are realistic prices (not just CL). If round baling - I should think the horse customer is mostly out (guessing here) and maybe beef/dairy would be the customer. Perhaps rather than making timothy squares, you make orchard grass or alfalfa round bales.

Help me figure out the round bale market. There must be some $$$'s in it as it is a rare sight these days to see a square baler on a dealer lot - or in the field!

Any tips, sage advice - would be much appreciated.

Thanks!

Bill


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## mlappin

Like any other business, location, location, location.

Is there any demand in your area for round bales? If $25/bale is the average price in your area for rounds then I'd say no on the demand.

With no demand its very hard to make a profit on anything.

Do you have any animals you can feed the rounds to? Make your first cutting in rounds since usually it's the highest volume, then make later cuttings in small squares if you must.

If making rounds some kind of storage is a must, tarps work but a building or hoop building is much better. If those $25 rounds in your area are stored outside then storage should/could add $10-15 a piece to the price.

Here my good hay in 4x5's usually sells within $15-20/ton of what small squares sell for. I've sold for as much or more than squares depending on who's at the auction.

Here my bales start at $55/bale for first cutting horse hay.

Might want to figure on a 4x4 bale not weighing 800lbs. According to the scale I added to my round baler the average weight of good 4x5 first cutting bales were 827lbs.


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## JD3430

leeave96 said:


> We are getting our ducks in a row making square bales and having some success with it. Also looking to expand our acerage with some field clearings over the next few years.
> 
> Squares are great - seems like that's where the $$$'s are at, however.....
> 
> Looking down the road at some point my help (my teenage kids) are going to be out on their own and I don't want to hem them in on the hay deal if it's not something they are interested-in - long term. One thing to be in high school and bale hay with the 'ol man', but at some point, I'll be doing this hay on my own - and I ain't getting any younger - LOL!
> 
> So starting to feel my way around round balers and also potential prices for round bales. Looking forward - looking for info for another day.
> 
> Frankly what I'm seeing isn't very encouraging from a price standpoint. Would it be fair to say that for a given weight total, a round bale might fetch 1/2 what the equivelant load of square bales of equal weight? To be fair, I'm not talking about price per pound or ton, but price per square and per round bale. So if a 4x4 round bale (I probably should stick with a 4x4 round with my 50 pto hp tractor) was 800lbs and a square was 50 lbs, there would theoriticly be 16 squares in that 4x4 round. If you got $4 per square - that would be $64 for 800 lbs of them. I see (on CL) 4x4 bales going for an average $25 each. That's a big price difference!!!!! 4x5 rounds aren't much better. BTW - those prices are for primarily orchard grass or OG with some other grasses mixed-in.
> 
> Factor in your lime, fertilizer, weed spray, diesel, twine and are you going to make any $$$'s with a round bale?
> 
> So - give me the skinny on how to make $$$'s on round bales of hay. What are realistic prices (not just CL). If round baling - I should think the horse customer is mostly out (guessing here) and maybe beef/dairy would be the customer. Perhaps rather than making timothy squares, you make orchard grass or alfalfa round bales.
> 
> Help me figure out the round bale market. There must be some $$$'s in it as it is a rare sight these days to see a square baler on a dealer lot - or in the field!
> 
> Any tips, sage advice - would be much appreciated.
> 
> Thanks!
> Bill


Bill you and I are in very similar situations. After only 2 years of making little squares, I knew it was too hard on the "old man" too. I want my son to be free to chose his life and what he wants to do. Certainly not be forced to make hay with me, although theres no one on earth Id rather work with than my own son. 
I switched to the round baler because it can then become virtually a one man operation, but there's still days where it would sure be nice to have help.
I'm surprised at how low the pricing is for for RBs in your area. I can get $70-80 for a quality 4x5 RB. Even my low quality RBs get $45/bale. 
Sounds like you are in a terrible RB market! 
If that's the case, I'd look to investing in and accumulator, grapple, setup for handling bundles of bales at a time.


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## RockyHill

Jeff & I were talking at lunch today about the low price of round bales in this area. Not a new topic by any means. I think you are probably in the same overall geographic area. I don't have the "why" it is that way but $40 for good 5X5.5 bales won't pay the bills. There are enough folks that will go out and mow whatever they can find, roll it up, and sell it cheap. Buyers have seen enough of the $25 a roll prices that they THINK that is what the price should be. Give them a brief explanation of what it costs to produce hay and the difference in quality of hay being sold, the light bulb flickers on above their head and then goes out before they reach for their wallet.

Hope you can find the answer for round bales and share with the rest of us.

Shelia


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## NewBerlinBaler

leeave96 - You don't indicate how you're marketing your small squares. Direct to horse owners? In my area, CL seems to be the way growers get rid of junky hay, thus the bargain prices.

To make $$ around here, I take my RBs to local hay auctions. Most of the buyers have dairy or beef cattle operations. Of course, they're grazing their animals all summer so in order to get a decent price for my rounds, I have to wait until at least the 3rd quarter of the year. By October, they're starting to wonder if they have enough feed on hand to get their herd thru the winter. The hay market around here stays strong until April when pastures start coming on and herds can graze again. If I took a load of hay to auction now, I'd be lucky to get $25/bale.

In summary, round bales need to be stored until market conditions are good. A barn or hoop building would sure be nice but right now I store bales on pallets & under tarps.

Gary


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## Tim/South

No money in round bales here unless you are feeding them.


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## JD3430

Is it me, or is the low priced round bales issue a "southern" thing? 
RBs don't get small square prices per ton up north, but they don't sell for $25, either.


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## 8350HiTech

JD3430 said:


> Is it me, or is the low priced round bales issue a "southern" thing?
> RBs don't get small square prices per ton up north, but they don't sell for $25, either.


In my rather constant perusing or craigslist, I think the cheap border is the Mason-Dixon Line. Lots of cheapies in WV and VA, far fewer in PA. Maryland isn't wide enough here to worry about.

Anyway, to the original point, I (I'm dying a little inside here  ) completely agree with JD3430. If you are building a solid clientele for small squares and making money, don't abandon them. Abandon your current method of handling them instead.


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## deadmoose

8350HiTech said:


> Anyway, to the original point, I (I'm dying a little inside here  ) completely agree with JD3430.


Thats too funny.


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## rjmoses

Price your hay at $/ton; sell it at $/bale.

E.g., My round bale weighs 1000 lbs; I want to make $150/ton == My price should be $75/bale.

Sq bales weigh 50 lbs; (40 bales/ton); I want to make $150/ton == My price should be $3.75/bale.

Know you costs/acre (fertilizer, fuel, equipment depreciation, maintenance, etc.), yield/acre, which will give you your basis, then add in your "profit" / acre which could be cash rent in your area to get what you need to make/ton.

I sell by the bale or by the ton---doesn't make any difference to me--they are the same.

Hope this helps.

Ralph


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## JD3430

8350HiTech said:


> In my rather constant perusing or craigslist, I think the cheap border is the Mason-Dixon Line. Lots of cheapies in WV and VA, far fewer in PA. Maryland isn't wide enough here to worry about.
> Anyway, to the original point, I (I'm dying a little inside here  ) completely agree with JD3430. If you are building a solid clientele for small squares and making money, don't abandon them. Abandon your current method of handling them instead.


Yeah it's not like anybody has trouble noticing you're the #1 contrarian to literally everything I post. You actually take it to new, but rather obvious level. Fun living rent free in someone's head tho....


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## VA Haymaker

NewBerlinBaler said:


> leeave96 - You don't indicate how you're marketing your small squares. Direct to horse owners? In my area, CL seems to be the way growers get rid of junky hay, thus the bargain prices.
> 
> To make $$ around here, I take my RBs to local hay auctions. Most of the buyers have dairy or beef cattle operations. Of course, they're grazing their animals all summer so in order to get a decent price for my rounds, I have to wait until at least the 3rd quarter of the year. By October, they're starting to wonder if they have enough feed on hand to get their herd thru the winter. The hay market around here stays strong until April when pastures start coming on and herds can graze again. If I took a load of hay to auction now, I'd be lucky to get $25/bale.
> 
> In summary, round bales need to be stored until market conditions are good. A barn or hoop building would sure be nice but right now I store bales on pallets & under tarps.
> 
> Gary


I am selling direct to horse, cow and goat owners.

I looked online at VA hay prices and yes, once fall starts coming, price and demand increase. Spring is definitely a buyers market.


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## VA Haymaker

Tim/South said:


> No money in round bales here unless you are feeding them.


I was thinking the same thing. The profit must be in the cow being sold, not the hay that feeds them.


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## Trotwood2955

I think there are several reasons round bale prices appear soft in this area. First, most people that have any decent amount of cattle make their own hay vs. buying it. Second, there are tons of people who make just a little bit of hay every year, enough to piddle at it, don't fertilize, using older equipment, baling up mainly junk grass and weeds and then advertising those little bales for $20-25...partly because they have little $$ in it and partly because they don't know their costs. Other people see those prices (as someone mentioned above) and think that is the going rate. They just can't realize that that little, loose, sloppy, twine-tied and outside stored 4x4 bale of weeds/grass isn't quality hay. $25 wouldn't hardly cover my variable costs (fertilizer, fuel, net wrap, etc.) to produce a 4x5 much less cover fixed costs or any profit. And as someone already pointed out, trying to explain to someone what is really in that little junk bale of hay vs. a nice, quality bale is usually pointless.

That is why we sell very few round bales, typically market our hay through the cow herd essentially. We don't a huge amount of square bales either, because with the minimal amount of labor we have and the "old fashioned" way of doing the bales (stacking on flat wagons) even though you think you are making good $$$ per bale, per acre, whatever, if you really figure in what your time is worth selling squares at $4 & $5/bale still seems cheap to me, and that is typically the top of what we have been able to get, unless its for a small amount of bales here and there.

I have been able to get decent money (for here) for 4x5s though whenever i've sold some, but you have to have quality hay, and develop good relationships, usually with cattle guys that do buy most of their own hay. And I know quite a few in the area that have sizable herds and buy all their hay. But they understand the value in that bale, and how much it would cost them to produce it themselves (including machinery investments). The average horse person or weekend warrrior doesnt seem to understand that as well.

Another point, again for this area, most of the larger cattle guys want bigger bales - usually 5x5 or 5x6, some don't mind the 4x5...but they dont want 4x4. So this again is going to limit your market. Even if you have high quality hay, most buyers who understand the economics and willing to pay a reasonable price for a quality product are going to want larger bales.


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## ARD Farm

Tim/South said:


> No money in round bales here unless you are feeding them.


I agree 95% with that. I'd not even own a round bailer if it wasn't for my wife's (Percheron ((nag)) flea breeders) and my one customer who wants rounds. Of course, rounds can be a one person operation, squares are never a one person operation....

Trick with idiot cubes is having the labor to handle them at a reasonable price and being able to afford that cost up front before any are sold no matter how you handle them (even with a bale stacker), at some point they get fingerprinted.

I would stroingly suggest purchasing a larger tractor, 50 pto is real marginal power for any round bailer in a production scenario, ie: heavy windrows..... and usually a 50 horse tractor is at a disadvantage weight wise. Fine for real flat ground, but get an almost full bale chamber and a hill and it could turn into a white knuckle experience.


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## Tim/South

leeave96 said:


> I was thinking the same thing. The profit must be in the cow being sold, not the hay that feeds them.


The high prices our cattle are bringing makes going to the hay field much more fun.

I came to the conclusion a few years ago that I like my cows more than I like other people's horses.


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## deadmoose

Tim/South said:


> The high prices our cattle are bringing makes going to the hay field much more fun.
> I came to the conclusion a few years ago that I like my cows more than I like other people's horses.


I am pretty sure they taste better too. I haven't tested the theory yet, but everytime I suggest a taste test someone gives a dirty look.


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## cyclonic

I went through this whole thing last winter as I was contemplating squares vs rounds. Around here, right now, the BEST you can do on rounds is about $75 per ton. Squares, about the WORST I can do with quality hay, is about $110 per ton.

Bottom line, you can have some success in making a product that nobody else is making, but be sure you have a market for it.

However, you have more time and labor in the squares. I bought an accumulator. 1st cutting heavy alfalfa...I baled about 200 squares per hour, and that included getting them picked up and in the barn. 2 people.

So, if your willing to put in the extra money in equipment ($10-20k), you'll hopefully pay for it in a couple years.

With squares, storage is my biggest challenge.

Good luck!


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