# Kuhn hay accumulator



## eric1066 (Dec 1, 2010)

for the 2018 we will be running a 15 bale Kuhn hay accumulator across 235 acres, but for the 2019 season we will have about 430 acres to bale. We will be buying two new balers and another Kuhn for the 2019 season, but I'm curious as to the Groups opinion to when does the acreage exceed the Kuhn capability ? We're striving for 700 acreage if not more. We're located in Berne, ny


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## Vol (Jul 5, 2009)

eric1066 said:


> for the 2018 we will be running a 15 bale Kuhn hay accumulator across 235 acres, but for the 2019 season we will have about 430 acres to bale. We will be buying two new balers and another Kuhn for the 2019 season, but I'm curious as to the Groups opinion to when does the acreage exceed the Kuhn capability ? We're striving for 700 acreage if not more. We're located in Berne, ny


Capability would depend upon your workforce. Will you be loading grabs of bales with skid steers or tractors? Will you have at least two grapples per accumulator?...one in the field loading and one at the storage facility unloading? Lots of factors that can affect capabilities.

Regards, Mike


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## eric1066 (Dec 1, 2010)

Thank you for your reply mike, we'll have enough wagons and trailers to stack that days baled acreages. And we have a brand new t6 110 nh with a grabber running right behind the baler. And long range plans are to have a telehandler at our facility to put the bales away later off


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## VA Haymaker (Jul 1, 2014)

eric1066 said:


> for the 2018 we will be running a 15 bale Kuhn hay accumulator across 235 acres, but for the 2019 season we will have about 430 acres to bale. We will be buying two new balers and another Kuhn for the 2019 season, but I'm curious as to the Groups opinion to when does the acreage exceed the Kuhn capability ? We're striving for 700 acreage if not more. We're located in Berne, ny


With so much acreage and hay potential, would a New Holland bale wagon or bale bandit be a consideration?


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## eric1066 (Dec 1, 2010)

I think in the long run that's what's going to happen. But I'm just curious as to what's the acreage limit on running two Kuhn


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## Lewis Ranch (Jul 15, 2013)

eric1066 said:


> for the 2018 we will be running a 15 bale Kuhn hay accumulator across 235 acres, but for the 2019 season we will have about 430 acres to bale. We will be buying two new balers and another Kuhn for the 2019 season, but I'm curious as to the Groups opinion to when does the acreage exceed the Kuhn capability ? We're striving for 700 acreage if not more. We're located in Berne, ny


Buy a baron now and save yourself the hassle.


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## eric1066 (Dec 1, 2010)

Are you running one in your operation ? I looked at one this summer at the farm show. There nice but I'm curious what makes them better then a bale wagon ? I use a bale squeeze to load our tractor trailers for deliverys. So the pack that they make doesn't really help my operations speed for taking my bales off of the field or loading if I get a bale wagon. But I might be wrong ?


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## Beav (Feb 14, 2016)

The accumulators will not be your biggest limiting factor, weather,labor and hours in the day will be bigger limiting factors. We put up 250 acres with a 10 bale accumulator and 3 people two with full time jobs.20000+ sm squares and 400 rounds.Two grapples one in the field loading with a telehandler the unloading in barns with skid steer. Wagons or trailers for transport? We can bale and load 1700 bales before we need to unload we use wagons flat stacked so no messing with tie down


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## eric1066 (Dec 1, 2010)

We have 11 wagons and a 32' gooseneck now, and I agree completely with your assessment


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## Lewis Ranch (Jul 15, 2013)

eric1066 said:


> Are you running one in your operation ? I looked at one this summer at the farm show. There nice but I'm curious what makes them better then a bale wagon ? I use a bale squeeze to load our tractor trailers for deliverys. So the pack that they make doesn't really help my operations speed for taking my bales off of the field or loading if I get a bale wagon. But I might be wrong ?


Running bandits here, will be switching to a baron in the next 2 years.


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## eric1066 (Dec 1, 2010)

Ohh nice, I heard the bale bandit has multiple problems with it. Hopefully the baron proves it's worth, it's a hefty price tag on it. How many acres are you all running across


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## slowzuki (Mar 8, 2011)

How many people and tractors do you have available? I'm in a simailar climate and without acid you are maxed out around 1500 bales per day per high capacity baler. So 2018 you are talking about 15 acres a day, 16 full perfect baling days needed. That takes about 6-9 weeks of average weather in June July to get that many good days.

2018 one guy loading wagons will keep up if everything is well staged in the morning. Once baler stops other man will haul wagons I presume while loader finishes clearing field. Once you get the hang of it if your wagons are sized right maybe 3.5-4 hours to get it all into barns so done around 11 pm if all goes well.

If you double the acres and number of balers the baling time stays the same but you need two grapples clearing field and two people hauling wagons and two people filling barn with grapples to keep the same times.

What a baron brings is with right setup can move 42 bales per cycle unloading into the barn and if they are the right wagons you can get half again more bales on per trip even without straps. If you have a full sized hay squeeze even better you can unload wagons with it even faster.


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## slowzuki (Mar 8, 2011)

The bandit's have come a long way. The main remaining problem is the steel straps. The baron on the other hand have been good and just keep getting faster. The biggest issue with the baron is the bale length. If your market doesn't like short bales, you won't like a baron.



eric1066 said:


> Ohh nice, I heard the bale bandit has multiple problems with it. Hopefully the baron proves it's worth, it's a hefty price tag on it. How many acres are you all running across


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## eric1066 (Dec 1, 2010)

We currently have two tractor a 5085m Jb, a brand new ts6 110 bucket tractor. I've been leaning towards the new holland bale wagon for the 2019 season for the simple fact I can load and deliver and dump with one unit or possibly 2 if needs be. But I really haven't crunched the numbers on that for the 2019 season. But we're definitely buying two new balers for 2019.


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## Lewis Ranch (Jul 15, 2013)

eric1066 said:


> Ohh nice, I heard the bale bandit has multiple problems with it. Hopefully the baron proves it's worth, it's a hefty price tag on it. How many acres are you all running across


No problems with the bandit but I'd prefer the strings vs steel straps and I need to get down to a 45-50lb bale. End of next year I'll have 200+ acres in square hay


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## slowzuki (Mar 8, 2011)

You are gonna want to install acid on your balers and still gonna be extremely tough to get first cut in on time unless you are horse Timothy market where headed out is ok.

A modern self propelled nh bale wagon would be a good match with what you want to do if you have tall barns.



eric1066 said:


> We currently have two tractor a 5085m Jb, a brand new ts6 110 bucket tractor. I've been leaning towards the new holland bale wagon for the 2019 season for the simple fact I can load and deliver and dump with one unit or possibly 2 if needs be. But I really haven't crunched the numbers on that for the 2019 season. But we're definitely buying two new balers for 2019.


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## eric1066 (Dec 1, 2010)

Ok, none of my customers want the acid, these are big wealthy horses stables in New England and have had nothing but problems with farmers who use preservative on there hay. If we have to run three balers we will in order to avoid using it and to be that much more efficiency


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## Beav (Feb 14, 2016)

don't ask don't tell on the acid especially if you use it sparingly and store the hay yourself


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## eric1066 (Dec 1, 2010)

Until a $50,000 horse gets sick abc I get blamed and sued, that's the whole reason why I have all of these customers is because if that policy that other suppliers have done unfortunately. 6 places that are drop and hook 700 bales a month. You don't want to upset customers like that


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## slowzuki (Mar 8, 2011)

Lack of acid won’t protect you from getting sued!


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## somedevildawg (Jun 20, 2011)

slowzuki said:


> Lack of acid won't protect you from getting sued!


No but lying will.......


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## somedevildawg (Jun 20, 2011)

I think in terms of speed it's hard to beat a stackwagon.....depending on lots of factors. Storage is critical....

Bundlers are very good, my bandit works fantastic, and is 11 years old. Bundles have their limitations but all methods seem to....

The metal straps are not a drawback for us.....

Bale length is a measure of how you market, no difference that selling small or larger round bales.....one has to sell on quality. The better buyers can do the math, that's the ones I want......


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## sethd11 (Jan 1, 2012)

If you don't have preservative, don't buy a bandit or Baron. Unless your out west in a dry climate. The baron especially packs hay so tight it cannot breathe. I lost 3486 bales in baron bundles that was sprayed with acid between 16-25%. (uneven Field). Unless its perfectly dry or just barely there I would stick with accumulated bales. With your on edge model bales breathe really well.

On another note I can bale, pickup and be out of fields faster that my counterparts with bale Barron's.(pickup models) The time saving is significantly different, not to mention cost of operation. That being said I still pay to have my friends bale 10-15k bales in bale Barron's a year because of the shipping difference on loads of hay going any serious distance(ex. Florida)

The only other serious thing I do t like about the bale Barron is the soft grass hay bundles don't hold together like a bale bandits bundles doo. After they are handle the strings cut in to the bales and become very saggy and loose. That's with 550 twine and doors adjusted all the way in on Barron. 
1st cutting hay and alfalfa hay? Can't beat those barron bundles, like bricks and you can drop them 14 feet up and it doesn't matter.

If your good with accumulators and have a tie grabber and good machines to pick up with, you'll be as fast if not faster than any type of bundler, and financially better off. Just my 1.5¢. (decreased value of u.s. currency). It's just not 2cents anymore...


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## VA Haymaker (Jul 1, 2014)

eric1066 said:


> for the 2018 we will be running a 15 bale Kuhn hay accumulator across 235 acres, but for the 2019 season we will have about 430 acres to bale. We will be buying two new balers and another Kuhn for the 2019 season, but I'm curious as to the Groups opinion to when does the acreage exceed the Kuhn capability ? We're striving for 700 acreage if not more. We're located in Berne, ny


Not to drag your post off topic, but can you tell us more about your customer? What kind of hay you provide, i.e. timothy, OG, alfalfa, etc. Typical bale size/weight? Plastic or sisal twine. Are you testing the hay, i.e. via Equi-Analytical and providing the results?

Preservative - IMHO, sometimes it's necessary to prevent a lost crop. We used it this past year on our last cuttings. It was the difference between loosing the hay to the elements. We use buffered propionic acid and I get it - some horse folks won't consider a bale with the stuff in the hay. There are other preservatives that don't have any smell. I wonder, generally, if hay provided in quantity out of PA, NY and other north eastern states where high humidity, narrow rain windows and heavy dews, squares are treated, are sold and unnoticed by the end user, in which case they are getting preservative anyway. In some ways, having the dill pickle smell on a bale is an honest testimony that you are using preservatives and being upfront about it, vs not saying a thing and using an unnoticed preservative, that the presence of, would otherwise outrage a customer - if they found out.

Thanks!


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## FarmerCline (Oct 12, 2011)

For running multiple balers and the amount of acres your talking about a self propelled bale wagon would be hard to beat for speed of getting the bales out of the field. Your storage would need to be bale wagon friendly of course.

Bundlers like a baron or bandit have there place. I think the biggest advantage of a bundler is the ability to load the hay back out of the barn in bundles more so than speed of getting it to the barn. If you have customers or a market that would appreciate being able to handle the bundles vs loose bales that is where a bundler would really shine in my opinion. If you end up cutting open the bundles to store or load back out you start to loose the advantage of a bundler real quick in my opinion.

I'm running a bandit and prefer it over a baron for a few reasons. Baron bundles don't handle well with pallet forks due to the strings being on the bottom of the bundles and not compressed into the bundle like the straps on a bandit bundle. I handle all of my hay back at the barn with a forklift.

As far as preservative I completely understand customers not wanting acid treated hay that smells like vinegar.....my customers won't accept it either. You owe it to yourself to look into other preservatives that have no smell like the Silo King dry preservative. That is what I'm using and unless you tell the customers there is no way they can tell the hay has been treated. I do think if you use a bundler that preservative becomes even more needed since the hay is compressed even more......it definitely has to be a little drier to keep in a bundle.


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## slowzuki (Mar 8, 2011)

The speed in getting it to the barn in bundles is mostly just reduced trips due to more capacity on wagons. This doesn't affect you as much if you got long wagons. The loading isn't really faster, and unloading is only faster if you handle 2 or 3 packs at once. A 2-3 minute cycle time per grab adds up with a 15/18 bale vs the 42 or 63 bales per grab if setup right for bundles.

The guys that have large square handling equipment have some options to pick bundles off the field faster too but the cost is crazy.

Glad there is room in the market for the various options to exist to cover people's different operations.


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## Beav (Feb 14, 2016)

somedevildawg said:


> No but lying will.......


 I never said Lie I have never been asked if I use acid if asked I tell and as far as being sued, if you have that kind of customer do you really need that kind of stress.


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## weatherman (Dec 5, 2008)

eric1066 said:


> for the 2018 we will be running a 15 bale Kuhn hay accumulator across 235 acres, but for the 2019 season we will have about 430 acres to bale. We will be buying two new balers and another Kuhn for the 2019 season, but I'm curious as to the Groups opinion to when does the acreage exceed the Kuhn capability ? We're striving for 700 acreage if not more. We're located in Berne, ny


What you are asking is a logistical question...how many bales can you put up in one day. The Kuhn accumulator is a piece to your logistical question. Do you run an in-line baler? How are you loading an unloading? What or how is the help. Are they reliable?


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## eric1066 (Dec 1, 2010)

Leeave96

We have 235 acres in t/a/b and our bales are 14"x18"x38" about 60 lbs. we're us plastic twine on all of our bales, and yes I have every cutting tested and provide the results to all of my customers wether they ask for it our not. I just believe to mantains that level of trust and honestly between us.

The rest of the land needs to be fertilized and seeded, I already spent a great deal of money getting the first group of land up to shuff and will do the same for the remaining land this fall. We'll be seeding this spring all of the remaining acres to t/a/b as well.


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## eric1066 (Dec 1, 2010)

At the moment I have a side pull nh 570, which I run thru the shop every winter and tune up everything possible, for the start of 2019 season I'm really leaning towards buying to inlines and running a one pass rake -baler combo to save time and trips across the fields. I'm thinking because of our acreage count by that time we'll have switched to the bale wagons by then and our facility is already setup for that. When I bought it just for that intention a few years ago. But as everybody knows it's a slow crawl to your end goal haha.


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## sethd11 (Jan 1, 2012)

Bale wagons r definitely going to be the fastest with consistent bales and big barns. Oh yeah and close fields.


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## eric1066 (Dec 1, 2010)

All of our fields are in very close proximity of each other and our storage barn.


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## slowzuki (Mar 8, 2011)

Hard for anything to beat a good self propelled bale wagon in those conditions. One can probably handle 2-3 good newer high cap balers with short hauls.



eric1066 said:


> All of our fields are in very close proximity of each other and our storage barn.


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## bbos2 (Mar 20, 2015)

I have never ran an accumulator. It seems like guys on here really like them and do very well with them so I am absolutely not knocking them, just never seemed to fit me well. When I started with a bale wagon I didnt have a big enough barn enough to stack into so I had to carry tiers in with a bale hand to fill an exsisting barn. This was time consuming for me. I kinda relate accumulator s to that experience.

Bale wagon was a big step up for me and stacking into barns really sped things up for me. But I was going 10 mile plus one way sometimes and just couldn't get much done on those days. Loading vans was easy but took 1.5-2 hours

I decided to go to a Barron 2 years ago and I like the switch. There are pros and cons to both systems.

Stacker
Less people
More forgiving on bale length 
Heavier bales

Barron
Can haul a lot away from farther fields but takes a lot more man power
45 minute Loading vans
More efficient on barn space

Very happy with the switch to Barron but there are days when I can't get enough help and I wish I had my stacker back.

As far as what is quicker ...
Bale wagon is hard to beat within a mile or two. After that the Barron can really make time. But it does take some man power


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## eric1066 (Dec 1, 2010)

All very good points on both pieces of equipment, my view point is why pay people to help when I can buy pieces of equipment to make my life easier and get my premium hay to barn and stored without having 5 people to count on. I can load a trailer with my bale squeeze in the same time.


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## IH 1586 (Oct 16, 2014)

eric1066 said:


> At the moment I have a side pull nh 570, which I run thru the shop every winter and tune up everything possible, for the start of 2019 season I'm really leaning towards buying to inlines and running a one pass rake -baler combo to save time and trips across the fields. I'm thinking because of our acreage count by that time we'll have switched to the bale wagons by then and our facility is already setup for that. When I bought it just for that intention a few years ago. But as everybody knows it's a slow crawl to your end goal haha.





eric1066 said:


> Leeave96
> 
> We have 235 acres in t/a/b and our bales are 14"x18"x38" about 60 lbs. we're us plastic twine on all of our bales, and yes I have every cutting tested and provide the results to all of my customers wether they ask for it our not. I just believe to mantains that level of trust and honestly between us.
> 
> The rest of the land needs to be fertilized and seeded, I already spent a great deal of money getting the first group of land up to shuff and will do the same for the remaining land this fall. We'll be seeding this spring all of the remaining acres to t/a/b as well.





eric1066 said:


> for the 2018 we will be running a 15 bale Kuhn hay accumulator across 235 acres, but for the 2019 season we will have about 430 acres to bale. We will be buying two new balers and another Kuhn for the 2019 season, but I'm curious as to the Groups opinion to when does the acreage exceed the Kuhn capability ? We're striving for 700 acreage if not more. We're located in Berne, ny





eric1066 said:


> All very good points on both pieces of equipment, my view point is why pay people to help when I can buy pieces of equipment to make my life easier and get my premium hay to barn and stored without having 5 people to count on. I can load a trailer with my bale squeeze in the same time.


http://www.haytalk.com/forums/topic/66705-new-operation-with-725-acres-for-small-square-bales/

You should reread and update your thread. Seems you were all over the place with your acres. How did you finally end up for the 2017 year. I know here we had 1 window of 3 days in June and nobody started dry again until after the 4th of July and A LOT of people were still trying to get first in well into Aug. Was finally able to go over all my acres that was ready the last week of September for 2nd and 3rd cutting but ran preserv on all of it. I have a hard time following your equipment you talk about on here. At times it seems you have 2 balers and on this thread you mention a 570. Unless your micro climate is awesome I don't see covering 235 acres with one baler and get quality hay.

I figure with one baler you might be able to do 40 acres a day based on 400 bales/hr & 100 bales/acre but not wanting preserve really limits you.

You also make mention of not wanting 5 people helping you. Seems like a lot of ground to cover and only want limited help.

You should gives us a play by play of your typical summer week. I have a hard time figuring out how you are going to cover as many acres as you are claiming with so few balers and still claim premium with the hay.


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## slowzuki (Mar 8, 2011)

Yup without preservative it's hard to run over 5-6 hours a day in the east and with an accumulator it's hard to keep up over 300 bales an hour over a day. 1500-1800 bales a day on a single baler is a good day in the east. Even with acid 2000 bales is a good day. That's 20 acres.



IH 1586 said:


> I figure with one baler you might be able to do 40 acres a day based on 400 bales/hr & 100 bales/acre but not wanting preserve really


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## eric1066 (Dec 1, 2010)

Sorry for the confusion, and I have 750 acres total. Most of it was rented out this year to a grain operation. So for the 2018 season I'll have 235 acres that will be in hay production. As far as equipment goes I have a 570 square balers and a brand new round baler (nh). si my plan is to do as much as I can with my square baler and whatever is left I'll round bale. I have a customer who will buy all of my round bales for the 2018 season. Now for the 2019 season I'll have more ground seeded and 2 brand new inline balers with a bale wagon and I'll also have my round baler ( which I do a lot of custom baling. So I hope that makes more sense to you guys now. And yes this year was tough here in New York


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## slowzuki (Mar 8, 2011)

Ah well, a good round baler with net wrap makes all the difference.


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## eric1066 (Dec 1, 2010)

Right, I figured it was the best way to go. I can always sell round bales.


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## slowzuki (Mar 8, 2011)

Yeah and assuming a 4x5 netwrap, 2-3 times the work rate of a good small square baler.



eric1066 said:


> Right, I figured it was the best way to go. I can always sell round bales.


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## eric1066 (Dec 1, 2010)

Absolutely, im very pleased with it. And that's what it is


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## Beav (Feb 14, 2016)

235 acres in 2018 is about the same size we are one sm square baler 1036F accumulator and BR 7060 round baler did 22000 sm squares and 500 rounds 3 people 2 with full time off farm jobs.Don't know your labor situation but you will need a lot of labor to grow from 235 to 750. If you can sell rounds I would round bale 70% to 80% of my first cutting as early as possible square the 2nd and 3rd better quality more money and sell as much as possible off the rack. Either that or you are going to need a lot of hired labor and a boatload of capital to expand. Cash rent might look pretty


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## IH 1586 (Oct 16, 2014)

slowzuki said:


> Yup without preservative it's hard to run over 5-6 hours a day in the east and with an accumulator it's hard to keep up over 300 bales an hour over a day. 1500-1800 bales a day on a single baler is a good day in the east. Even with acid 2000 bales is a good day. That's 20 acres.


I still have yet to do it. I have 40 acres in one spot that I hope to try some day. We can get about 8 hours with no issues and I figure with preserve you could push 11 hours. It would take a raker that makes straight windrows and a baler that does not screw around on the ends. If you even have to think about moving from field to field or taking the hay to the barn it will never happen. Have to have a good customer base picking up at the field. This is based on 3 people.


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## IH 1586 (Oct 16, 2014)

eric1066 said:


> Sorry for the confusion, and I have 750 acres total. Most of it was rented out this year to a grain operation. So for the 2018 season I'll have 235 acres that will be in hay production. As far as equipment goes I have a 570 square balers and a brand new round baler (nh). si my plan is to do as much as I can with my square baler and whatever is left I'll round bale. I have a customer who will buy all of my round bales for the 2018 season. Now for the 2019 season I'll have more ground seeded and 2 brand new inline balers with a bale wagon and I'll also have my round baler ( which I do a lot of custom baling. So I hope that makes more sense to you guys now. And yes this year was tough here in New York


What was your acre base this year for hay production? How many bales this year? And threw another curve ball into your questions with not wanting labor and your claiming "a lot of custom baling".


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## eric1066 (Dec 1, 2010)

We baled around 100 acres this year totaling 13,0000 bales, the additional 135 acres are currently in hay and I'm taking over the land in the spring. As far as labor goes I'm currently interview Personal who would best fit our operation. We have a trucking business as well so a all round individual is what we're striving to find. I'll admit I run a strict operation adhering to the rules. But I also pay very well to those who go above and beyond. I feel in this business it's the only way to survive. I ran a 2,000 grain operation for years with just one other business partner. The only time I had other personnel at our facility was during harvest time. So it can be done with the right equipment and people.


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## eric1066 (Dec 1, 2010)

As far as the rest of the acreage I'll be slowly seeding the ground down to edge into the total 750 acres at a rate that's practical and economical to my business.


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## Northeast PA hay and beef (Jan 29, 2017)

2 years ago we had some great drying days at the end of June by us. In 3 baling days we put up over 6700 bales with 1 nh5070 baler. That's starting baling at 11:30 and ending around 8 at night.

This is with low humidity, full sun for 5 days. Ideal conditions, which we didn't have more than 3 in row this year until September. On 3rd day, first day of baling, we had 4 tractors running, cutting, tedding, raking and baling. We use kicker wagons, have 6 and would start with 3 guys unloading. As cutting and tedding would end they'd help unload and stack. Had to pay guys double the second day of unloading to make sure they came back for 3rd day, but it can be done. With cooperative weather i think we could put up 30000 horse qaulity bales with one baler. But we have gotten about 18000 done the last 2 years of nice hay. Did another 5000 of overly mature mulch hay too. We also did 800 4x5 rounds feed our animals. Most of those were done at 5 to 8 at night, cleaning up before the rain would come.

You can cover a lot of ground with one baler, but weather is the biggest factor. Our top day we did 2700 bales, it was off a 30 acre field. I've never seen a baler run without a kicker, no one lays bales on the ground around us, so don't know how much an accumulator or stack wagon could cover. But i would think your biggest limiter will be good help and weather. If you have buildings to pull into anyway, why not go with a kicker?


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## 8350HiTech (Jul 26, 2013)

Northeast PA hay and beef said:


> If you have buildings to pull into anyway, why not go with a kicker?


Presumably to eliminate physical labor and man hours.


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## eric1066 (Dec 1, 2010)

Exactly ! Nobody wants to handle bales any more. It's just grossly inefficient and disforms the bales. I can do the same amount of hay and everybody is fresh and ready to go the next day.


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## VA Haymaker (Jul 1, 2014)

Northeast PA hay and beef said:


> If you have buildings to pull into anyway, why not go with a kicker?





8350HiTech said:


> Presumably to eliminate physical labor and man hours.





eric1066 said:


> Exactly ! Nobody wants to handle bales any more. It's just grossly inefficient and disforms the bales. I can do the same amount of hay and everybody is fresh and ready to go the next day.


I can't really speak to the magnitude of your acreage, but a bale wagon strikes me as the way to go.

FWIW In our tiny operation, my labor is getting away from me (read my kids) and last year was the first time I was just about a one man army. Couple that with a day job and time in the evenings is a premium. For us - above all else, we need to maximize our efficiency getting the hay off the field and under cover before potential rain or just before we run out of daylight. I wrestled with a mechanical means to get the bales off the field for 2018, enable me to work solo and and within whatever time window I have - when I have it. For us - we've settled on a pan kicker for our JD348 and retrofitting our wagons with kicker racks. Postpone the labor until the hay is under the barn for unloading. I think there are techniques to minimize bale distortion.

Don't know how many bales you'd do in a day, but if I get my wagons retrofitted with racks and finished with my shelters, we should have space for 1,000 bales in a day, out of the weather for unloading later that evening/next day - all baled by one person and delivered to the barn.


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