# Wrapped small square bales??



## Nate926 (Apr 6, 2014)

I am always thinking of ways to make more profit and avoid the weather of hay making as much as possible. Would small square bales of wrapped alfalfa sell? I know chaffhaye has a market just wonder if this would. I know mchale makes a small square bale wrapper.


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## FarmerCline (Oct 12, 2011)

I have a feeling the market would be limited if any at all. Even if there was a market how would you handle the wrapped bales? I sure as heck wouldn't be the one having to handle those heavy wet squares. Seems like it would be way more trouble than its worth to wrap little squares.

I have also been thinking of ways to minimize my weather losses and be able to more or less cut when it needs to be and it seems like wrapped round bales are the best option but I'm having a hard time figuring out if there is a market for those.


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## Jay in WA (Mar 21, 2015)

Wrapped dry bales would sell really well to the horse owners that have to haul the hay home in the back of their SUV


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## Nate926 (Apr 6, 2014)

That was my thinking at first but chaffhaye has a large following with over 250 dealers at $15 a bag. The bales would still be 50-60 lbs just like a regular square bale only shorter since the hay would be heavier per flake due to more moisture of course. There are videos on youtube of the fairer sex picking them up. Just wrap your arms around the ends and hug them to pick them up lol.


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## hog987 (Apr 5, 2011)

What about wrapping a bale of sweet hay?. Would take a bunch of the weight off the square. Just un wrap one bale at a time so dont have to worry about spoilage like a round bale. Would be a lot of work but would make decent feed.


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## Thorim (Jan 19, 2015)

Kinda of interesting bit of information, as I have no knowledge or experience in wrapping bales either rounds or lg sq

http://www.uwex.edu/ces/forage/wfc/proceedings2003/squarebales.htm


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## Fossil02818 (May 31, 2010)

Here's a thought for those with mechanical and fabrication skills....As the complete and tied small bales exit the bale chute they could flow through a roll of plastic film "tube" that would then be heat sealed and vacuum sealed before finally being dropped. A 6mil or thicker film would be necessary, but, I do think a continuous process of sealing immediately after tying could produce an airtight skin. Picking up and handling would still be a challenge since they can't be dragged in an accumulator without likely puncturing the wrap. Also, they would be too heavy to fly them through a thrower. Anyway, I do think their is a potential niche market for small wrapped haylage.


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## Nate926 (Apr 6, 2014)

That would be a awesome baler, just not sure how it would separate the last bale and next bale to seal the last bale.


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## Coondle (Aug 28, 2013)

Some producers here make chaff by traditional means. Binder, stocks and Chaff cutter, lightly steaming the input to the chaff cutter to prevent shatter. Here that is cut from Wheat or oats.
Some make what you refer to as chaffhaye.

A trend that is developing is to roll the wheat or oats as you would for hay. Then use an unrulier to feed the chaff cutter, lightly steaming the input and thus making chaff with far less labour involved.

Would it be possible to make dry alfalfa rolls and then later make the chaffhaye. Gives the premium price foe chaffhaye and solves the bottleneck at the chaff cutter, which cannot cut as fast as the alfalfa is baled.

Just a thought, from someone with a zero base of alfalfa, of a way to maximise income and profit.


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## Nate926 (Apr 6, 2014)

I am trying to get away from dry hay so I can get it up faster, but it don't want to roll and wrap it since it won't bring a premium price like dry square bales do. The company chaffhaye cuts there alfalfa with a discbine, then rakes it and chops it at 50% moisture and loads it in a truck. They then take it to the plant. Mix molasses and innoculent with the chopped alfalfa then they bale it in a compression bagger like you would wood shavings. Let it ferment a few weeks and send it out to there dealers to sell across the country. Retail price is $15.25 in my area for a 50lb bag.


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## PackMan2170 (Oct 6, 2014)

Yeah the guys at Chaffhaye are apparently geniuses. They are located in the Middle of Nowhere aka Dell City, TX - about 135 miles from me. They take chopped aflafla worth about $75/ton this year (and for them you can subtract the 100 miles of freight to the dairies), spray a little molasses on, put it in a nifty little bag (that, like Jay said, cleanly and conveniently fits in the back of horsey people's Audi or Mercedes SUVs) and sell it for $600/ton. And it does sell. Horsey people have got to be the most gullible bunch in the world.

To those of you who do wrapped bales (even wrapped rounds or big squares), don't you ever feel like that's an awful waste of plastic? I don't mean to sound like a granola-eating hippie, but think of the amount of plastic it takes to wrap bales vs a silage pit. And small bales would be WAAAY worse. I'm not an environmentalist, but I don't actively look for ways to be more wasteful.....


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## slowzuki (Mar 8, 2011)

The UK wraps a lot of small squares, lots of automated wrappers.

Mounted right on the baler:


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## Nate926 (Apr 6, 2014)

That thing is awesome!


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## FarmerCline (Oct 12, 2011)

slowzuki said:


> The UK wraps a lot of small squares, lots of automated wrappers.
> 
> Mounted right on the baler:


 That's a neat machine but seems like a painfully slow process because the baler appears like it could punch out bales much faster than the wrapper could handle them. That baler is crawling through the field. They didn't show how all those heavy wrapped bales ended up on the wagon.


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## slowzuki (Mar 8, 2011)

If you watch more clips there is a thing sort of like the old bale loaders that feeds a pallet stacker and pallets of wrapped hay are left in the field to be picked up later.

Yes it is painfully slow to watch. Why they bothered retrofitting such a high capacity baler I'm not sure.



FarmerCline said:


> That's a neat machine but seems like a painfully slow process because the baler appears like it could punch out bales much faster than the wrapper could handle the. That baler is crawling through the field. They didn't show how all those heavy wrapped bales ended up on the wagon.


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## Coondle (Aug 28, 2013)

slowzuki said:


> Why they bothered retrofitting such a high capacity baler I'm not sure.


Because the world just does not have enough plastic going around.

One frightening thing about many , if not all, plastics is that they do not biodegrade in the true sense. Sure they break down but into ever smaller pieces of plastic. In the marine environment, plastic is becoming pervasive with all sorts of animals coming to grief through mistaking those ever smaller pieces of plastic as food. Plastic is indigestible and when the critter dies of blocked gut, malnutrition or the like, their loading of plastic is set free to continue the cycle . Perhaps this is recycling at its purest.


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## 128mpr (Oct 23, 2011)

I've just bought a McHale 995LM small bale wrapper. I had the option of a small Chinese wrapper (which was designed for small rounds), but decided on the McHale because I want to wrap small squares and be trouble free.

I'm live in Waikato, New Zealand.

Our hay season typically runs Dec-Mar each year.

Silage making starts in October and runs through to March.

I ran the wrapper for the first time today and put 45 bales through it.

Learnings from today went like this :

Using a slasher mower (what Americans would call a bush hog) when your disc mower is broken is a bad idea. Cuts grass fast but makes the baler struggle picking up through the long grass not cut by the slasher because the tractor wheels had flattened it down.

The bale length setting on my International B47 changes when putting greenish grass through (for haylage) compared to dried hay. We messed around for a while to get the bale length right.

The bale length needs to be spot on to fit into the wrapper properly. Too long or too short and you risk the bale falling out of the wrapper while still being wrapped.

Bale length needs to be consistent and bales need to be square, not banana shaped.

The wrapper was originally set for about 40 RPM and perhaps every 5th bale was being thrown out.

I slowed this to 30 RPM and this greatly improved reliability.

I was even able to wrap poorly formed bales reliably by slowing RPM down to 25.

Green bales are heavy. Probably 30kg (60 lbs). Plan to hire some fit, strong teenagers to do the hard work or you'll be feeling it later that night.

Wrapping bales involves a lot of waiting for the wrapper. You'll find yourself watching the wrapper for perhaps 30-45 seconds (I didn't time it) each cycle.

Think about work flow.

Is it better to tow the wrapper around the field, load bales where the baler has dropped them, wrap then drop back onto the ground to pick up later (picking up wrapped bales is even harder work), or load from the wrapper direct to your trailer.

Or are you better off to bring all the bales back to your barn, load off the trailer into the wrapper, then off the wrapper direct into your storage pile.

It's noisy. My wrapper is powered by a little Honda engine (so it can be towed around behind my ute (ute = small truck / SUV with flat deck) without needing a tractor for hydraulic flow.

With the noise from the petrol engine running and the sound of plastic film being stretched, it's quite a noisy operation. Earmuffs are a good idea and they also stop your ears being sun burnt (strange that it may sound, the sun here is much more destructive than in most other parts of the world, you can get sun burnt here very quickly).

Think carefully about charge rates.

I got roughly 25 bales from a roll of film. I have't bought film yet, but I'm guessing at nearly $US67 per roll. So nearly $US2.70 per bale for plastic wrap.

My work rate picking up bales next to the wrapper and putting wrapped bales onto a trailer was about 25 bales per hour.

I'd be aiming to earn $US50 per hour to cover my labour, machinery running cost and capital invested ($US6700 for the wrapper).

It looks like I need to be charging about $US5 per bale, assuming I'm not hiring labour to help me.

Lifting 30kg for a day is going to be no fun, so I'll likely lose interest in that and go for a model where I hire the wrapper to the customer and let them deal with the labour.

Many hay jobs around here might be only 50 - 100 bales.

Say a charge rate of $US4 per bale, I'm making just over $US1 per bale.

If I dry hire the wrapper, then I'm going to spend perhaps an hour for each job delivering the wrapper, teaching the customer how to operate and then going back 2 hours later to collect it.

I'm probably better off just staying there and working with the customer to wrap their bales. Less hard work for me (shared with the customer) and I'm operating the wrapper, not the customer, so I know it's not being abused.

There's some food for thought.

Looking forward to others experiences using small bale wrappers.


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## hillside hay (Feb 4, 2013)

I just fail to see the advantage over 4x4 rounds wrapped. If its lack of handling equipment they roll easy enough.


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## 128mpr (Oct 23, 2011)

Every man and his dog has big rounds, so if I was selling big rounds I'd be competing against them.

My customers want to put a wrapped bale into the back of their car or in their horse float without having any handling equipment.


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## 128mpr (Oct 23, 2011)

Put another 100 bales through my McHale 995LM wrapper today (actually, two teenagers did rather than me).

New learning today is that the bales need to be heavy in order to stay on the wrapper and not fall out.

I was wrapping bales with 20-30% moisture content which weighed about 20-30kg (40-60 lbs).

Most were ok, but lighter bales were prone to falling out of the wrapper.

I'm getting about 25 bales per roll of 375mm film.


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## Vol (Jul 5, 2009)

128mpr said:


> Put another 100 bales through my McHale 995LM wrapper today (actually, two teenagers did rather than me).
> 
> New learning today is that the bales need to be heavy in order to stay on the wrapper and not fall out.
> 
> ...


What is your cost of wrapping per bale? And also 128, If you would put New Zealand into your profile location we would all be grateful. Many thanks.

Mike


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## 128mpr (Oct 23, 2011)

The plastic film costs about $2.80 (US$2) per bale. I'm charging about $NZ6 to collect bales from the paddock (sweeping) to the wrapper, wrap and stack in a corner of the paddock. I've struck a deal with the local teenage that I'll pay him $NZ1.50 per bale to row the paddock (using my gear), then collect, wrap & stack. He then splits the money with however many friends he wants to help. Much easier than me trying to keep count of 2 or 3 people working different hours through the day).

Last year was charging about $3-$4 to make a bale (not wrapped), going up to $4-$5 and not getting any objections from customers.

My main focus is buying grass, wrapping and storing at my place to sell later on. I'm getting quite picky about which contract jobs I take on as the travel is a real hassle.


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## imgrand (Jan 28, 2016)

that is a typical problem with the mchale 995lm. bales need to be mimimum 25kgs for a more uniform bale and a faster hassle free wrapping. i use the 250mm film .2 rolls on the machine and wrap each bale 18 times.


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## slowzuki (Mar 8, 2011)

Maybe if you are getting close to dry hay when you wrap? A 40% 4x4 sileage bale that has sat for a any length of time isn't getting moved around by me, they are close to 1000 lbs and oval.



hillside hay said:


> I just fail to see the advantage over 4x4 rounds wrapped. If its lack of handling equipment they roll easy enough.


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## BWfarms (Aug 3, 2015)

I've got the solution and it's cheaper. Not what people want to hear but from an environmental, handling, and cost standpoint. If you are appealing to a Mercedes or SUV picking up a bale or 2, wrap it in a large garbage bag prior to loading the vehicle. That's what? .20 a bale at most?


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## Vol (Jul 5, 2009)

BWfarms said:


> I've got the solution and it's cheaper. Not what people want to hear but from an environmental, handling, and cost standpoint. If you are appealing to a Mercedes or SUV picking up a bale or 2, wrap it in a large garbage bag prior to loading the vehicle. That's what? .20 a bale at most?


Done that several times through the years.....got a phone call about 5 years ago and a fella says to me, I hear you have Timothy hay....I said yes I do....he asked me how much and I told him and he said good....I am West of Knoxville and I would like to come now and get "a" bale and it will take me about hour to get there. I said "you are going to drive for a hour for one bale of Timothy hay??...and he said "why yes!".....I thought for a second or two and said well, if you want it that bad it will be here for you....and I asked him "what are you feeding?"... to which he replied "Guinea Pigs"! I laughed about it .......he pulls up in a old Toyota Corolla and I couldn't get the bale in the back seat as the door wouldn't open wide enough! We ended up sticking it partially in the trunk and tied it down with baling twine and off he went. I laughed all week over that.... 

Regards, Mike


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## deadmoose (Oct 30, 2011)

Vol said:


> Done that several times through the years.....got a phone call about 5 years ago and a fella says to me, I hear you have Timothy hay....I said yes I do....he asked me how much and I told him and he said good....I am West of Knoxville and I would like to come now and get "a" bale and it will take me about hour to get there. I said "you are going to drive for a hour for one bale of Timothy hay??...and he said "why yes!".....I thought for a second or two and said well, if you want it that bad it will be here for you....and I asked him "what are you feeding?"... to which he replied "Guinea Pigs"! I laughed about it .......he pulls up in a old Toyota Corolla and I couldn't get the bale in the back seat as the door wouldn't open wide enough! We ended up sticking it partially in the trunk and tied it down with baling twine and off he went. I laughed all week over that....
> 
> Regards, Mike


That's funny! He was probably ecstatic as he paid (10+?) Times as much at the pet store.


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## slowzuki (Mar 8, 2011)

I have a fellow who takes a bale at a time in his wife's suv, double bags it. Another fellow with a Honda car takes 2 at a time just jammed in as tight as possible.

Both I think would pay extra for those little baggies of hay to avoid mess but after them I don't know who else the market would be. Pet stores here seem to be chains that buy nationally.


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## hillside hay (Feb 4, 2013)

slowzuki said:


> Maybe if you are getting close to dry hay when you wrap? A 40% 4x4 sileage bale that has sat for a any length of time isn't getting moved around by me, they are close to 1000 lbs and oval.


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## hillside hay (Feb 4, 2013)

Tight net wrapped silage bales stored on end roll very easy.


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