# Square Bale Density, Length, weight and Moisture Content Questions



## VA Haymaker (Jul 1, 2014)

First - much thanks for the answers and insight you folks have given to my questions over the past year - most helpful info.

When I read you folk's posts, I get the impression that the best of the best haymakers are on this forum and your end product square bales are terrific. Nice shape, quality hay, correct moisture content and consistent length and weight.

Sooooo.....

No more acres than me and my boys hay, we probably ought to throw-in with the rest of the neighbors and naturally make the stemmiest, crappy bleached, rained on ultra dry/or high moisture content, random length banana bales as possible and by just as happy - LOL!

But.....

One of the goals of this hay deal is to show my boys that there is a better way. We need to engage our brain and from top to bottom know what we are doing and why. There should be no question to which we can't find an answer.

As such...

Quality matters.

We have done a pretty good job do refurbishing our old equipment, are lined up to redo our fields late August...

And next....

We want a very high quality bale, good moisture and a bale shape, length and density that is consistent from bale to bale.

If I could, a few more questions.

Density/bale weight - what do you do to keep your bales consistent in density and weight? Are you using hydraulic or air pressure on your bale chamber to maintain this? Or do you just get off the tractor throughout the day and give the bales a check and adjust the cranks on your baler for density? How do you keep your bales constant in density?

Bale length - what is your secret to keeping the squares at a set length? I think with my 68, the secret is a combo of keeping the baler full of hay, but also slowing down so there are more flakes per bale. More smaller flakes vs a few big flakes that push the bale length to long when you are on the edge of tripping the knotters. On my baler, this is somewhat tricky because he plunger strokes per minute are around 60ish at 540 rpm vs 93 or better for newer balers. How do you keep your bales at a set length all day?

Moisture - we all want to cut on day 1, ted on day 2 and bale on day 3. Sounds like some folks can do it. Someone chime-in and correct me, but I think in the mid Atlantic the high humidity makes this difficult. 4 maybe 5 days seems to work for me - I think! So we use hay/diskbines with rollers to crush/break the stems, ted the hay all in an effort to get the moisture down where we can bale. But moisture being unpredictable - I'm reading that many use some kind of hay preservative. Tell me about hay preservative and it applicators for small square balers. How often do you use it? At what max moisture content do you use it? Do your horse customers frown at the preservative? Does it impact the color of your hay? Does it otherwise enable you to make hay in 3 days? Is it prohibitively expensive? Any wisdom on hay preservative would be much appreciated.

Thanks!
Bill


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## Coondle (Aug 28, 2013)

Although this is from the other side of the world the principles are the same:

Bale density/ weight

Hydraulic, air or spring tension just adjust by trial and hopefully not too much error until you get the bale the way you want. Weight and density may change from hour to hour as conditions change. Check regularly until you end up getting a feel of how adjustments may be needed as the day goes on. Density and weight will be different one variety to the next and even fromm one field to the next.

Check, assess, adjust, and eep on doing that.

Bale length.

Consistent feed rate by either having consistent windrows, or varying ground speed without varying revs if the windrow is not consistent.

There are ideas oaths forum to improve bale length consistency either by adding weight to treble metering arm, adding an extra spring, or by building a longer metering arm and relocating the metering wheel. More strokes consistently mean more consistent bale length.

Slower plunger stores just means fewer bales per hour. Many aim for 13 or 13 flakes per bale. Usually you can hear the knotter fire, then count the strokes until the knotter goes off again. Vary ground speed but not revs to get the desired flakes per bale.

Many do not run their balers at full 540 and most would not do so in light hay conditions.Many do run at rated speed of 540, it is purely personal preference. There was a recent thread on that which you could find with a search So if revs are dropped change down to keep the same flakes per bale.

May need to ensure metering arm and star wheel and cotton reel are in good condition too.

A 60 stroke pm machine at 12 flakes per bale potentially could vary by less than 8% i.e. 1/13 of length on the notion of another flake going in just before the knotter trips. No difference with a 93 stroke pm machine on a 12 flake bale.

Hay preservatives are a complete mystery to me so someone in your area would be much better placed to help there


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## lidaacres (Oct 11, 2014)

+1 to Coondle we do mostly big squares, but the conditions you have can make things vary a fair amount. Consistent feeding of the baler is the best way to make nice bales once you have the desired tension. Also, our small baler will make really nice bales until you push it too hard, then they get really inconsistent.

There are allot of others on here that can help with hay preservatives more than I can, but I have put some prop acid on hay for custom clients and I think you can get it put up in low 20's moisture. I think New Holland has a product they claim you can bale hay dry up to 30% dry, but I wouldn't try it. From the little I've paid attention with acid the wetter it is when you bale it the more the color and smell will be affected.


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