We have a Gehl 1460 round baler. So a 4 ft by 5 ft bale. I don't know for sure, but I would venture a guess that our bales would wiegh almost that much in our driest finest hay. We also crank up the bale density. I know a bunch of factors determine bale wieght. Could you crank the density of the bales up with that baler if one wanted to?
Just a thought. If you tighten the springs down on your baler (yes you can expect some bearing failure every 2-3,000 bales) and increase the amount of string you use wrapping, you can make a well-made 8-900# bale that will keep inside or out. The idea is to provide the customer with the best made bale you can produce. Your model NH baler can make a nice bale.
@@boehmfarm4276 So about $140/ton, since (4) 500 lb bales would be a ton, roughly speaking... not bad. That's about right for good grass hay in smaller bales. I run a 5 foot wide Ford 552 (Gehl 1500) round baler and I make them as big as I possibly can-- usually around 5x5.5 to 5x6, never weighed them but I know they're not super heavy, simply due to the age of the baler. We just haul and feed them to our own cattle so I want the biggest bales I can make for transport efficiency. Most guys try to make larger bales for just that reason-- more efficient to move and store; more hay in fewer bales. Course for smaller guys who are buying hay, they don't like the big bales-- I had a customer I custom baled for who always wanted me to stop them at no more than 5 feet high, because that's all his Massey Ferguson tractor could handle without the front end coming off the ground. SO that's what I did... more bales= more money for baling! I used to make them smaller when I was selling hay, too... Later! OL J R :)
I'm surprised too. I made a zillion bales with a 846. Knew full well they didn't weight the 850 the manual says. I would have put my money on 650+ Sold a lot of bales under that assumption. Now you have me wondering what one out of my 648 actually weights.
Is it possible those scales can't accurately weigh something so light? Maybe try with the tractor + bale and the subtract just the tractor. I wonder if that would give a different weight.
We always sell by the bale not weigh and never make a claim to weigh. Round balers off different sizes do seem to sell for the same price. Quality will get more money.
Yeah some farmers have found themselves sued or in jail for telling buyers bales were a certain weight, and then the buyers weighed them and they came up short. Gubmint will prosecute a farmer for fraud in that case. Selling "by the bale" with no comment on the weight avoids that issue, as it's a "per unit" sale rather than "per ton" sale. Later! OL J R :)
Yes it would but generally most of his bales will weigh close to that unless he bales in a different way, Some balers wrap the hay tighter so the same height bale can weigh much different. Balers can make different size bales, 4 ft tall, 5 ft tall etc. There's other factors as well. Unless Jacob changes balers or tries to bale wet hay, most of his will be dried to around the same point and balers are pretty consistent with the size they make the bales will weigh about the same. and that's not including different material, wheat straw bale of the same size will be much lighter for example.
The tractor weighed 5000. Compared to square bales at $5, buying a Round Bale from me is a 33% savings at $35 each. I will admit that the hay in the square bales is much better.
LOL Yeah... but the ryegrass is WAY better feed... You need all that extra weight in bahia to make the feed value comparable to the ryegrass IMHO... Later! OL J R :)
Lol there isnt a definite way to define the weight if a hay bale without actually weighing it. Watched a dude weigh 3 bales about 30% smaller than this one and they came up to 540. This bale is easily pushing 800+ lbs 😵💫 kudos to that monster of a cop
Old wore out balers yield light bales. If stored outside 40% will be lost to rot. In Texas we call those "junk bales". 5 x 5's down here average 1100 pounds and are tight: outside storage will result in 10% rot loss.
People will buy a tight heavy bale and pay more then for a loose light bale. I know of someone that has a barn full 200 5x4 round bales that did not sell this past winter because they were too loose. I was sold out in December and I had 4 times as much hay that he had.
@@donaldthomas5852 Depends who you're selling to. Big operator with big tractors/loaders and plenty of livestock to feed, yes. Small farmers and hobby farmers with small tractors and a few head, NO. I had a guy I baled for who always had me making MAXIMUM 5x5 rounds instead of 5x5.5-5x6 rounds because his little Ferguson couldn't handle them without the front end coming off the ground... and because a bigger bale would sit in the ring so long his few head would start turning up their noses at it after awhile, or wasting too much of it. All depends on what your local market is. Later! OL J R :)
You don't have any bale pressure I make 5x4 that weigh twice that really more then that mine weigh between 1100 and 1300 pounds with dry hay but use what you got you own it already and it works
I find it always best to weigh your hay. Year to year and crop to crop will change the weight. One year the grass bales will weigh more and the next weigh less. It makes sense for both sides of the sale or if you feed to know what you have. Feeding cattle 101, know how much you are feeding and the quality of the feed. Guessing only leads to wasted money. I sell hundreds of tons a year and every time a field or cutting is changed the bales are weighed. Sometimes all loads are weighed to have an accurate amount. Can't get any more fair than that. I'm glad you weighed the bale and should make you want to weigh in the future to insure fair transactions.
Problem with that is, some farmers have gotten their @ss in a big crack with the gubmint because of making claims about the bale WEIGHT and then the buyer rolling across a scale and guess what, if it's short, they claim fraud. Gubmint sides with them too. SO it's better to just say "We sell by the bale" and if the buyer wants to weigh them and make noise about it, well, you can either cut them a break on the price, or tell them to p!ss off because usually that type is too much trouble and going to be looking for ANYTHING to gripe about to get a break on the price. Been there done that, seen it all before. If you're selling *by the bale* then that is "one unit" regardless of actual individual bale weight, and you can't get sued or the state attorney general after you for selling *by weight* and then not delivering sufficiently heavy bales. Basically unless you're selling 'by the ton' and "across the scale" at the time of sale, you're playing with fire. Bales can and do lose and gain moisture depending on conditions and moisture=weight, so weighing them "right out of the field" may not reflect the actual bale weight when it goes on the customer's trailer... and if you're selling "by the ton" you're responsible for the difference! It's up to the buyer to figure out what they're buying and how much they're willing to pay for it. I'm not saying "screw them" but I'm not saying a guy should be going out of his way for them either... Make a good product, price it accordingly, and the rest will work itself out, unless you're dealing with A-holes, and lord knows there's plenty of them out there! Do whatever works for you and your customers, but beware, selling bales that you've given a weight figure on makes you legally responsible to meet that weight! Legal precedent for that has been established! Later! OL J R :)
@@lukestrawwalker that's interesting. I can weigh 3 bale's and average them for my production report to the FSA. Besides the people here are aren't that way. If they are concerned they have you weigh or they weigh before payment. I don't deal with crooks.
@@plowboy7700 Interesting... You report hay production to FSA? You in a program or something? I've never done that. They just need a fluff number anyway. Good that you have better caliber people in your area, but it only takes one bad apple ya know. Whatever works for ya, hope it stays that way, but the world is changing, not for the better, and I'm sure the guys that found themselves on the wrong side of the law thought it wasn't a problem either... Good luck! OL J R
@@lukestrawwalker we report for NAP insurance and for record so in times of drought like we are in now, we get some assistance. Not much, but it does help.
You need to check your pressure on your baler it’s not tight to pack the hay in there I run a 849 new holland and the airbags get low my bales aren’t Harvey at all I know you have the spring type and they do get week
@@j.jaeger9791 Can you make 1000lb bale period with the baler that Jacob uses? All the older chain/slat balers I saw growing up made scruffy bales. I just assumed that it was a trait of those machines. May be wrong.
Actually weighed more than I thought. Rounds aren’t worth anything anyway compared to big squares and there’s a limited market. Used to make 4x5 rounds couldn’t get 20 a piece. Selling 3x3x8 squares for 120 ton for mulch. Far easier to handle and can get 46000 on a semi
Down here in the norteast round bales have gone from around $10 a bale not to long ago to as much as $40 a bale now .And thats for first cutting .Second cutting is more. Actually Round bales have taken over down here on most every farm. I use to cut and bale my own hay but it got harder snd harder to get help . Alot of youngmen today just don't seem to have it in them to work that hard . So now i buy it . That could be the reason farmers down here choose the round bale route. Also its a hell of alot less work then bailing loading and storing those little although not to light little square bales.. They to have gone up substantially high.
Last year 2018, I sold 100 round bales to a guy assuming they weighed around 1000 lbs. He paid for half of them but insisted on weighing a sample of them before paying the rest. They all weighed in at around 800 and I chose the bales to be weighed. I thought that there was a shrink factor going on, like trucking cows to market, that they get lighter after time. This year hay has been a sellers market here on the prairies, never made so much money. But I'm careful now to not sell by weight but by bale size and a rough estimate! This year
Smart... heard of guys getting sued or even thrown in jail for fraud selling bales "by weight" that ended up not being that across a scale; selling "by the bale" regardless of weight avoids that pitfall. You can always adjust the price per bale based on the weight. It all depends too on when you weigh them-- they're ALWAYS heavier right after baling, because some moisture comes out of the bale as they go through their 'sweat' and finish curing... how much depends on the moisture at baling and prevailing weather conditions. Bales can absorb some moisture too from the air or ground or if sitting outside. Only weight that "counts" is the one across the scale after the truck is loaded... Later! OL J R :)
i never charge more than $60 for 5x6 hay and $25 for 6x6 cattail. beef farmer with a tub grinder bought all 122 bales 6x6 cattail i rolled up last december 18 only complaint is he said they're a tight fit i'm making them too big. im getting sooooooooooooooooooo many calls even dairy farmers who never baled anything this year tell me they take "anything no matter how bad it is"
I figured out the conversion to square bale value. One of my rounds = 11 ish small squares. I sell first cut squares for 5. So that's 55 value in hay that I have priced at 35 in a round bales. That's a 35% savings on price. If these 5x5 Bales weighed more, I couldn't get more money because everyone around here buys them by the bale with little regard for size or weight. A heavier bale would lose money. It's mainly horse buyers locally.
Cattails? Like the stuff that grows in ponds? lol. I've got some stuff that came off a corn field someone couldn't be bothered to spray that was overtaken by panic grass, 4x5s been looking for $25 a pop.
We have a Gehl 1460 round baler. So a 4 ft by 5 ft bale. I don't know for sure, but I would venture a guess that our bales would wiegh almost that much in our driest finest hay. We also crank up the bale density.
I know a bunch of factors determine bale wieght. Could you crank the density of the bales up with that baler if one wanted to?
With all the work you put into your bales I bet you don’t get enough when you sell them.
Just a thought. If you tighten the springs down on your baler (yes you can expect some bearing failure every 2-3,000 bales) and increase the amount of string you use wrapping, you can make a well-made 8-900# bale that will keep inside or out. The idea is to provide the customer with the best made bale you can produce. Your model NH baler can make a nice bale.
I sell them for $35. With putting as much hay as you say into a bale, it'll need more weeds, or I'll have to charge $45-50/bale.
@@boehmfarm4276 So about $140/ton, since (4) 500 lb bales would be a ton, roughly speaking... not bad. That's about right for good grass hay in smaller bales.
I run a 5 foot wide Ford 552 (Gehl 1500) round baler and I make them as big as I possibly can-- usually around 5x5.5 to 5x6, never weighed them but I know they're not super heavy, simply due to the age of the baler. We just haul and feed them to our own cattle so I want the biggest bales I can make for transport efficiency. Most guys try to make larger bales for just that reason-- more efficient to move and store; more hay in fewer bales. Course for smaller guys who are buying hay, they don't like the big bales-- I had a customer I custom baled for who always wanted me to stop them at no more than 5 feet high, because that's all his Massey Ferguson tractor could handle without the front end coming off the ground. SO that's what I did... more bales= more money for baling! I used to make them smaller when I was selling hay, too... Later! OL J R :)
I'm surprised too. I made a zillion bales with a 846. Knew full well they didn't weight the 850 the manual says. I would have put my money on 650+ Sold a lot of bales under that assumption. Now you have me wondering what one out of my 648 actually weights.
Is it possible those scales can't accurately weigh something so light? Maybe try with the tractor + bale and the subtract just the tractor. I wonder if that would give a different weight.
We always sell by the bale not weigh and never make a claim to weigh. Round balers off different sizes do seem to sell for the same price. Quality will get more money.
Yeah some farmers have found themselves sued or in jail for telling buyers bales were a certain weight, and then the buyers weighed them and they came up short. Gubmint will prosecute a farmer for fraud in that case. Selling "by the bale" with no comment on the weight avoids that issue, as it's a "per unit" sale rather than "per ton" sale. Later! OL J R :)
Wouldn't the weight vary depending on different factors, like how densely baled, etc.?
Yes it would but generally most of his bales will weigh close to that unless he bales in a different way, Some balers wrap the hay tighter so the same height bale can weigh much different. Balers can make different size bales, 4 ft tall, 5 ft tall etc. There's other factors as well. Unless Jacob changes balers or tries to bale wet hay, most of his will be dried to around the same point and balers are pretty consistent with the size they make the bales will weigh about the same. and that's not including different material, wheat straw bale of the same size will be much lighter for example.
I wanted to know what the tractor weighted. So did the cost of a round bale go up or down when compared to square?
The tractor weighed 5000.
Compared to square bales at $5, buying a Round Bale from me is a 33% savings at $35 each. I will admit that the hay in the square bales is much better.
I thought it would have weighed more as well
Bale density plays a factor in weight but mostly it is the crop. Our bahia grass rolls weigh 1200 to 1500 lbs but rye grass at the most weigh 700 lbs.
LOL Yeah... but the ryegrass is WAY better feed... You need all that extra weight in bahia to make the feed value comparable to the ryegrass IMHO... Later! OL J R :)
Lol there isnt a definite way to define the weight if a hay bale without actually weighing it. Watched a dude weigh 3 bales about 30% smaller than this one and they came up to 540. This bale is easily pushing 800+ lbs 😵💫 kudos to that monster of a cop
Evry good video😁😁😁
Old wore out balers yield light bales. If stored outside 40% will be lost to rot. In Texas we call those "junk bales". 5 x 5's down here average 1100 pounds and are tight: outside storage will result in 10% rot loss.
You're just giving away hay in a heavy bale. Most people buy on size and price around here, not weight.
People will buy a tight heavy bale and pay more then for a loose light bale. I know of someone that has a barn full 200 5x4 round bales that did not sell this past winter because they were too loose. I was sold out in December and I had 4 times as much hay that he had.
@@donaldthomas5852 Depends who you're selling to. Big operator with big tractors/loaders and plenty of livestock to feed, yes. Small farmers and hobby farmers with small tractors and a few head, NO. I had a guy I baled for who always had me making MAXIMUM 5x5 rounds instead of 5x5.5-5x6 rounds because his little Ferguson couldn't handle them without the front end coming off the ground... and because a bigger bale would sit in the ring so long his few head would start turning up their noses at it after awhile, or wasting too much of it. All depends on what your local market is. Later! OL J R :)
You don't have any bale pressure I make 5x4 that weigh twice that really more then that mine weigh between 1100 and 1300 pounds with dry hay but use what you got you own it already and it works
That’s what I was thinking the shit we buy is right around 1000 pounds
That bale is not very tight
I thought those bales would weighed more than that. My 4x4 are around 5 to 600 lbs each.
That must have been a NH baler.
About how much is the profit of each bale
80%
I find it always best to weigh your hay. Year to year and crop to crop will change the weight. One year the grass bales will weigh more and the next weigh less. It makes sense for both sides of the sale or if you feed to know what you have. Feeding cattle 101, know how much you are feeding and the quality of the feed. Guessing only leads to wasted money. I sell hundreds of tons a year and every time a field or cutting is changed the bales are weighed. Sometimes all loads are weighed to have an accurate amount. Can't get any more fair than that. I'm glad you weighed the bale and should make you want to weigh in the future to insure fair transactions.
Yeah, I don't want to give away too much hay.
Problem with that is, some farmers have gotten their @ss in a big crack with the gubmint because of making claims about the bale WEIGHT and then the buyer rolling across a scale and guess what, if it's short, they claim fraud. Gubmint sides with them too. SO it's better to just say "We sell by the bale" and if the buyer wants to weigh them and make noise about it, well, you can either cut them a break on the price, or tell them to p!ss off because usually that type is too much trouble and going to be looking for ANYTHING to gripe about to get a break on the price. Been there done that, seen it all before. If you're selling *by the bale* then that is "one unit" regardless of actual individual bale weight, and you can't get sued or the state attorney general after you for selling *by weight* and then not delivering sufficiently heavy bales. Basically unless you're selling 'by the ton' and "across the scale" at the time of sale, you're playing with fire. Bales can and do lose and gain moisture depending on conditions and moisture=weight, so weighing them "right out of the field" may not reflect the actual bale weight when it goes on the customer's trailer... and if you're selling "by the ton" you're responsible for the difference! It's up to the buyer to figure out what they're buying and how much they're willing to pay for it. I'm not saying "screw them" but I'm not saying a guy should be going out of his way for them either... Make a good product, price it accordingly, and the rest will work itself out, unless you're dealing with A-holes, and lord knows there's plenty of them out there!
Do whatever works for you and your customers, but beware, selling bales that you've given a weight figure on makes you legally responsible to meet that weight! Legal precedent for that has been established! Later! OL J R :)
@@lukestrawwalker that's interesting. I can weigh 3 bale's and average them for my production report to the FSA. Besides the people here are aren't that way. If they are concerned they have you weigh or they weigh before payment. I don't deal with crooks.
@@plowboy7700 Interesting... You report hay production to FSA? You in a program or something? I've never done that. They just need a fluff number anyway.
Good that you have better caliber people in your area, but it only takes one bad apple ya know. Whatever works for ya, hope it stays that way, but the world is changing, not for the better, and I'm sure the guys that found themselves on the wrong side of the law thought it wasn't a problem either... Good luck! OL J R
@@lukestrawwalker we report for NAP insurance and for record so in times of drought like we are in now, we get some assistance. Not much, but it does help.
Realistically that's about 400-500 pounds or 225 kg. Still heavy but not 1000 pounds
my guess was 520 i was close haha. go get you a new idea 4x4 those bales weigh like 250 lbs lol
added 46 seconds ago
You need to check your pressure on your baler it’s not tight to pack the hay in there I run a 849 new holland and the airbags get low my bales aren’t Harvey at all I know you have the spring type and they do get week
It Alberta... if you ain't getting 1000 to 1200 pounds per bale, your wasting your time.
If I put more hay per bale, I'm giving the hay away.
Not wrapped very tight!! I make 1500 lb. grass bales with a 567!!!!! JD....
Good idea you got there what happened to the elevator it close down
He was tired of government bureaucracy and their jumble of nonsense regulations forcing him to update his equipment.
My 4x4.5 are 785 on average
👍👌🇨🇦❤
Our rounds weigh about 1,000 to 1,100 lbs!
Okay, and your point is?
farm.central. ohio nothing just sharing what we have as well🤷♂️
Really depends on the baler and what you are baling.
Oscar J yea. We use a Vermeer. It puts out 60 inch bales and in just grass we’re 1,000 but if there’s alfalfa at all we’re around that 1,100 range
@@j.jaeger9791 Can you make 1000lb bale period with the baler that Jacob uses? All the older chain/slat balers I saw growing up made scruffy bales. I just assumed that it was a trait of those machines. May be wrong.
I thought atleast 700 or something
I got a feeling that that’s a loose bale or something that’s just not packed full of hay the shit we buy is around 1000 pounds
Actually weighed more than I thought. Rounds aren’t worth anything anyway compared to big squares and there’s a limited market. Used to make 4x5 rounds couldn’t get 20 a piece. Selling 3x3x8 squares for 120 ton for mulch. Far easier to handle and can get 46000 on a semi
Depends on where you're at, round bales are still very popular
Down here in the norteast round bales have gone from around $10 a bale not to long ago to as much as $40 a bale now .And thats for first cutting .Second cutting is more. Actually Round bales have taken over down here on most every farm. I use to cut and bale my own hay but it got harder snd harder to get help . Alot of youngmen today just don't seem to have it in them to work that hard . So now i buy it . That could be the reason farmers down here choose the round bale route. Also its a hell of alot less work then bailing loading and storing those little although not to light little square bales.. They to have gone up substantially high.
Last year 2018, I sold 100 round bales to a guy assuming they weighed around 1000 lbs. He paid for half of them but insisted on weighing a sample of them before paying the rest. They all weighed in at around 800 and I chose the bales to be weighed. I thought that there was a shrink factor going on, like trucking cows to market, that they get lighter after time.
This year hay has been a sellers market here on the prairies, never made so much money. But I'm careful now to not sell by weight but by bale size and a rough estimate!
This year
Smart... heard of guys getting sued or even thrown in jail for fraud selling bales "by weight" that ended up not being that across a scale; selling "by the bale" regardless of weight avoids that pitfall. You can always adjust the price per bale based on the weight. It all depends too on when you weigh them-- they're ALWAYS heavier right after baling, because some moisture comes out of the bale as they go through their 'sweat' and finish curing... how much depends on the moisture at baling and prevailing weather conditions. Bales can absorb some moisture too from the air or ground or if sitting outside. Only weight that "counts" is the one across the scale after the truck is loaded...
Later! OL J R :)
i never charge more than $60 for 5x6 hay and $25 for 6x6 cattail. beef farmer with a tub grinder bought all 122 bales 6x6 cattail i rolled up last december 18 only complaint is he said they're a tight fit i'm making them too big. im getting sooooooooooooooooooo many calls even dairy farmers who never baled anything this year tell me they take "anything no matter how bad it is"
I figured out the conversion to square bale value. One of my rounds = 11 ish small squares. I sell first cut squares for 5. So that's 55 value in hay that I have priced at 35 in a round bales. That's a 35% savings on price. If these 5x5 Bales weighed more, I couldn't get more money because everyone around here buys them by the bale with little regard for size or weight. A heavier bale would lose money. It's mainly horse buyers locally.
Cattails? Like the stuff that grows in ponds? lol. I've got some stuff that came off a corn field someone couldn't be bothered to spray that was overtaken by panic grass, 4x5s been looking for $25 a pop.
You could see it didn't Way much if it was on that little toy tractor. L.o.l