Hey Carl, I finally got around to checking out your channel! You're doing really good work here, I like it!! It was good to meet you in Omaha last month.
Wow, I’m honored that you took the time to watch some of our videos! Congrats on busting through 200,000 subscribers, Zach! I’ve done my best to send some people your way. You are doing an amazing job!
i dont mean to be offtopic but does any of you know a tool to get back into an Instagram account? I stupidly forgot the account password. I would appreciate any help you can offer me.
I just found your video. I am extremely impressed with your verbal presentation! Complete, lucid sentences, informative and to the point. Very well done! Your ability to present your ideas, thoughts, etc. I would rate as A+. Go to the head of the class and keep up the great presentations.
Great content! I was actually wondering about this very topic not long ago. Now I know the answers. When I was a kid I had a summer job helping the neighbor stack those small bales on the trailer and then again into the barn. Brings back memories watching your channel. Good stuff here and thanks.
I know alot of people that store big round bales outside and they are just fine too plus you can store small square outside and cover them. Thanks for the video I enjoy your videos
Thanks Sharleen! Your name make me think of the song “John Deere Green” by Joe Diffie. If you’ve never heard it you should look it up. You’ll have a good laugh I bet.
Also Square bales faster as you don't have to stop , wrap and lay an egg like a round bale needs but I see the expensive Vermeer round baler has solved that . Nice video 👍🏻🇨🇦
Great explanation of the pros and cons on the different types of hay bales. The old analogy that nothing comes easy sure holds true bales of hay. Small bales are great but they are costly if you need a lot of them.
Love your channel. Just went back and rewatched this video. Im glad someone finally is talking about these differences. If you want to see some unique ways of feeding and using round hay bales for cattle you should check out Greg Judy's channel. He actually unrolls the hay bales across his pasture when he feeds them to his cattle. He also designed a light weight piece of equipment that hooks to an ATV so you don't rut out your field when unrolling in winter. Unrolling the bale does several things: it spreads out the cattle so their feces and urine is spread out more unlike a bale ring where grass will never grow again around it. It also spreads out the grass seed in the bale and adds carbon ( organic matter) to the soil as the cows trample and lay on the spent hay which will improve the pasture the next spring.
Thanks Cassidy! I have heard of Greg Judy. Sadly our winters are often too harsh to be able to utilize such a machine to roll out hay. The snow is often three feet deep out in the pastures. Our hay is fed in bale rings on cement so we can continue to keep it nice and clean and so we aren’t destroying grass as you mentioned. Maybe I should try unrolling some before the weather gets too bad this year...
@@dodgebrothersfarmandranch9206 unrolling before it gets too deep with snow and early in spring might be a good compromise. Greg is out in Missouri but different weather conditions can definitely effect how we all deal with feeding, moving and tending our animals. Our harshest weather here in S.W. Louisiana sctuslly comes at the height of summer when we regularly have temperatures that reach over 100° every day for weeks and have to worry about flooding and impending hurricanes washing everything away. we mainly have to focus on keeping our animals cool and providing them with plenty of shade and loads of cool water so they don't drop dead from dehydration. Everywhere has its farming challenges which is why I am always interested in seeing how farmers in other places around the world handle their specific challenges
Nice channel. I grew up on a small cattle farm. Ran 30 head of Black Anguish cattle. We went to round bales because it got to the point we couldn’t hire help to put up hay in the summer.
A friend of ours recently traveled to Germany with a small group from our area. They said they saw loose hay being put up in trucks with big cages on the back. Is that common?
@@dodgebrothersfarmandranch9206 Hi, maybe small farmers do that, or it was probably shredded mais for alternative energy plants or "Biogasanlagen". In my region, Lower Saxony near Oldenburg we do have small square bales, big square bales and round bales of dry hay and Silage round bales. Our region has a lot of moisture and it is difficult to keep it mold-free. In our horse farm, we do use small square bales and round bales, we don´t have machines to do hay ourselves so we buy it.
Very nice informative video We are just now trying to get into baleing hay to feed our horses and maybe sale a little too thanks for the info! Now a subscriber
As a child in the late 50's I hung around a small dairy farm that harvested its hay by hand. They had wide wooden rakes they formed windrows with and forked it loose up onto a horse drawn wagon where someone stood and piled it. At the barn they had a two tined fork also powered by a horse they used to raise the hay into the loft. There were openings in the loft floor they used to fork hay to the cows. They weren't Amish either. Just poor. By the way I grew up drinking that milk raw. I'm pushing 70 now. Just lucky I guess.
If you can’t get corn stalks dry enough before round baling them, be sure to stick a fence post into the center of each one, so you can make “stalksicles!”
me personally I hate round bales because of all the plastic, give me small bales made with natural twine please! i think plastic is the biggest cause of pollution, i see it everywhere from the roadside to the middle of the pacific ocean. Thanks again Carl for another informative farm vlog!
Thanks for watching! Glad you learned something new. If you ever have any questions don’t hesitate to ask. A lot of my videos are made in response to viewer questions!
"Transportation is like a game of tetris " Wow , wow ,wow , that is the best definition i have ever heard !! Around here some people use also little round bales. For dry hay or can be wrapped in the baler for silage. Weight :+- 25 á30 kg , 50á60 pounds.
@@dodgebrothersfarmandranch9206 They aren't common here neither. To hard to grab them since they have a net-wrap instead of twine like little squares. I live in Belgium.
At our farm in NW Ohio. My dad and his brothers make big and small square bales. We collect the small bales with one of our 2 self propelled new holland stack wagons.
Way back 40ish years ago when I had livestock we use to have hay cubes (alfalfa) out here in the west. They were roughly 2" x 2" and maybe 3" long. Are hay cubes still used? Seems like an efficient way to grid the hay and compress it.
I live in southwest Michigan and have 4 horses and we feed round bales. 4x4 or 4x5 what ever is available and low cost. We store then in the barn. I put down a pallet if it's a 4x4 I can flip it by hand. If it's a 4x5 I have to use the skid loader. I put it on to the flat side, untie it and fill up the wheelbarrow, feeding this way minimizes wast. If I know it's going to be a bad heavy snow for more than a week I will set out a full round bale in the field.
I made the investment in bale tarp, not a cheap tarp, but well worth the investment. As long as you put bales on skids, it preserves both large round and square bales .
@@dodgebrothersfarmandranch9206 I tie the tarp down with bale twine down to the skids ..make sure to tie down most if not all of the holes/holds on the tarp. Never have the tarp blow off. Takes a bit of time initially but works great.
It’s all about shipping and what the buyers and shippers want. Here in Nevada allot of dairies buy hay in California so we put up large squares easier to load and ship tied down. Rounds don’t get enough tonnage to make trucks pay we keep our bales out we don’t have to many problems we high and dry here. Ya rounds are good if your feeding your own and your fields are close plus no Knotter problems like big and small balers rounds use net wrap or less twine to plus you can also if you have meadows you can roll them up and not put anything on and leave for free feeding.
Yeah that’s a real benefit of big squares. It’s like Tetris for loading trucks. I would really like one of those small square balers that ties 18 bales into one big square bale for handling with skid steers.
@@dodgebrothersfarmandranch9206 ya we have 3 string bales use a harrow bed and squeeze to move the in blocks or a retriever on a truck to haul the blocks of 72 bales around about five tons.
Small bales at 50 pounds? Only ones that light I've ever seen, we're too soft to handle and wouldn't stack! 16"×18"×48", weigh 80-85 lbs for grass or up to 120-140 lbs for clover or alfalfa. Good solid bales that stack nicely. That's how we do small bales😎 FYI, I hate small bales! 3×4 it 4×4x 8, weigh from 1275 to 1600 pounds for grass and up to 2000 pounds for clover or alfalfa. Stack and haul the best!! Rounds are too time consuming here and still need to be under roof, ya, they shed water, but we get more than they can take, been there... God video!!! BTW, the weights we do, is because we can and for speed and use of storage space.
@@dodgebrothersfarmandranch9206 Massey 1842 16"×18". Did the same with the many New Holland 16×18s before it... The inline makes a nicer bale thought 😎
How long are you making your bales? Mine are exactly twice as long as they are wide. My friend has a Massey 1839 and his alfalfa bales are only about 40-45 pounds and the strings are so tight you can barely get your fingers under them to pick up a bale. We must be getting our hay way too dry.
A couple of buddies and I made good money bucking and stacking hay when I was a teen... say 35 years ago. Hard work for sure, but we liked it and wished we could get more. Back then it was 25c a bale; I wonder what it is now.
I believe one of the biggest problems with our country today is there are not enough kids spending sweaty hours in hayloft anymore. When I hire youngsters to help load and unload square bales I pay them by the hour instead of by the bale. That way I don’t have to try to keep track of how many bales each kid carried when we have multiple kids working on a rack or in a hayloft. Also that allows them to get compensated for their time when we are moving between fields or hauling trailers long distances.
Thanks for the informative video, Carl. I grew up in Northern California and never saw a round bale until I came to the Midwest. I've been back to Northern California a few times in the last 40 years (not as many times as I would have liked) and I don't recall seeing round bales on those trips back home. Is that coincidence or is there a particular reason that round bales are scarce out west?
I know a lot of the super high quality hay that is made out west on irrigated land is shipped clear out here and it is most always large square bales. They are just easier to transport. They stack really nicely.
2 string[50-60lb] square and large round are popular in western WA and OR for "local hay" (often round is plastic wrapped) which is often considered low value. Round for alfalfa in eastern WA because the dairies are setup for feeding round bales. And most of the high quality hay and alfalfa transported from eastern WA to the west side is 3 string(about 120lb) square. Straw is equal chance of being 2 or 3 string square.
Just got back from a trip through Ireland. They use large round bales and cover with tarps. I thought they said they keep the bales damp and let the bales decompose?
We large square bale all of our straw and then ship it down to New York State where they feed it to dairy cattle. For the value of selling the straw we can buy back what ever straw we need in round bales for half the price.
Can u make a video about the best secure way to transport. Speed , straps... thank you. Also, the best of round bales is as a producer we save money on fuel and service. Small square bales took a lot time, fuel and labor.
Dodge Brothers Farm and Ranch I’m not a farmer, so I know virtually nothing about this, but I thought it was interesting. There probably are some bad downsides to it or you would’ve heard of it if it even has been put on the market. Here’s a link to an article on if from several years ago: www.northernag.net/edible-bale-wrap-developed-to-reduce-farm-waste-and-save-cows/
We always buy a few small squares every year to use around the corral.Can't find the help to do very many anymore. Love the big squares but when I'm baling its rounds. The poor mans way to put up hay in a hurry.
I live in Southwest Arkansas and noticed someone was baling dry corn stalks into round bales. What's up with that? Surely there isn't enought nutrition in dry corn stalks and seems like they would be hard to eat.
That’s a great question! Assuming the following weights: Big round-1500 lbs Big square (3x3)-800 lbs Small square-50 lbs And assuming $150/ton for grass and $200/ton for alfalfa, the math works out like this: Big rounds $112-150/ bale Big squares $60-80/ bale Small squares $3.75-5/ bale It depends if it’s straight grass, straight alfalfa, or a blend. Alfalfa often sells for about $50/ton higher. It also depends on quality, moisture content, mold, etc. Also, squares tend to bring a bit higher price than rounds at the hay auction because they are easier to transport.
@@dodgebrothersfarmandranch9206 -Thanks for the reply. I'm just a town guy that was never on a farm and never thought about those things. Now I'm curious about the total costs involved in haying. Different sizes means different types and numbers of equipment needed, not just for baling but also for distributing the hay.
Well, we are doing it about as cheaply as you can. Here is my best guess at the value of the hay equipment we own: IH 1066 mowing tractor - $7,000 Oliver 1550 loader tractor - 3,700 John Deere 920 MoCo - $4,500 Kuhn SR110 speed rake - $4,500 John Deere 336 baler- $3,200 1995 Ford F-350 dually - $4,000 Case 1838 skid steer - $6,000 We hire custom operators to make round bales for $12-15 per bale. We rent a flatbed trailer that can haul 11 round bales at once for $1 per loaded mile. The custom rate for making big squares is around $9-10 per bale. There is also about $80 per acre in fertilizer cost. Don’t forget land rent and fuel. It’s not cheap.
We did have 8 but we lost one during calving season. Her calf was so deformed that they couldn’t even do a c-section. We had to take her to the butcher.
My question is storing wheatt husk in nylone bags of 600 lbs one after other in a proper shade and cover. The whwat husk should ve recovered for cattke as it conta8ns occassinal grain.
big square great thing don't have to stop, you don't have to use entire bale when feeding, and they don't roll down the hill might roll once or twice on a really steep but not like a round bale where it rolls and is never seen again..
@@dodgebrothersfarmandranch9206 they won't survive a roll from the trailer, since they are not wrapped, just got some plastic twine around them. They are delivered by a farmer with a small old farm tractor and stored in the hayloft of the barn :) So no, we don't handle them by hand. But they can be pulled apart very easily, so there's no real advantage of buying smaller stuff for us :)
@@dodgebrothersfarmandranch9206 The Roto-Baler could produce bale sizes from 14” to 22” in diameter, and, depending on the size, could weigh from 40 to 100 pounds. that is from the wiki my hay bales are about 16-18 inches in diameter and worry about 50-55 pounds it all depends on condition if I'm going to make it bigger or smaller lighter or heavier ???
small square bales are easy to handle, hell when i was (briefly) into archery i got a small square bale to shoot into we ended up using it as fire starter fuel
I usually shoot at round bales when I’m practicing with my bow. Which is rare... My wife and I are in a couples archery league and the running joke is that it’s against the rules to practice outside of competition.
I’m gonna tell somebody you hay hauling pirate. It’ll be punishment enough if those round bales go flying off your trailer and you have to go corral them. One other thing the portability between 2 tie and 3 tie square bales is worth mentioning.
Good question! Most of our small bale customers are retired hobby farmers with a couple ponies or horses. They only want a 35-40LB bale because it is easier to carry.
put the round bales on pallets! it saves a lot of hay!!! we put ours on 2 pallets high / almost no bottom rot! sure, its a little more work ... but we went thru A LOT of hassle to make the bale, why waste the hay ?!
You don't have to get off the loader. Our skid steer straddles the pallets. We are at 250 rounds on pallets. Rounds feed better outside for us. We still feed squares but prefer to do so inside. With our feeders we have much less waste with rounds. We use 4x4,4x5 and5x5 rounds. We feed sheep. I will feed squares outside if I have high numbers to use it.4 years ago we fed all large squares. Rounds are easier to find. Usually cheaper. We are getting them delivered for around 108 aton.
Round bales or not good for horses small square bales are the best way know how much and to who we have cover for the hay this is what we do I say no to round and no to big square
Mark Stegeman rounds work just fine for horses! Put a slow feed hay net and a feeder ring designed for horses and it works great! Place it under a cover or hay hut and it’s even better! If I had the machinery I would be feeding the large squares. Rounds are not available where I live or free choice grass would be what I would feed! Large squares can be flakes just like small squares and fed in hay nets! For less waste!
Biggest drawback of a small square and large square baler is. Its like your mother in law one moment she is nice and everything is perfect and the next day she is just a btch and everything is just not working
I have had my fair share of knotter issues. We had an old 24T that I fought one side for the longest time. The right side made a perfect knot and the left side only half tied. It looked ok until you picked the bale up and then it would break. Turned out the tucker finger was just slightly out of adjustment. It was letting the one string go before the billhook could get ahold of it.
Hey Carl, I finally got around to checking out your channel! You're doing really good work here, I like it!! It was good to meet you in Omaha last month.
Wow, I’m honored that you took the time to watch some of our videos! Congrats on busting through 200,000 subscribers, Zach! I’ve done my best to send some people your way. You are doing an amazing job!
Really enjoy both of your guys content.
Its like all my favourite farming youtubers all in one place!
i dont mean to be offtopic but does any of you know a tool to get back into an Instagram account?
I stupidly forgot the account password. I would appreciate any help you can offer me.
@Sincere Roger Instablaster =)
I just found your video. I am extremely impressed with your verbal presentation! Complete, lucid sentences, informative and to the point. Very well done! Your ability to present your ideas, thoughts, etc. I would rate as A+. Go to the head of the class and keep up the great presentations.
Hey thanks for all the really encouraging words! I’ve been doing my best to improve as I go along here. I hope you continue to enjoy the videos!
Great content! I was actually wondering about this very topic not long ago. Now I know the answers. When I was a kid I had a summer job helping the neighbor stack those small bales on the trailer and then again into the barn. Brings back memories watching your channel. Good stuff here and thanks.
I love how you explain everything so nicely!
Thanks Dux! I love that you think that, because I usually feel like a rambling buffoon.
My man... You are a great farmer and better UA-camr. Thank you for both!
Thanks a lot for the kind words! I’m super glad people enjoy the farming!
I know alot of people that store big round bales outside and they are just fine too plus you can store small square outside and cover them. Thanks for the video I enjoy your videos
Cows don’t get a square meal when fed round bales
Ha!
That was a good one.
Lol
My grandpa used to say, You can't fit a square bale into a round cow.
Round bales fit better on the plate.
Howdy from Portland Oregon!
Love your informative channel!👏👍🇺🇸
Thanks Sharleen! Your name make me think of the song “John Deere Green” by Joe Diffie. If you’ve never heard it you should look it up. You’ll have a good laugh I bet.
Thanks for that insight. I had wondered about the differences in those bale shapes.
Thank you for the helpful info! It was very well described!
Thanks!
Also Square bales faster as you don't have to stop , wrap and lay an egg like a round bale needs but I see the expensive Vermeer round baler has solved that . Nice video 👍🏻🇨🇦
Thanks! I’d like to see one of those in action!
@@dodgebrothersfarmandranch9206 Krone and other have that continous system for years now ...
Great explanation of the pros and cons on the different types of hay bales. The old analogy that nothing comes easy sure holds true bales of hay. Small bales are great but they are costly if you need a lot of them.
That’s for sure! Thanks for watching, Ben.
Very well explained. Thank you.
This is why I love UA-cam... Thank you for explaining this... always see and wondered...
Thanks! Let me know if there is anything else you wonder about.
Love your channel. Just went back and rewatched this video. Im glad someone finally is talking about these differences. If you want to see some unique ways of feeding and using round hay bales for cattle you should check out Greg Judy's channel. He actually unrolls the hay bales across his pasture when he feeds them to his cattle. He also designed a light weight piece of equipment that hooks to an ATV so you don't rut out your field when unrolling in winter. Unrolling the bale does several things: it spreads out the cattle so their feces and urine is spread out more unlike a bale ring where grass will never grow again around it. It also spreads out the grass seed in the bale and adds carbon ( organic matter) to the soil as the cows trample and lay on the spent hay which will improve the pasture the next spring.
Thanks Cassidy! I have heard of Greg Judy. Sadly our winters are often too harsh to be able to utilize such a machine to roll out hay. The snow is often three feet deep out in the pastures. Our hay is fed in bale rings on cement so we can continue to keep it nice and clean and so we aren’t destroying grass as you mentioned. Maybe I should try unrolling some before the weather gets too bad this year...
@@dodgebrothersfarmandranch9206 unrolling before it gets too deep with snow and early in spring might be a good compromise. Greg is out in Missouri but different weather conditions can definitely effect how we all deal with feeding, moving and tending our animals. Our harshest weather here in S.W. Louisiana sctuslly comes at the height of summer when we regularly have temperatures that reach over 100° every day for weeks and have to worry about flooding and impending hurricanes washing everything away. we mainly have to focus on keeping our animals cool and providing them with plenty of shade and loads of cool water so they don't drop dead from dehydration. Everywhere has its farming challenges which is why I am always interested in seeing how farmers in other places around the world handle their specific challenges
Nice channel. I grew up on a small cattle farm. Ran 30 head of Black Anguish cattle. We went to round bales because it got to the point we couldn’t hire help to put up hay in the summer.
Little square bales sure do take a lot of time!
Informative.
I'd like to see more of the "how," even a bit of loading & unloading the trailers.
Stay well!
Sounds good. I’m sure you’ll see more eventually!
Thanks for that info. The wife and I have wondered about that topic for a long time.
Thanks for watching!
Used to work at southern states, and man I'd rather load 20 rd bales with a front end loader than throw any amount of small sq bales haha
I hear ya!
The info has been truly helpful
I am learning a lot from you. Enjoy your videos. I am now a subscriber.
Thanks! I’m glad you are here!
Way cool!!! Thank you for the explanation.
Thanks for watching!
Very interesting vid. Great job!
Thanks!
Thank you for this informative video! It is interesting to see how you work with hay which is not very different with our way to do it in Germany.
A friend of ours recently traveled to Germany with a small group from our area. They said they saw loose hay being put up in trucks with big cages on the back. Is that common?
@@dodgebrothersfarmandranch9206 Hi, maybe small farmers do that, or it was probably shredded mais for alternative energy plants or "Biogasanlagen". In my region, Lower Saxony near Oldenburg we do have small square bales, big square bales and round bales of dry hay and Silage round bales. Our region has a lot of moisture and it is difficult to keep it mold-free. In our horse farm, we do use small square bales and round bales, we don´t have machines to do hay ourselves so we buy it.
Amazingly well answered question
Thanks!
Excellent information. Incidentally, the chief benefit of round bales is they are....... round!
Very nice informative video We are just now trying to get into baleing hay to feed our horses and maybe sale a little too thanks for the info! Now a subscriber
Thanks a lot! Glad to have you on board here. Hay making is fun when it goes well and a real pain when it doesn’t!
As a child in the late 50's I hung around a small dairy farm that harvested its hay by hand. They had wide wooden rakes they formed windrows with and forked it loose up onto a horse drawn wagon where someone stood and piled it. At the barn they had a two tined fork also powered by a horse they used to raise the hay into the loft. There were openings in the loft floor they used to fork hay to the cows. They weren't Amish either. Just poor. By the way I grew up drinking that milk raw. I'm pushing 70 now. Just lucky I guess.
Very informative video.
Good job
Thanks Geoff!
Thanks!
Lol I’ve been playing farming simulator, and was wondering the difference too. Thanks for the quick explanation.
Neat to know information!
Very succinct!
If you can’t get corn stalks dry enough before round baling them, be sure to stick a fence post into the center of each one, so you can make “stalksicles!”
Damn! good video guy👌🏾
Thanks!
me personally I hate round bales because of all the plastic, give me small bales made with natural twine please! i think plastic is the biggest cause of pollution, i see it everywhere from the roadside to the middle of the pacific ocean. Thanks again Carl for another informative farm vlog!
Yeah people really need to take care of their waste properly. Thanks for being here and taking time to drop me a comment!
Thanks man. I felt stupid about this until you straightened me out.
Thanks for watching! Glad you learned something new. If you ever have any questions don’t hesitate to ask. A lot of my videos are made in response to viewer questions!
Great video
Thanks
"Transportation is like a game of tetris " Wow , wow ,wow , that is the best definition i have ever heard !!
Around here some people use also little round bales. For dry hay or can be wrapped in the baler for silage. Weight :+- 25 á30 kg , 50á60 pounds.
That’s cool! Where are you located? Small round bales have not been common around here since the days or the Allis Chalmers rotobaler.
@@dodgebrothersfarmandranch9206 They aren't common here neither. To hard to grab them since they have a net-wrap instead of twine like little squares.
I live in Belgium.
Thanks that's good help
I was about to ask these questions. 😊
Glad I read your mind 🤪
At our farm in NW Ohio. My dad and his brothers make big and small square bales. We collect the small bales with one of our 2 self propelled new holland stack wagons.
I’d love a stack wagon!
Way back 40ish years ago when I had livestock we use to have hay cubes (alfalfa) out here in the west. They were roughly 2" x 2" and maybe 3" long. Are hay cubes still used? Seems like an efficient way to grid the hay and compress it.
Bravo!
Thanks a lot!
I live in southwest Michigan and have 4 horses and we feed round bales. 4x4 or 4x5 what ever is available and low cost. We store then in the barn. I put down a pallet if it's a 4x4 I can flip it by hand. If it's a 4x5 I have to use the skid loader. I put it on to the flat side, untie it and fill up the wheelbarrow, feeding this way minimizes wast. If I know it's going to be a bad heavy snow for more than a week I will set out a full round bale in the field.
Sounds like a pretty good system.
I made the investment in bale tarp, not a cheap tarp, but well worth the investment. As long as you put bales on skids, it preserves both large round and square bales .
I have a neighbor who has one of those huge tarps. He always ends up having it blow off the stack after a few weeks. What do you do to hold it down?
@@dodgebrothersfarmandranch9206 I tie the tarp down with bale twine down to the skids ..make sure to tie down most if not all of the holes/holds on the tarp. Never have the tarp blow off. Takes a bit of time initially but works great.
What is the life of the Bale tarp? How much did it cost?
Video quality looks great - new camera?
Actually this was taken with the selfie cam on my iPhone 8! Don’t tell anybody though. It’s a trade secret 😂
I just feed my cows the old/sick other cows. Makes them taste extra beefy.
Ha!
When I was a teenager I worked for a large horse ranch. Small bales were kept in top of stallion barn. They weighed approx 120 pounds each.
That’s why you are so tuff!!
1:33 ok but if it comes off you're cleaning it up with the yard rake :P
It’s all about shipping and what the buyers and shippers want. Here in Nevada allot of dairies buy hay in California so we put up large squares easier to load and ship tied down. Rounds don’t get enough tonnage to make trucks pay we keep our bales out we don’t have to many problems we high and dry here. Ya rounds are good if your feeding your own and your fields are close plus no Knotter problems like big and small balers rounds use net wrap or less twine to plus you can also if you have meadows you can roll them up and not put anything on and leave for free feeding.
Yeah that’s a real benefit of big squares. It’s like Tetris for loading trucks. I would really like one of those small square balers that ties 18 bales into one big square bale for handling with skid steers.
@@dodgebrothersfarmandranch9206 ya we have 3 string bales use a harrow bed and squeeze to move the in blocks or a retriever on a truck to haul the blocks of 72 bales around about five tons.
Can you explain how an Ag Bag system works. How they're filled, and then used. They sure are long. I enjoy your videos. Thanks!
Thanks! I need to find someone to get footage of. I think mnmillenialfarmer has some footage of filling and emptying them. It’s a pretty slick tool.
Side note - if you live in areas of the west where snow is more prevalent, ranchers stack square , big or small, outside
I’ve seen huge stacks of big squares out west before. I guess I should have mentioned that hay management is climate specific.
Small bales at 50 pounds?
Only ones that light I've ever seen, we're too soft to handle and wouldn't stack!
16"×18"×48", weigh 80-85 lbs for grass or up to 120-140 lbs for clover or alfalfa. Good solid bales that stack nicely. That's how we do small bales😎
FYI, I hate small bales! 3×4 it 4×4x 8, weigh from 1275 to 1600 pounds for grass and up to 2000 pounds for clover or alfalfa. Stack and haul the best!! Rounds are too time consuming here and still need to be under roof, ya, they shed water, but we get more than they can take, been there...
God video!!!
BTW, the weights we do, is because we can and for speed and use of storage space.
What kind of Baler are you using to get such heavy small squares?
@@dodgebrothersfarmandranch9206 Massey 1842 16"×18".
Did the same with the many New Holland 16×18s before it...
The inline makes a nicer bale thought 😎
How long are you making your bales? Mine are exactly twice as long as they are wide. My friend has a Massey 1839 and his alfalfa bales are only about 40-45 pounds and the strings are so tight you can barely get your fingers under them to pick up a bale. We must be getting our hay way too dry.
@@dodgebrothersfarmandranch9206 47"-48"… a little on the long side for the bale wagon, but tie tiers fit better.
We make little rounds with an AC roto bailer and big rounds with a JD 568
A couple of buddies and I made good money bucking and stacking hay when I was a teen... say 35 years ago. Hard work for sure, but we liked it and wished we could get more. Back then it was 25c a bale; I wonder what it is now.
I believe one of the biggest problems with our country today is there are not enough kids spending sweaty hours in hayloft anymore. When I hire youngsters to help load and unload square bales I pay them by the hour instead of by the bale. That way I don’t have to try to keep track of how many bales each kid carried when we have multiple kids working on a rack or in a hayloft. Also that allows them to get compensated for their time when we are moving between fields or hauling trailers long distances.
Thanks for the informative video, Carl. I grew up in Northern California and never saw a round bale until I came to the Midwest. I've been back to Northern California a few times in the last 40 years (not as many times as I would have liked) and I don't recall seeing round bales on those trips back home. Is that coincidence or is there a particular reason that round bales are scarce out west?
I know a lot of the super high quality hay that is made out west on irrigated land is shipped clear out here and it is most always large square bales. They are just easier to transport. They stack really nicely.
2 string[50-60lb] square and large round are popular in western WA and OR for "local hay" (often round is plastic wrapped) which is often considered low value. Round for alfalfa in eastern WA because the dairies are setup for feeding round bales.
And most of the high quality hay and alfalfa transported from eastern WA to the west side is 3 string(about 120lb) square.
Straw is equal chance of being 2 or 3 string square.
Just got back from a trip through Ireland. They use large round bales and cover with tarps. I thought they said they keep the bales damp and let the bales decompose?
Locally farmers use twine, I see a (lot) of mold figured went with the rounds. If I understand you, rounds net wrapped resolves some of this waste?
It certainly helps! The water tends to follow the plastic wrap down the sides instead of all soaking into the top of the bale.
We large square bale all of our straw and then ship it down to New York State where they feed it to dairy cattle. For the value of selling the straw we can buy back what ever straw we need in round bales for half the price.
That’s a great business plan!
Can u make a video about the best secure way to transport. Speed , straps... thank you. Also, the best of round bales is as a producer we save money on fuel and service. Small square bales took a lot time, fuel and labor.
I could try but I’m probably not doing it properly myself 😂
I heard that someone is developing edible wrapping net. Have they put that on the market yet? If so, have you considered buying it?
I actually haven’t heard of that. Sounds like it could be a problem stored outside. It sure would make feeding easier though!
Dodge Brothers Farm and Ranch
I’m not a farmer, so I know virtually nothing about this, but I thought it was interesting. There probably are some bad downsides to it or you would’ve heard of it if it even has been put on the market.
Here’s a link to an article on if from several years ago: www.northernag.net/edible-bale-wrap-developed-to-reduce-farm-waste-and-save-cows/
We always buy a few small squares every year to use around the corral.Can't find the help to do very many anymore. Love the big squares but when I'm baling its rounds. The poor mans way to put up hay in a hurry.
I live in Southwest Arkansas and noticed someone was baling dry corn stalks into round bales. What's up with that? Surely there isn't enought nutrition in dry corn stalks and seems like they would be hard to eat.
You should watch my “why do farmers bale cornstalks” video and skip to 4:15 if you are in a hurry.
I like your videos since I know nothing about farming.
I'm curious about how much the different sizes cost a farmer to buy.
That’s a great question! Assuming the following weights:
Big round-1500 lbs
Big square (3x3)-800 lbs
Small square-50 lbs
And assuming $150/ton for grass and $200/ton for alfalfa, the math works out like this:
Big rounds $112-150/ bale
Big squares $60-80/ bale
Small squares $3.75-5/ bale
It depends if it’s straight grass, straight alfalfa, or a blend. Alfalfa often sells for about $50/ton higher. It also depends on quality, moisture content, mold, etc. Also, squares tend to bring a bit higher price than rounds at the hay auction because they are easier to transport.
@@dodgebrothersfarmandranch9206 -Thanks for the reply. I'm just a town guy that was never on a farm and never thought about those things. Now I'm curious about the total costs involved in haying. Different sizes means different types and numbers of equipment needed, not just for baling but also for distributing the hay.
Well, we are doing it about as cheaply as you can. Here is my best guess at the value of the hay equipment we own:
IH 1066 mowing tractor - $7,000
Oliver 1550 loader tractor - 3,700
John Deere 920 MoCo - $4,500
Kuhn SR110 speed rake - $4,500
John Deere 336 baler- $3,200
1995 Ford F-350 dually - $4,000
Case 1838 skid steer - $6,000
We hire custom operators to make round bales for $12-15 per bale. We rent a flatbed trailer that can haul 11 round bales at once for $1 per loaded mile. The custom rate for making big squares is around $9-10 per bale.
There is also about $80 per acre in fertilizer cost. Don’t forget land rent and fuel.
It’s not cheap.
@@dodgebrothersfarmandranch9206 -How many cows do you have? I thought you said on one of your videos that you had 8 cows, but I may be wrong.
We did have 8 but we lost one during calving season. Her calf was so deformed that they couldn’t even do a c-section. We had to take her to the butcher.
We make all our straw into square bales and sell it all to local farms that have cattle
How do you make chaffe hay? What is it for?
Have a look at this. Skip to about 4:15 if you are in a hurry.
ua-cam.com/video/KoaakrI56pM/v-deo.html
Hey making strew bale house, do you sell straw bales?
My question is storing wheatt husk in nylone bags of 600 lbs one after other in a proper shade and cover. The whwat husk should ve recovered for cattke as it conta8ns occassinal grain.
We are pretty far away from wheat country here. I don’t have much knowledge about that.
big square great thing don't have to stop, you don't have to use entire bale when feeding, and they don't roll down the hill might roll once or twice on a really steep but not like a round bale where it rolls and is never seen again..
I would love big squares if I had a big hay shed!
The tightly wrapped in white plastic round bales... silage?
Yez
Sometimes is hay silage you are seeing and sometimes it’s just guys wrapping their cornstalks to keep their bedding nice and dry.
We don't have large equipment and store all hay inside, for just two ponies. We use round bales 😂
Nice! Do you have someone deliver them or do you just roll them off a trailer by hand?
@@dodgebrothersfarmandranch9206 they won't survive a roll from the trailer, since they are not wrapped, just got some plastic twine around them.
They are delivered by a farmer with a small old farm tractor and stored in the hayloft of the barn :)
So no, we don't handle them by hand.
But they can be pulled apart very easily, so there's no real advantage of buying smaller stuff for us :)
I thought that the government outlawed the round bales because the live stock weren't getting a square meal.
That’s a good one!
Another difference between round and squares rounds doesn’t have knotters also big squares also take bigger horse power to run.
What happened to the 2x2x4 ales?
Never seen one quite that size
and still I see people stacking hay just on the ground, even under roof that's going to loose you some hay. we use pallets and get good results
The hay that we save for winter gets stacked on pallets in the barn.
Came here from FarmSim 2022 looking for an answer on this.
Did you learn what you wanted to know? Any way I can clarify anything?
@@dodgebrothersfarmandranch9206 Sorrta, but what goes in real life don't translate to a the game hah
? The small bales um used to are around 100# big block ones are between 1200 to 1500#. Hmm
We don’t have a lot of guys that make small bales that heavy anymore
2k!
Isn’t it crazy???
you forgot Small round bales I still use a Allis Chalmers rotary Baler
BluedevilReddevilx Good point! What do those weigh? Are they similar to a small square bale?
@@dodgebrothersfarmandranch9206 The Roto-Baler could produce bale sizes from 14” to 22” in diameter, and, depending on
the size, could weigh from 40 to 100 pounds. that is from the wiki my hay bales are about 16-18 inches in diameter and worry about 50-55 pounds it all depends on condition if I'm going to make it bigger or smaller lighter or heavier ???
What about small round bales?
small square bales are easy to handle, hell when i was (briefly) into archery i got a small square bale to shoot into
we ended up using it as fire starter fuel
I usually shoot at round bales when I’m practicing with my bow. Which is rare... My wife and I are in a couples archery league and the running joke is that it’s against the rules to practice outside of competition.
I fkin told everybody!
I’m gonna tell somebody you hay hauling pirate. It’ll be punishment enough if those round bales go flying off your trailer and you have to go corral them. One other thing the portability between 2 tie and 3 tie square bales is worth mentioning.
We don’t have any three tie bales around here. I actually just learned about them because of some comments on this video...
Alot of farmers run in road gear when they are baling round bales
Only the ones who like loose bales. If you want a good tight bale you have to slow down.
Why do farmers in the Midwest bake the small square bales and not 3 string square bales and use a harrow bed to pick up the bales
Good question! Most of our small bale customers are retired hobby farmers with a couple ponies or horses. They only want a 35-40LB bale because it is easier to carry.
what happened to stacks tho?
and buying bags of hay at the pet store costs more than square bales lol, at least as much as a whole bale!
Stacks were cool back in the day. They are just a major pain to transport and they aren’t as dense as bales, and don’t shed the rain as well.
@@dodgebrothersfarmandranch9206 funny how times change :P
My question is, why don't you use the metric system?
Same reason you don’t use the English system. I didn’t grow up with it.
downide of round bales: they roll down hills
So do silage wagons! I had a pretty scary experience with that back in high school.
I have seen oval bales out in some fields, but that was likely from baling too wet with a round baler. Lol
We had some of those in the past. They don’t shed water very well...
put the round bales on pallets! it saves a lot of hay!!! we put ours on 2 pallets high / almost no bottom rot! sure, its a little more work ... but we went thru A LOT of hassle to make the bale, why waste the hay ?!
My problem would be finding 400 pallets and getting off to move them between every single bale
@@dodgebrothersfarmandranch9206 thats what kids are for!!!
I started doing this just this year. I only need like 3 or 4 bales so it's easy to find palletts
You don't have to get off the loader. Our skid steer straddles the pallets. We are at 250 rounds on pallets. Rounds feed better outside for us. We still feed squares but prefer to do so inside. With our feeders we have much less waste with rounds. We use 4x4,4x5 and5x5 rounds. We feed sheep. I will feed squares outside if I have high numbers to use it.4 years ago we fed all large squares. Rounds are easier to find. Usually cheaper. We are getting them delivered for around 108 aton.
Round bales or not good for horses small square bales are the best way know how much and to who we have cover for the hay this is what we do I say no to round and no to big square
Mark Stegeman rounds work just fine for horses! Put a slow feed hay net and a feeder ring designed for horses and it works great! Place it under a cover or hay hut and it’s even better!
If I had the machinery I would be feeding the large squares. Rounds are not available where I live or free choice grass would be what I would feed!
Large squares can be flakes just like small squares and fed in hay nets! For less waste!
Is that a 7.3?
Sadly it is not. It is a 7.5
Otherwise known as a 460
Otherwise known as a truck with a drinking problem 😂
Hi
Hey!
Mushroom stacking is one of the worst ways to stack rounds. Plenty of studies on UA-cam prove this.
Round bales took jobs away from kids. I used to haul hay bales ever since I was very young.
It’s harder and harder to find young folks to stack hay now. We still do small squares and the labor can be a real problem
Biggest drawback of a small square and large square baler is. Its like your mother in law one moment she is nice and everything is perfect and the next day she is just a btch and everything is just not working
I have had my fair share of knotter issues. We had an old 24T that I fought one side for the longest time. The right side made a perfect knot and the left side only half tied. It looked ok until you picked the bale up and then it would break. Turned out the tucker finger was just slightly out of adjustment. It was letting the one string go before the billhook could get ahold of it.
Great advice and channel! I just found it