Baleage pictures

[chevytaHOE5674]

UP here in the wilderness 1 season is all it really keeps. By the start of the second season the coons, skunks, wolves, coyotes, bears, and various birds will have the wrap torn to shreds and the bales will be growing things of very vibrant colors that will kill animals quick. Then you have a mess or torn plastic blowing about and nasty bales to deal with.

If you have the man power to bale and wrap quick it is a good way to put up properly timed feed. For a one man operator like myself there isn't enough hours in a day to rake/bale/haul/ and wrap enough hay at any one time to be very helpful. If/when I have an extra operator or 2 then I will wrap hay if needed.

On a cost/ton basis I prefer to make as much dry hay as possible.

 

[Little Joe]

Just because they eat the weeds doesn't make them nutrious.

I'd rather have good quality clean dry hay over weedy baleage anyday.

Alot of weeds have more nutritional value than good grass does.

 

[Atimm693]

UP here in the wilderness 1 season is all it really keeps. By the start of the second season the coons, skunks, wolves, coyotes, bears, and various birds will have the wrap torn to shreds and the bales will be growing things of very vibrant colors that will kill animals quick. Then you have a mess or torn plastic blowing about and nasty bales to deal with.

If you have the man power to bale and wrap quick it is a good way to put up properly timed feed. For a one man operator like myself there isn't enough hours in a day to rake/bale/haul/ and wrap enough hay at any one time to be very helpful. If/when I have an extra operator or 2 then I will wrap hay if needed.

On a cost/ton basis I prefer to make as much dry hay as possible.

This is a very good point. Once it's mowed you have 24 hours, give or take, to get it baled, hauled, and wrapped.

On some of our larger fields, that means having 5 guys working at once. Two driving haul trucks, one loading, and one running the baler. We pretty much load them as soon as they roll out of the baler and try to wrap early the next morning.

It's one of the reasons we are strongly considering going to a forage chopper and storing in pits this year, we could go from five guys down to two, ideally.

 

[Silver]

This is a very good point. Once it's mowed you have 24 hours, give or take, to get it baled, hauled, and wrapped.

On some of our larger fields, that means having 5 guys working at once. Two driving haul trucks, one loading, and one running the baler. We pretty much load them as soon as they roll out of the baler and try to wrap early the next morning.

It's one of the reasons we are strongly considering going to a forage chopper and storing in pits this year, we could go from five guys down to two, ideally.

Up here we generally have to wait until at least 24 hours after cutting to bale. I want it below 35% if at all possible.
If the field is within a few miles a bale accumulator will eliminate the two haul trucks.
Two people can put up a fair bit of baleage in a day with the right equipment.

 

[chevytaHOE5674]

My fields are in a roughly 15mi radius of the home farm. Without a crew of people to load and haul it is impossible to get any kind of volume done in a day.

 

[ChrisB2]

We wrap everything. And only a couple times over the last 5-6 years have we wrapped the same day it was baled. Usually the next day we wrap but it has been a couple days a few times. Have never had a problem. But we rarely bale much over 50% moisture, depends on the weather forecast. Read somewhere that a new study showed wrapping right away isn't as important as originally thought. But sooner is better. Of course I can't find it now.

 

[Jeanne - Simme Valley]

We have never wrapped day after baled.
I own no hay equipment except the spear on our tractor. Have had the same neighbor do my hay for over 30 years. 2 guys put up 100 bales a day. Mow day 1. Bale, haul and wrap day 2. But fields are all close and he has a wagon that picks up the bales.

 

[chevytaHOE5674]

In dry hay with just myself I can do 200+ 4x5.5' bales a day (best is 250ish). If I'm raking/baling/hauling/ and wrapping myself 50-60 bales in a day is a struggle most of the time.

 

[chevytaHOE5674]

It's one of the reasons we are strongly considering going to a forage chopper and storing in pits this year, we could go from five guys down to two, ideally.

My experience with a chopper and a pit is in decent crop one chopper can keep 2-3 wagons hustling if its a short haul longer hauls and the chopper is waiting. Then you need a guy on the pit piling and packing constantly. It takes a crew of guys to efficiently keep a chopper crew moving along.

 

[Ridgefarmer63]

My fields are in a roughly 15mi radius of the home farm. Without a crew of people to load and haul it is impossible to get any kind of volume done in a day.

Do you haul your equipment to any of those fields or just drive the equipment to the fields ?

 

[chevytaHOE5674]

Drive everything. Takes longer to load/chain/unchain/unload than it does to drive it. All of my equipment is heavy so its quite a load to haul it all.

 

[Silver]

At the speed most tractors are capable of now it would take a pretty long journey to justify hauling.

 

[Stocker Steve]

I LOVE baleage. In NY, it's the only way to put up early hay (1st wk of June).

We tend to be rainy from late May to mid June,- - so first crop hay is often cut late or rained on, and thus the quality is low. Better dairy guys get around this by chopping haylage in May and bagging it.

A local grazing expert has pushed making baleage in late May to remove and store part of the spring flush. He uses this approach to keep his improved pasture quality very high. I am experimenting with this early baleage approach. It is expensive feed, so we try to feed it to stockers or replacement heifers.

Storing baleage "longer" means not letting it get too dry and putting on more wraps of plastic. How many wraps are you putting on?

 

[BFE]

We tend to be rainy from late May to mid June,- - so first crop hay is often cut late or rained on, and thus the quality is low. Better dairy guys get around this by chopping haylage in May and bagging it.

A local grazing expert has pushed making baleage in late May to remove and store part of the spring flush. He uses this approach to keep his improved pasture quality very high. I am experimenting with this early baleage approach. It is expensive feed, so we try to feed it to stockers or replacement heifers.

Storing baleage "longer" means not letting it get too dry and putting on more wraps of plastic. How many wraps are you putting on?

We are too, normally. That's why I do my winter annuals this way.

I can't remember # of wraps, I'll have to ask my bale man. I hire it out, can't justify that kind of equipment myself.

 

[chevytaHOE5674]

Baleage in May? We still have snow in early May and usually don't even have green up until the 2nd half of May. Certainly not enough to cut and bale.

 

[Atimm693]

We tend to be rainy from late May to mid June,- - so first crop hay is often cut late or rained on, and thus the quality is low. Better dairy guys get around this by chopping haylage in May and bagging it.

A local grazing expert has pushed making baleage in late May to remove and store part of the spring flush. He uses this approach to keep his improved pasture quality very high. I am experimenting with this early baleage approach. It is expensive feed, so we try to feed it to stockers or replacement heifers.

Storing baleage "longer" means not letting it get too dry and putting on more wraps of plastic. How many wraps are you putting on?

We target 5-7 but will step it up for stalkier forage or bales that are squatty. Anything with a hard stalk can have a tendency to punch through if there's not enough film, and the film tube helps support the bales as they're coming off the wrapper.

Usually three rolls will do 100 bales or so, Sunfilm Gold and a Vermeer BW5500 wrapper, which is a sorry piece of junk as far as I'm concerned.

After late June we worry more about it being too dry rather than too wet for the most part. Precut bales don't go through the mixer that well to start with, and if they're dry it's even worse.

 

[Stocker Steve]

I can't remember # of wraps, I'll have to ask my bale man. I hire it out, can't justify that kind of equipment myself.

Our hay man has no clue. Take and sample and count them.

 

[Stocker Steve]

Baleage in May? We still have snow in early May and usually don't even have green up until the 2nd half of May. Certainly not enough to cut and bale.

Have you considered moving south to Wisconsin?

 

[chevytaHOE5674]

Not a chance. Haha

 

[Stocker Steve]

Spent the holidays with some Yuppers once. It started to snow and snow and snow. I was afraid I would get stranded there.