Unrolling hay

[Brute 23]

Does the way a field get bailed have any effect on how the bale unrolls?

I have never had an issue pushing bales to unroll them. The last cuttings from the same guy will not unroll worth a flip. They unroll a little way then stop. Go a little than stop. You have to pull hat again to get them started. When the bale gets small it will finally go more continuous.

 

[midTN_Brangusman]

The direction the hay is rolled affects the way it is unrolled. I rub my hand across the side of the bale. Back the tractor up to the smooth side, the other direction will be rough. This will allow the hay to unroll the same way the baler rolled it and will be in a more continuous windrow rather than coming off in clumps.

 

[Lucky]

We get some bales that are hard to unroll too. Some kinda flail around and some unroll like carpet. Not sure what causes that other than long stemy grass mixed in.

 

[Twisted]

The speed that the hay is being fed into the baler has a lot to do with whether the hay is in a continuous binded layer. If the speed of the belts in the baler are faster than the ground speed of the tractor, or the hay is thin, then you will have skipped places in the roll layers because the roll it'self is moving faster than the hay layer being wrapped around the roll and it's pulling the hay apart before it gets wrapped around the roll..

 

[4hfarms]

I had a couple rolls last year that fell apart as it unrolled. It was so dry that the bailer crushed it into tiny hay. Get a roll or two out of it then it became a pile.
Hope we don't get that again for a few years...

 

[bird dog]

Lots of variables to deal with. Some bales are too dense and won't unroll. Some rolls are too loose and won't unroll. Some balers make a tightly wound core but a loose outside. Some the windrow is to big and most of the hay comes of in the first two revolutions. Some are too flat on the bottom. Some won't unroll when they are fresh but do fine after sitting for 6 months or so. As mid TN says, unrolling them the opposite the way they were rolled makes the biggest difference. They need to unroll like a roll of toilet paper. I pull one out of the stack and look for the end of the wrap to determine the roll direction I want to hook up to.

Barn kept rolls unroll much better than ones stored out in the weather. The guy I hire to roll up my hay uses a New Holland baler and they unroll very well. I bought some hay this year that was put up with a Deere baler. They are some of those where the density is not the same all the way through. Too much unrolls on the first couple of revolutions before the rest unrolls as it should.

 

[cfpinz]

Moisture content at baling has a lot to do with how it unrolls as well.

 

[SmokinM]

Moisture content and grass type make the biggest difference aside from proper direction.

 

[sunnyblueskies]

What everyone else said. Suppose moisture content at time of baling is the biggest culprit. Driving a tight turn with the bale on the ground sometimes helps, it's tough on the roller's links though. You could try to squish the bales top down with the loader to maybe break the layers a little bit, if you know the bales of a whole batch are tough to unroll.

 

[RDFF]

Obviously "sticky hay", meaning the bales probably were a little wet when baled, and they heated, will make they harder to unroll. My unroller is on the front end loader, so I can just press them down against the ground some, and they squash a little that way, which breaks the hay apart (and frozen bales too when unrolling...). It's one of the reasons why I like the design of my unroller. But the biggest thing though is to make sure to unroll them the opposite way from when they were rolled up, like a toilet paper roll. And then how you store them is important too... I put mine on "bale rails"... two beams about 20" apart, with the faces of the bales tight against each other. Very little spoilage at all, no "soggy bottom bales". Net wrap comes right off.

 

[jltrent]

Another thing that affects how a bale is unrolled is the baler. I have noticed that bales baled with my Vermeer 504R unroll easier than with my Vermeer 505M. The only difference I can tell other than width is the forming chamber. The M baler is a flat roller, and the R baler sorts the hay where it packs denser and straight. Look at the picture of the chamber of the R baler.

R Baler

M baler has a big flat roller in the bottom like this

 

[Brute 23]

I had to unroll some hay during this last cold snap and saw the same thing again. The bales wouldn't unroll good.

Use to when I unrolled a bale it was like unrolling a mat. You were laying down 4 or 6" or what ever of hay. It would go far and the bale was done.

These bales are thin when they unroll and patchy. It will unroll thin then stop. Then it's like you have to tear a chunk to get it started again and it will go a shot distance and stop.

These are plenty big fields with lots of hay and pretty square. They are doing multiple, multiple bales per side.

If they are driving too slow, can that cause that? I didn't know if the wrapping was tied to speed or of its going to roll it no matter how fast you drive?

I could be way off but in my head I'm picturing it starving for hay and still turning the bale.

 

[Mark Reynolds]

I have no practical experience here, but might length of hay, (alluded to already) and possibly raking- grass/hay stem orientation (random/disorganized vs lengthwise/directional) have an effect?

 

[Brute 23]

I have no practical experience here, but might length of hay, (alluded to already) and possibly raking- grass/hay stem orientation (random/disorganized vs lengthwise/directional) have an effect?

Same grass and field that has been baled for years and years. Never saw it until this one guy started doing it.

 

[Mark Reynolds]

Same grass and field that has been baled for years and years. Never saw it until this one guy started doing it.

Different equipment? Raking differently? Different cut?

 

[RDFF]

It mostly has to do with conditions when baled, and TYPE of hay... long stemmy hay could kind of tend to want to "stay wrapped up"... kind of like if you rolled up a ball of twine... although if put up appropriately dry, it's still gonna unroll fairly well. It's more due to moisture conditions when baling... good and dry won't ever be a problem, but if pushing that 20+ to 30% range, it's gonna heat... you might not have mold, particularly on the bottom end of that range... but it'll heat, and become "sticky". The higher the moisture, the more dense the bale will be... making for less "breathability" to steep out the moisture.

Baler design... contributing to the type of bale made, CAN make for a more dense bale (which I prefer)... but this also means less ability to "steep out moisture" from the core of the bale... so more tendency to become sticky, if baling in these conditions.

Plastic wrapping of course will pretty much prevent any possibility of "steeping out moisture", if you wrapped them right off the field after baling. Usually will result in a "slime layer" all around the outside of the bale. Neighbor who has his own wrapper (and does custom wrapping) prefers to wrap immediately if making silage bales of course, but if the hay is down in that 20% range, he'll leave them sit out on the field for a few days to "steep out" before wrapping, because of this.

 

[RDFF]

Same grass and field that has been baled for years and years. Never saw it until this one guy started doing it.

Yup... mostly has to do with the hay moisture conditions... it may SEEM to be about the same moisture as you've done in the past when baling, but there's a big difference between 15%, and 23% moisture in how it cures in the bale. Did he happen to have to be beating a coming rain? Or maybe baled late in the evening? Or perhaps you just didn't get good drying weather... too humid. In the evening, it'll pick up humidity on the leaves from the air, even though the hay HAD been dry earlier in the day and even though the AVERAGE moisture told to you on the monitor says its good to go yet... gets "tough"... my guy has baled here right into the dark... and I've told him to just keep going and get it done, because it was supposed to rain... the hay would be ruined either way... so get it rolled up because it's already in a windrow. These kinds of things matter, but sometimes you just don't have a choice.

And then again, sometimes your baler guy just doesn't care... has another job he has to get to, etc. He gets paid the same amount for rolling it up per bale, regardless of how well it keeps for you, or how well it might end up unrolling.

 

[Brute 23]

Different equipment? Raking differently? Different cut?

That's what I'm trying to figure out. This guy is doing some thing different. I've never had this issue before and it's every field he does. Not just one field.

My dad uses a different guy and his are not like that.

The guy makes a good, big, tight bale. It just doesn't unroll.

 

[Mark Reynolds]

That's what I'm trying to figure out. This guy is doing some thing different. I've never had this issue before and it's every field he does. Not just one field.

My dad uses a different guy and his are not like that.

The guy makes a good, big, tight bale. It just doesn't unroll.

I don't know. The moisture issue is plausible, but he is consistent and I wouldn't think the moisture difference would be. Do his winrows look different than prior baler before he bales them?

 

[Brute 23]

I don't know. The moisture issue is plausible, but he is consistent and I wouldn't think the moisture difference would be. Do his winrows look different than prior baler before he bales them?

Not that I can see