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.