Bale Doesn't Mean Anything

The older I get the heavier the bales are lol

seems you can always crank on a couple more turns towards the end of the field if it looks like they won't all fit on the last wagon.... till the dew starts and the twine starts breaking....

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Deja Moo; The feeling I've heard this bull before.

A small square baler can be set to create a specific legth bale, and a specific weight, based on moisture content. When moisture content goes up, the weight will go up with it.
Farming near Lake Supeior, I've seen the weight climb from 65 pounds to 75 pounds in the matter of minutes near sunset. The humidity off the big lake acts fast. But the heavy nightly dew protects the crop from drought, to a degree.

Over the past hundred years, hay has been exported from this area. Stationary hay presses that were hand wire tied gave way to wire tied balers behind tractors. Because shipping was so important, bales had to be made extra heavy. Bales from a stationary baler all had to weigh over 100 pounds to be worth shipping.

I find this an interesting discussion. Hay quality is of greater concern to me than weight. I'd rather pay $3.00 for a 45 pound bale of well cured timothy/clover mix than pay $3.00 for a 70 pound bale of late cut birdsfoot trefoil/canary grass mix.

I'm glad there are folks that want the stemmy hay for its heat value. Gives me a market for the hay I don't want to feed to my livestock and horses.

nice to have a barn full of hay.

Why would anyone care about how much a bale of hay weighs, the animals you are feeding it too sure don't? They don't even care if they get enough pounds of dry matter per day, our sheep and cows cannot read charts anyway so they just eat what is in the manger until they do not want anymore. My job as a farmer is to make sure they always have enough.

Our sheep and cow nutritionist's do that by checking the silage piles every two weeks and adjusting the rations as the feed quality changes. Protein, energy, minerals...its all calculated out so that the animal is nutriionally sound and we get a better pay-off from the milk check and the livestock dealer.

On my families dairy farm, we do not even put up hay, we do corn silage and haylage only .The same is true for my sheep. (Just some hay for the baby calfs and baby lambs)

If I was to buy hay however, like someone else said, I would not care about the weight of them, I would just buy from my neighbor because I know his fields are rotationally sown into 100% timothy. I have no idea how much his bales weigh, but I do know what is in them, and I know it would make my nutritionist's happy. That is where the profit is.

The govt. set the weight of a bale of hay they buy.
If you sell to the govt. you will need to make your bales weight a certain weight.
Other than that a person can do what they want.

I buy 1000# bales of certified organic "dairy" alfalfa for $150 ($300/ton). It's 22-25% protien.
I bale mixed grass with my neighbor and we do "small" square bales that average 60 pounds (we weigh a few for comparison). We sell them locally for $3/bale.

If you don't care how much a bale weighs, how do you know how much you are feeding? Why would anyone pay the same price for a 30 pound bale as a 70 pound bale?
Cows and most sheep will eat until full and that's that. Horses will stay at the feeder and eat until it is gone. As a farmer, you need to control the intake to keep the animals from eating you out of house and home.
Your job as a farmer goes well beyond insuring the manger is kept full.
Do you keep track of how many tons of haylage or silage you feed? Do you buy silage or haylage by the ton, or just what ever amount fits in the truck and costs whatever the seller feels like asking? There should be some sort of connection to the amount of hay you buy and its cost.
There is no profit in buying the neighbor's timothy hay at $100 a ton when the other neighbor has timothy hay in 65 pound bales at $2.50 a bale.
You buy fuel in measured amounts. You buy food in measured amounts, You buy nails in measured amounts. Why in the world wouldn't you buy hay in a measured amount?

I don't care how much my bales weigh, because I feed as much as the cattle will eat. But I certainly care if I'm buying it, would you go to the store and settle for a half a loaf of bread for the cost of a whole loaf?

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Howland Homestead Farm

"I don't know, Doc, I've been feeding her a half bale a day and two cans of mix, do you think I'm under-feeding her?

"Ah, the bales are between 35 pounds and 70 pounds. Some are three year old late cut Canary grass, some are third cut alfalfa. I don't know which ones my kids have been feeding her. Can? Well one is a Campbell soup can and then there is the Folgers can. My wife uses a can that the school gets corn in. Could be 8 ounces, but might be as much as 5 pounds. Mix? I don't remember. I had it mixed up when corn price was down, or was that soybeans. Well, mix is mix. Must be good they eat it."

Buy by the TON sale by the BALE and you can always make money....what kind of baler you use also will make a difference in a round bale weight