I like how this guy thinks!

85Hokie

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Gotta love a guy who thinks outside the box! Or outside the round bale!
 

SidecarFlip

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Hope it was straw bales and not forage bales. Looks like straw to me. I'd say he did ok.
 

Tornado

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Round Bales would be a great insulator against wind and debris, so I could see it working. However, I counted ~40 bales in the one camera shot of one side of his house. Im at work so I watched the video with no audio, but I wondered if he is a hay farmer himself. If he had to actually purchase all those bales, the price I pay for round bales in my area is $50 / roll. So, just the 40 rolls I counted would be $2,000, and There is likely well more than that around his house. If he has livestock he could still feed the bales though so Im just curious. Will go back and watch when I can listen to the audio :D
 

SidecarFlip

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Round Bales would be a great insulator against wind and debris, so I could see it working. However, I counted ~40 bales in the one camera shot of one side of his house. Im at work so I watched the video with no audio, but I wondered if he is a hay farmer himself. If he had to actually purchase all those bales, the price I pay for round bales in my area is $50 / roll. So, just the 40 rolls I counted would be $2,000, and There is likely well more than that around his house. If he has livestock he could still feed the bales though so Im just curious. Will go back and watch when I can listen to the audio :D

Don't know where you live but, I wish I could get 50 a round. I get 21 a round on forage (hay) bales and 20 on straw (wheat) bales.

Even at 21, I had hoped they were straw, they looked like straw and straw can take the moisture, forage cannot.
 

Tornado

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Don't know where you live but, I wish I could get 50 a round. I get 21 a round on forage (hay) bales and 20 on straw (wheat) bales.

Even at 21, I had hoped they were straw, they looked like straw and straw can take the moisture, forage cannot.
$21 for a round bale? Ive never seen hay sale that cheap here ever. $40 is the lowest I've seen, but most all the hay farmers in the area are sitting at the same $50 for a 5 foot diameter round bale. Louisiana I know also has the same climate as us here in north Florida and the primary grass used for haying here is Coastal Bermuda, and just based on the video Id bet that's what he has there.
 

D2Cat

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Chances are real good he farms and produces his own hay. Doubt he is going to find a person to deliver round bales and then bring a tractor to stack them for him. He lost virtually no value from storm damage to the hay. It's net wrapped and tight as bark on a tree! Virtually no water gets beyond the wrap.
 

SidecarFlip

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Chances are real good he farms and produces his own hay. Doubt he is going to find a person to deliver round bales and then bring a tractor to stack them for him. He lost virtually no value from storm damage to the hay. It's net wrapped and tight as bark on a tree! Virtually no water gets beyond the wrap.

Not exactly correct.

Net wrapped bales when stored horizontally, absorb little moisture (hay or straw) but when stacked vertically (like he has them), the rolled ends become huge sponges and wick in moisture causing the baled material to mold.

The ONLY time I store rounds vertically, is when I store them INSIDE the hay barn. If outside (which is rare), always horizontally, never vertically. So... In essence, his rounds are soggy wet and if they are forage rounds, they are no good as feed. if straw, they are still viable for bedding or hammer miller with other additives like DDG for cattle feed.

Even net wrapped bales stored horizontally experience a degree of material loss, usually the outer 1-3" of the circumference of the bale is junk and that loss accelerates the longer the bales are stored before using them.

The density of the material inside the bale has little to do with water ingress and the resulting material loss., however, a loose bale (low density) will absorb moisture faster than a high density bale will but they both absorb moisture none the less.

Remember, I'm in that business so I know how it plays.
 

Tornado

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Yea he could still feed those bales, especially to cows. Our bales, which are likely the same grass he has and wrapped exactly the same, are rained on fairly often. If the bales are able to dry out, and don't sit for days in high moisture environment they don't mold too bad, and if they do its only on the very end. As D2 cat said, water really doesn't penetrate the rolls very well at all. We hand feed our horses twice a day by tearing apart round bales with a pitch fork, so I see the hay every single day as the bale is slowly torn down over time. It takes about 2 weeks to go through a single round bale with 2 horses. Hay often will start to mold a little on the outside if kept under plastic all day due to humidity. Its often better to just leave it uncovered most of the time we find. If it does get wet for days and the outside gets a little mold, usually just pulling off a couple inches gets you back into good dry hay. The stuff is packed super tight, and the deeper you get into the bale the tigther it gets, to the point you cant even tear it apart with a pitch fork. I eventually have to just push the inner core out. I have it down to a science doing this for years now - breaking round bales down by hand lol.
 

sheepfarmer

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Even if the bales are a total loss, probably cheaper than the windows and siding on his house.
 
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SidecarFlip

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Yea he could still feed those bales, especially to cows. Our bales, which are likely the same grass he has and wrapped exactly the same, are rained on fairly often. If the bales are able to dry out, and don't sit for days in high moisture environment they don't mold too bad, and if they do its only on the very end. As D2 cat said, water really doesn't penetrate the rolls very well at all. We hand feed our horses twice a day by tearing apart round bales with a pitch fork, so I see the hay every single day as the bale is slowly torn down over time. It takes about 2 weeks to go through a single round bale with 2 horses. Hay often will start to mold a little on the outside if kept under plastic all day due to humidity. Its often better to just leave it uncovered most of the time we find. If it does get wet for days and the outside gets a little mold, usually just pulling off a couple inches gets you back into good dry hay. The stuff is packed super tight, and the deeper you get into the bale the tigther it gets, to the point you cant even tear it apart with a pitch fork. I eventually have to just push the inner core out. I have it down to a science doing this for years now - breaking round bales down by hand lol.

Not here joust with you on the aspects of making forage bales except to say I've been a commercial forage grower for 15 years so I know exactly what I'm talking about. I'll leave it at that.
 
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Tornado

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Not here joust with you on the aspects of making forage bales except to say I've been a commercial forage grower for 15 years so I know exactly what I'm talking about. I'll leave it at that.
what are you talking about? Who is jousting? Really confused... I think you read more into my post than what I put in it.
 
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Tornado

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Don Quixote comes to mind.
Lol I had to google that reference. Havent read that one. I think honestly its just everyone has been so snappy and confrontational on here since covid that some folks are just on the defensive constantly, and start to see confrontation when there is none.
 
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D2Cat

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Here's an example of hay sales around here. Brome is the preferred grass for horses and cattle here.

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I have approximately 5x6 200 bales of 2020 hay . net wrap $40 1600lb Can load. And possible deliver for a fee and depending on distance.

This is an interesting thought, " I've been a commercial forage grower for 15 years so I know exactly what I'm talking about."

Question. At what length of time on a job does the worker know everything?
 
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Tornado

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Here's an example of hay sales around here. Brome is the preferred grass for horses and cattle here.

Details
  • Condition
    Used - Like New
I have approximately 5x6 200 bales of 2020 hay . net wrap $40 1600lb Can load. And possible deliver for a fee and depending on distance.

This is an interesting thought, " I've been a commercial forage grower for 15 years so I know exactly what I'm talking about."

Question. At what length of time on a job does the worker know everything?
That price looks more like what Im used to here in my area. I typically get 5 rolls at the time and pay the guy $250. We leave the money out back near the horses and he delivers it, often while we are at work. I know the farmer, and their farm is just 2 miles down the road. We just shoot him a text message when we need hay and within a couple days it shows up in the back. Cant beat that really. Im curious about how the economics works if you can only get $20 a roll. Thats super super cheap. Ive never seen hay sale that low. I wonder if that is selling to a middle man who then resales it? The hay market here is almost entirely no middle man - the hay producer is selling directly to the person needing the hay. Square bales are $5 to $7 here, and it takes about 17 square bales to make a single round bale is what the farmer who we buy from has told me ( in terms of just raw hay volume). We used to buy square bales from him in bulk before going to round bales. Its just a lot more expensive to feed square bales - but its a lot less work on us. And just in case anyone is wondering why we hand feed our horses rather than allowing free access to hay, our Mare has a lung condition that gets really really bad if she is allowed to bury her head into bales unchecked. So we use a big wheelbarrow, pull out a big load of hay, then wet it down before then giving it to the horses. If she inhales the dust in the hay it essentially causes her to have asthma like attacks and she struggles to breathe - she will suck so hard you can see her ribs on each inhale. I wish we could just drop the round bale in the field. Would make my life a lot easier!
 

D2Cat

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Around here, if you have your own grass and want it cut for hay, the farmers will charge $20-$22 per bale to mow, rake and round bale it. Net wrap is usually $2 extra per bale.
 

Tornado

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Around here, if you have your own grass and want it cut for hay, the farmers will charge $20-$22 per bale to mow, rake and round bale it. Net wrap is usually $2 extra per bale.

Interesting. this isn't something that happens around here. Farmers will lease fields to cut hay off of, but its for their own business, not for the person who owns the land. The land owner just gets an annual lease fee, which for Hay production is typically $35-$50 per acre.