Best way of moving bales?

yellow50HX

Draw silage from a few fields that are about 2 miles from home. We wrap and stack in the yard. We used we draw it with a 14 bale trailer but by the time I loaded and unloaded it took ages. Use a keltec now. 8 unit keltec will clear about 4 loads in the same time as I'd did with the tractor and loader. Contractor has a 10 bale keltec now and clears faster. Drawing freshly wrapped bales down country roads is a disaster. If you want them baled and wrapped in the field could you leave them there and draw what you need during the winter.

Pacoa

Bought a yoke off keltec earlier this year so i priced the 10 bale trailer while i was on to em.
20500 plus vat for the 10 bale and 19k plus vat for the 8 bale so unless your a contractor you couldn't justify one of em.
Fella not too far away though is after getting one of those super move 10's so i might give him a go this year.

Miname

Did you ever consider both pit and bales? I do one cut of pit and the rest bales, surplus paddocks and second cut are all bales I can keep the bales sorted in such a way that priority stock gets the best and so on. 1000 bales seems like hardship .

keep going

darragh_haven wrote: »

Scruffy Murphy is over towards Ballineen direction. But "Keep Going" has said Doolins have 2 keltec bale trailers, so they would definitely be worth a call.

I think you mean "sparks"murphy

darragh_haven

keep going wrote: »

I think you mean "sparks"murphy

yes i do. Drinking in "scruffy Murphy's" in Sydney has killed too many brain cell. And i cant afford to loose them

mf240

Deepsouthwest wrote: »

I believe the feeding value of baled silage is superior to precision chop silage, cows tend to perform better on bales here. Want to make better quality silage, not waiting for it to bulk up so I'll get more value for €120ish an acre precision chop. Also don't have to save and cut a big amount together, can now cut individual fields as their fit. Also spreads out the after grass coming back for feeding etc. I could go on! It's something I've been toying with a while, so I'm gonna give it a try this yr, might be back to pit nxt yr!

Made 940 bales of silo last year.

Wouldnt go back to pit.

I stack some of it on an outfarm and draw in the winter.



Two tractors with double bale handlers and one on the loader will keep up to a fusion at up to a mile away. Drive the brains out of them and let the cars keep in.

Mad4simmental

darragh_haven wrote: »

yes i do. Drinking in "scruffy Murphy's" in Sydney has killed too many brain cell. And i cant afford to loose them

Christ that brings back memory's. The black hole. Sum story's out of that place. I often got picked up from there on a Monday morning and straight to work. I couldn't do it now.

Deepsouthwest

mahoney_j wrote: »

Dsw fully agree bales feed better than sp silage but 1000 plus bales is a lot of work ,a suggestion based on fact you already have pits,wagon silage.longer chop which cows prefer,flexible and cheaper than so,but way less hassle than bales,bale all your surpluses

Agree to a point about wagon silage mj, but trying to get away from all pit silage. Apparently another of the reasons of better performance n bales over pit is the ph is always higher in bales than pit. Testing ph in pit silage supposedly shows it dropping as u work from top to bottom of the pit. As I said before, this is as much a trial as anything else with me, I might be glad to go back to pit again nxt yr!

Base price

Miname wrote: »

Did you ever consider both pit and bales? I do one cut of pit and the rest bales, surplus paddocks and second cut are all bales I can keep the bales sorted in such a way that priority stock gets the best and so on. 1000 bales seems like hardship .

+1
It has been a long time since we made pit silage as we find the rounds are more suitable for us. Between my place and OH's we do about 400. Biggest problem I find is keeping the fecking rats from damaging them during the winter. We stack them in 4 different areas and continuously lay down bait. Nothing more demoralising then pulling out bales to feed in Jan/Feb in the pissing rain and finding that they are mouldy
We were only talking last week about possibly going back to using the pit. Up till now we have used it as a dry bedded shed as it is covered. This year we will not have the number of stock that we usually have due to the crazy prices for calves this spring.

Dawggone

Does anyone ever price on a per hectare/acre basis the cost of bales over pit?

Last time I scribbled figures on a fag box the bales were waaay more expensive.



Or am I wrong?

Deepsouthwest

Base price wrote: »

+1
It has been a long time since we made pit silage as we find the rounds are more suitable for us. Between my place and OH's we do about 400. Biggest problem I find is keeping the fecking rats from damaging them during the winter. We stack them in 4 different areas and continuously lay down bait. Nothing more demoralising then pulling out bales to feed in Jan/Feb in the pissing rain and finding that they are mouldy
We were only talking last week about possibly going back to using the pit. Up till now we have used it as a dry bedded shed as it is covered. This year we will not have the number of stock that we usually have due to the crazy prices for calves this spring.

Where have been storing the bales? Are they all in the one stack? Do u find different places are more prone than others to rats?

Greengrass1

Lads it's a thousand bales all dsw has to do is draw them. We made a 1000 ourselves last yr and drew and stacked them

ask John or Jimmy Bourke how they manage it with 2000 bales they make with there own fusion and draw to the yard

blue5000

Depends how heavy the crop is, I think we worked it out on here a few years ago that if there's more than 7 bales per acre it's cheaper to pit it. But dry cows or other low priority cattle would be better on pit, and give the 'gift wrapped' stuff to weanlings/milkers/finishing cattle.

darragh_haven

Greengrass1 wrote: »

Lads it's a thousand bales all dsw has to do is draw them. We made a 1000 ourselves last yr and drew and stacked them

ask John or Jimmy Bourke how they manage it with 2000 bales they make with there own fusion and draw to the yard

Yeah Gg. but DSW is a one man operation afaik. big difference

Deepsouthwest

Greengrass1 wrote: »

Lads it's a thousand bales all dsw has to do is draw them. We made a 1000 ourselves last yr and drew and stacked them

ask John or Jimmy Bourke how they manage it with 2000 bales they make with there own fusion and draw to the yard

That's right gg, and it's not like they'll all have to be made on the same day. I just wanna know the best way to get them home!

cute geoge

I have made all bales about a mile and half away with 6 years but there are a pain to draw. I cut aprox 500 and make 80-100 at the time .I watch weather tight but am often caught out as along coast and this adds significantly to cost ,weather this year is cat and I would not think twice about bales if I had proper slab for pit .You should pit at least some of the heavier grass if we don't get some wilting conditions . There is no hope in the wide eartly world you get around to making 1000 top quality bales

Greengrass1

Deepsouthwest wrote: »

That's right gg, and it's not like they'll all have to be made on the same day. I just wanna know the best way to get them home!

That's it we'd move about 30 an hour here with one loader and trailer half A km draw is furthest.
well be drawing home from out farm this yr because we can't fit any there after not using any of last yrs. Well wrap them in the yard. Won't be more then 100/150 any way

tbh I doubt drawing them on roads is a prob sure it's the end of the bale that's most vulnerable and that has twice the amount of wrap on it than the sides to. Get contractor to stick 20 on if ye want. Dad used to draw bales 5-10 miles and it never made any difference to bales during the winter feeding them out

Mehaffey1

tomieen jones wrote: »

Read an interesting article about new zealand where they are moving away from machinery usage and the self feeding pit is back in fashion! Guy says he can feed 1300 dairy cows in 5 minutes by moving an electric wire ! Must be some size of pit! No diet feeder or loading shovel or shear grabs only a small compact tractor and yard scraper! Everything else done by contractors! Machinery can really eat into ones profit ESP if starting to give trouble

If you're talking about what we call a feed pad the real fun is in scraping the bins out, took two of us about 2 hours with a shovel and grape and another in the tractor scraping then the solids have to be dumped into the spreader and put out onto the paddock. A lot of work, staying at a mate's where they have one for two herds of 600 cows, crazy for Mid Canterbury with it's pretty free draining soils.

frazzledhome

Bales stacked in the yard for 15c/kg dm. By far the cheapest way to move dry silage is in bales IMO

Fusion here last year making bales weighing in at an average of 800 kg at 40+ dm. So at 17 per load that's 5440 kgs per load. A 20' silage trailer of sp would struggle to match this or would it?

Mehaffey1

Pic of feed pad attached

Sam Kade

Greengrass1 wrote: »

Lads it's a thousand bales all dsw has to do is draw them. We made a 1000 ourselves last yr and drew and stacked them

ask John or Jimmy Bourke how they manage it with 2000 bales they make with there own fusion and draw to the yard

darragh_haven wrote: »

Yeah Gg. but DSW is a one man operation afaik. big difference

I made 400 bales last year with my own gear. Mow, row in, bale, wrap, draw in, stack all with one tractor :eek:
am I a glutton for punishment or what?

Mehaffey1

Think the easiest way you can make it easier on yourself is get the friends/neighbours/others in to help but if not available then maybe just go for the contractor option, just one of those jobs that is and will always be hateful

frazzledhome

Would move to all bales here if SR rises further. Made 1200 last year and found the whole operation good value and handy.

Deepsouthwest

frazzledhome wrote: »

Would move to all bales here if SR rises further. Made 1200 last year and found the whole operation good value and handy.

Rising SR is another reason for making this switch, I want the flexibility to go in or take out bales any day of any month of the yr.

frazzledhome

Deepsouthwest wrote: »

Rising SR is another reason for making this switch, I want the flexibility to go in or take out bales any day of any month of the yr.

Had a feeling that was it

AntrimGlens

Mad4simmental wrote: »

Christ that brings back memory's. The black hole. Sum story's out of that place. I often got picked up from there on a Monday morning and straight to work. I couldn't do it now.

You mighta picked me up from Cheers while you were passing!! Ha

Deepsouthwest

darragh_haven wrote: »

Yeah Gg. but DSW is a one man operation afaik. big difference

Thanx for the support Darragh, but I normally have plenty options of lads willing to do slurry or other tractor work here. For this yr to start I'll try drawing with double handlers, know a few lads around here who I can get in for a day. Also my contractor normally has one or two lads drawing with double handkers aswell. I'll do the stacking with my own loader. Prefer to pay lads to come and do a job when I need them any day over putting pressure on neighbours, relying on favours etc.

Zr105

If going down the loading route it is hard to beat the elephant trunk type handler really to be honest, drop on 2 rows on the bottom leaving a small gap between them then plonk the row on top, a lot easier get on and off than pipe type handlers but the down side is it does leave the trailer about 4" wider, but just leave the over hang out to the road more so than to the ditch side

Tony Beetroot

Big tractor >200hp

Base price

Deepsouthwest wrote: »

Where have been storing the bales? Are they all in the one stack? Do u find different places are more prone than others to rats?

Two thirds or more of the bales are stacked in OH's yard and they are split between his two yards which are about 150 yds apart. In the main yard they are in two seperate stacks on either end of the main concrete yard which is about 70 or 80 yards long. In the other yard which is older & smaller we stack 50/60 bales.
The rest are stacked in mine (and my brothers) yard which is about 4/5 hundred yards away from OH's by road.
We always use the bales in OH's yard first as those bales get attacked/ruined by the rats. The bales in my place are hardly touched probably due to the fact that we do not overwinter cattle in the yard because of the lack of proper dung/slurry storage so cannot do so.

TBH I would not jump into water without dipping my little piggy to test the temperature first.
Experiment with both systems before deciding on one and be prepaired to switch between both if necessary particularly when it comes to inclement weather. Never put all your eggs in the same basket.
What works for me may not work for you and vice versa - it depends on land type, financial constraints etc.

BTW I would never jump into water irrespective of the temperature as I cannot swim