baleage

We are cutting and baling third crop hay. Two fields of hay were cut and tedded to be baled. But, the hay was not drying due to cloudy and damp weather conditions. Rain was in the forecast for the next two days. We decided to bale the hay wet then wrap the bales of hay as baleage to feed to our cows.

 

 

The baler was set at the smallest setting as the bales would be heavier with baling high moisture hay. We have never baled high moisture hay, so this was a learning experience.

The New Holland BR780 round baler did a great job baling the high moisture hay! Now to move them off the field to wrap...

Even with the round baler set at the smallest setting, the bales of hay were still heavy. At roughly 40% moisture, they weighed about 1800 pounds. 

All of the bales were hauled to the location to wrap. Once we started wrapping bales, I could barely keep up setting bales onto the inline wrapper. Wrapping was a very quick process!

It was pretty neat seeing the inline bale wrapper work since I had been thinking about purchasing one. This was a great opportunity. Wrapping the bales allowed us to harvest the hay in less than ideal weather conditions. And, the hay would be perfectly preserved and protected in the wrapping.

 
We are very pleased. At $10 per bale wrapped, it was well worth the money spent. We will most definitely wrap bales again.

The cows are going to love the baleage this winter. The third cutting hay is alfalfa at 10% bloom. So, it should be very high quality! We sampled the hay and sent in a sample into the lab for analysis.