Small Square Bales

It has been over 50 years since the first successful automatic pickup, self-tying hay and straw baler first appeared on a farm in Pennsylvania.⁵ This design, later built by New Holland, led to the development of the modern small square hay baler that is still popular in many parts of the country. All of the major and several of the short-line farm equipment manufacturers (equipment manufacturers that only produce a limited type of farm machinery) still produce small square balers. The tractor operator must constantly observe the baler operation and may also need to watch a co- worker’s activities on the wagon stacking bales if that hay making method is being used. Most of the small square balers operate to the right side of the tractor and the wagon follows behind the baler usually in line with the tractor. Most small square baling should be done when the hay is below the 22% moisture range to minimize leaf shatter, mold, and heating and allow for safe inside storage, but this can vary somewhat around the country.⁶

Small square balers produce bales that by design are small and light enough for a person to pick up manually, typically ranging from 40 to 60 pounds (depending on the type of hay, the density/size of the bale, and moisture content). The level of physical effort required of the workers (e.g., small square bale handling has traditionally required repetitive lifting and carrying of the bales on the wagon behind the baler, from the wagon to a conveyor/elevator at the storage site and in the storage facility) varies greatly among these baling systems, but some newer equipment greatly eases these physical demands.

Above is a picture of a typical small hay baler being pulled/operated by a farm tractor. In this picture, a flat-bed wagon is being towed behind the baler and a person is manually stacking the bales as they are made and pushed safely out the bale chamber. Using a similar setup, the baler chamber might be extended even further to allow the bales to free-fall into a bale wagon/buggy, some of which are self-dumping. If a wagon is not towed behind the baler, the bales are allowed to drop on the ground for later pickup. This is perhaps the most physically demanding method to handle the bales, since workers have to lift the small square bales from the ground to a wagon, and also stack the bales on the wagon.

Another, less physically demanding system is to pick bales up from the ground with an automatic bale wagon (shown above), pull type or self-propelled. These wagons, which may require the bales be turned on edge when dropped for ease of pickup, gather and stack the bales on the machine, transport the stack to the storage site and unload into the storage while remaining in stack form. No manual lifting of bales is required with this system. An example is built by New Holland: www.newholland.com/na/Products/BaleWag.html. The bale wagon operator will be constantly operating controls and maneuvering the bale wagon to load the bales.

Yet another small bale handling system that greatly reduces the manual handling of bales is an accumulator system attached to the rear of the small square baler (see picture of a small square bale accumulator above). In one example, twelve small square bales are collected and placed in a single layer rectangular pattern (www.abcgroff.com/ag/hoel.htm, www.netherexe.com/accumulator.htm).

Placing several bales in a neat arrangement then allows powered “grabbers” and special bale forks to pick up the bales and load them onto a wagon or semi/truck, and later off a wagon or semi/truck for stacking/storage (www.netherexe.com/grabs.htm). Again no manual lifting of bales is required (see picture above of a special tractor-loader equipped with a grabber loading bales on a wagon).

Finally, if the small square baler is equipped with a bale thrower (sometimes called a “bale ejector”), then the bales are tossed directly into a steel or wooden-sided wagon, essentially baling and collecting the hay with one pass through the field. This reduces hay handling labor in the field because the thrower tosses the bale directly into the trailing wagon. (See picture above of a small square baler equipped with a bale ejector.)

With bale throwers, bales accumulate on the wagon in a random fashion. The bales must then be manually unloaded from the wagon at the storage site and stacked in storage, which will require the worker to carry and lift the bales. Again the operator must continually observe the baler operation to ensure the thrower/ejector is tossing bales into the trailing wagon. Since the steel or wooden sided wagons are hitched and unhitched to/from the baler frequently, some farmers/ranchers may find an automatic hitching system to be very beneficial. These systems permit hitching and unhitching of the wagon without leaving the tractor operator’s seat.

Once at the farm/ranch, storing/stacking small square hay bales might be done in a combination of ways, some of which have been discussed above: manually, using a hay or flat grain elevator/conveyor when stacking at heights too high to reach manually or into a hay loft, or using a bale fork/grabber powered by a skid steer/tractor. Likewise, transporting the bales to feed to livestock, depending upon an operation’s needs, might be done manually (e.g., carry the bale, use a wheelbarrow, etc.) or with the use of a bale cart/cradle, a powered cart (e.g., such as those used to haul firewood, etc.), a lawn tractor/wagon, the farm/ranch tractor/truck with wagon/trailer, skid steer/tractor with loader and bale fork/grabber, or utility vehicle/ATV. (See cradle picture above.)

Large Round Bales

Large round balers (producing round bales 4 feet in diameter or larger) first began to appear in the mid-1970s. Large round bales with diameters of 4, 5, or 6 feet and widths of 4 or 5 feet can contain between 1000 to 2000 pounds of hay (roughly the equivalent of 20 to 45 small square bales).

Large Square Bales

Large square bales (upwards of 800 pounds) have become very popular across the country in the past 10 years. Again, part of the large square bale attraction is the fact that the farmer/rancher has to handle fewer bales, since a large square bale contains the equivalent of 20 – 40 small square bales. Another big part of the growing popularity of large square bales is the ease of stacking them on semi-trucks, railroad cars, etc., for transport (especially when compared to large round bales).