Round Hay Baler question

Due to not having any rain, we did not have any hay to bale this year. I have always used square balers. No experience with round balers. We recently bought round bales of hay from a local broker. Hay came from Mississippi. The bales looked fresh until the outer layer came off. The inside is a different type grass, packed very tight, different color, different smell. Didn't  look like it came from the same pasture. 

I agree with AllisFreak. If you have a county agent maybe they could tell you more about what you have. Hope it turns out for you.

Yes he could of baled something before and then baled good grass later. The dairy I used to work on the boss baled straw and about a month later baled some grass hay and the first bale was about 1/2 straw 1/2 hay.

Baled wet. Done it to myself before. Had cures on outside 4 in and inside heats up, don't mold it just heats and dries out hard as a rock. Gary IN

well...whatever ya do...don't...uh...i had a round baler, but no mower to mow with, so i used a stalk shredder, then raked it, then baled it...well the dude that bought the bales....cut the twine, and the bale exploded! all around him, and on him! he said it was great grass hay...but asked how i got it so fluffy!!!  lol

The bales are  5 X 5 and weigh 1000 - 1200 lbs.  Cost is $100 each.  If the bales had not cost so much, I wouldn't have a problem.  At $100 per bale, I expect to get better hay. A lot of the cost is trucking fees with some middle-man profit added in.  Hay from the interior part of the bale just looks old, matted together and packed tight as if it has been wet.

ITS PEOPLE LIKE THAT THAT MAKE IT HARD ON THE HONEST HAY PRODUCER. I only bale round bales when the field is junk, but I get junk price for it($10-15/bale for 6x6)

where are you in texas? i am working this week in south Houston. Are you feeding horses or cattle ?  Scott

Mac, I had trouble here in SW TN making good hay this year and it was even drier down through MS. Some of my bales look like they have growth rings due to the different grass from diff parts of fields. Our dry and wet periods made it hard to get into the hay with slow grass growth early due to dryness, followed by late spring flooding, then a very dry summer with light rains timed just right to keep you out of the hay. When conditions allowed haying, windrows were so thin you covered a lot of ground to make a roll, which creates bands of different grass in the same roll. Weeds would outgrow the grass when rain did come and the grass was so thick it could barely be cut and baled and the quality suffered. My cows will completely clean up one bale and not even nibble at the center of the next and they came off the same field.  Also, due to lower bale production, people were cutting fields that had not been used for hay production for years due to lack of need or because the fields were generally too wet to put equipment on. It would be very diffiicult to over wrap a roll for deceptive sales but some of the big farm operations can do it. A nearby farm has a hay barn big enough to re- bale but they usually do it from round to square. There is better money in square bales here. They could rebale round to round with the best un-rolled bales placed to give a deceptive wrap but it would still be hard even with the better facilities, equipment, and manpower. I have some bales I intended to try selling to the drought states but did not pursue it because the quality dropped so much this year over past ones.

Around here the horse owners won't feed round bales, too picky as to mold and fungus that develops in them and the worry on founder.  They all buy up the square bales our renter puts up every year, mostly Broam/Timothy mix. Our renter has sold all his 'extra' bales and has been turning away buyers for the best of a month now.

Up here in Minnesota it rains in June every 2 1/2 days it seems. It will be ever so close to being ready to bale but you have to hold off until tomorrow, and sure as heck it will rain overnite. Then around the fourth of July the faucet turns off and the second crop burns up. Guess I better not complain though, I've had pretty good luck. Square bales most definately bring better money.

DMiller wrote: Around here the horse owners won't feed round bales, too picky as to mold and fungus that develops in them and the worry on founder.  They all buy up the square bales our renter puts up every year, mostly Broam/Timothy mix. Our renter has sold all his 'extra' bales and has been turning away buyers for the best of a month now.

mac ,We had a good season in east tn but I don't have what i would call horse quality hay. I did square bale some but I use these for weening or bottle fed calves.  I do have mixed grass round bales that are one year old that would keep a cow from starving but would not be good for horses. If anyone on here needed some a few rolls to keep from selling their herd I would try to help them out. I would want to talk direct to the farmer with no middle man or broker. I'm sorry you had this bad experience. this makes me wonder if the guy that sold you this hay would be willing to pay the same amount for the same hay if he had a dry year. Scott