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Round baler info

N

Nicky

Well-known member
Joined
Feb 10, 2005
Messages
3,668
Location
N.E. Oregon
Once again we are thinking about buying a baler. We have someone bale our hay for us and could have paid for one by now in what we pay the other guy :???:

So, what kind of baler do you use? are you happy with it...pros and cons etc.
How do you feed the bales? pros and cons of that too.
What is the difference in soft and hard core?
Maintinance(sp?)
Size of bales
Anything else you can think of


Now, I'm definately not trying to get another argument started on how to feed hay! I just want to know what works for you and why :)
Thanks
 
We have a new in 2005 Vermeer 605M.
and really like it, BUT...from what I hear the guys say, you have to
be really careful when you start to feed it, or you can plug it up.
I think the John Deere balers (again from what the guys say) aren't
so easy to plug.

Good luck in your hunt!

P. S. Mr. FH says the NH and IHC are good balers. They are lighter built, but a friend of ours has one and it hasn't broken down yet. And they
are cheaper.
 
I run a 688 New Holland. Good baler. Its about half the price of a John Deere buts does just as good a job. I used to bale with a Case IH soft core baler. They are cheap in price but not worth bring home. They don't feed well and hay always built up in the floor belts. The New Holland 660, 664,688, and the newer BR balers are all built about the same, just depends on what you want to spend. You can adjust the bale size to fit your needs.
 
The New New Holland balers are a really good machine. They are a higher capacity then most of the balers on the market. John Deere is a really good baler also, never ran the newer ones. We have a JD 566 and really like. I would tell you to buy a baler with both the twin and net wrap option. Net wrap is so fast when your baling and trying to get done quickly. A neighor of ours where thinking of buying a new round baler and they had a New Holland and a John Deere balers out for a demo and they ran them side by side and he said the New Holland baler was a little better than the JD baler. They make alot tighter bale which in turn will help with the weight of the bale. If you are selling hay that is a pretty good deal, but if not maybe thats not the most importabt thing. Both balers are comparible to price. Aslo the Vermer balers are good machines also and are a pretty reliable machine. Good luck on looking for one. I would also suggest that you see if they would let you demo one before you make your decision, most places should let you do this.
 
One more thing is the New Holland balers pickup attachment has a little higher clearance off the ground than the JD baler. Which helps with feeding hay into the rollers. I not to sure on the new JD balers but I think they are pretty close to the older 566 balers. Just another thought for you to ponder.
 
I guess it's all rather subjective. I prefer the JD. The pickup is smaller and closer to the ground so the hay doesn't have to climb so high and lose leaves in alfalfa hay. There appears to be way less moving parts in the JD.... just looking in the NH scares the bejaysus out of me. JD's don't turn belts over because they go slack when kicking out a bale.
In a JD baler the bale is suspended by the belts as opposed to the big bottom drum as in the NH, so belts may have to be repaired more often on the JD. But they tell me if the bearings go on the bottom roller on a nh it's over 20 hrs of shop time to fix.
Also, I haven't seen a NH make a bale as heavy as a JD yet.
I haven't had experience with the newer vermeers yet, but the older ones (super J)were a great machine, heavily built with standard bearings and shafts you can get at any 'bearing and bolt' type operation for a fraction of the cost of the competition.
 
I have a vermeer 605m and a NH BR780 and the vermeer will out run the NH in anything other than perfect conditions then they are about the same. The vermeer is built alot heavier too. I am trying to trade to another vermeer as I like them that much.
 
I agree with Silver on the moving parts issue with NH. We have an old 535 Deere that just bales and bales as long as the nimrod operating it doesn't try to make adjustments and fix something that is working. :oops: I see lots of 535s advertised up here for between 8-12,000 dollars. Basically all that can go wrong with them is belts and bearings.
 
You guys are right a JD baler is a good baler and you would not go wrong if you buy one. I just said what I had heard about a NH baler. We had a JD 535 and that baler had about 35,000 bales through it and was a very good machine, easy to run and reliable.

Having the pickup closer to the ground does save leaves. But dont you bale your hay with a little bit of dew to help save those leaves? You get into a really big heavy windrow and you will have a easier time going over that windrow with that big pickup on the NH. That is the problem with NH equipment in general, they do have alot of moving parts in most of their equipment. I have a NH 340 disc mower and it has way more moving parts compared to JD, Mac Don etc..
The only other thing that I would suggest is find a good equipment dealer that has a good shop and a good baler man in it and have them go throught out the baler in the winter. That saves money and a whole lot of head aches later in the summer when you do have a break down. Also I looked at a Hesston round baler a couple years ago and kind of liked it. Hesston is know for their haying equipment. I have a Hesston 4755 3x3 baler and its one of the best balers out there.
 
I run a horse of a different color. :wink: My baler is a 2001 Hesston 856A. Not sure what the new models are but they are mechanically similar.

I like the fully self-contained hydraulics and automatic tie features. There are no hydraulic connections to the tractor. Just the 1000 PTO shaft and wiring harness from the baler mounted computer and the control box in the cab. I leave the box mounted on the dash in the cab year round.

MF 2775 has plenty of ponies to pull the baler at about 1/2 PTO speed is all I run with ground speed as fast as the pickup will allow and still do a good job.

The 856A is a bugger if it does plug which thankfully is not often. Normally with hay that is way to damp to be baling in the first place, or the flaps on the starter roller are worn out and need replacing. With about 2400 bales since new I've replaced the starter flaps twice and most of the belt lacing pins twice.

I make my bales 5x5 and call them about 1400 lbs. They are darn solid. I could make them 5x6 but I think it would be too tough on bale stacking and hauling machinery. I haul 23 bales on the stackmover 3Wx5L on the bottom row and 2Wx4L on the top row.
 
before we bought are square baler ,we had a 605k vermeer the toughest baler I ever run , bale any thing , as for plugging set your throat narrower half twist in your 6" belts start into your windrow slow watching your bale start between your belts and your sailing , john deer your just paying for paint
 
We're running 567 and 568 John Deere's with mega-wide and net wrap, one with large flotation tires. They work very well, almost never plug, and hold their resale value pretty well.
 
Hey Nicky; The most important thing in a baler is having a good local dealer for parts & service. We've run hundreds of thousands of bales through NH's over the years and have got along well. We are currently using a BR780 A and it's a high capacity machine & makes a great bale. The NH pickup is mounted out front for easier observation & is a breeze to unplug, floor roller is superior to belts, they tie faster and have been reliable. Seen some old stock new balers listed for under 20,000 this winter on TractorHouse.com.
In talking to the irrigation guys each make of baler has it's pros and cons; Vermeers are the heaviest built but are expensive; not much difference between the JD's & NH for performance but JD costs more new.
Some things to consider; wide pickup option....great for heavy windrows or V raked hay; twine & net wrap options; bale command or monitors make the job far more operator friendly ( well worth the money).
Soft core bales are a pain to handle & to roll out to feed......some of these balers are cheaper but require lots of maintenance when older.
 
The outfit runs two John Deeres, a 567 and a 568. Sometimes one is a little better, sometimes the other. The 567 with 13,000 plus bales would cost a shade over half the 568 new. Not that much difference in performance IMO. We can bale 27 bales an hour in heavy straw, maybe 32 in irrigated alfalfa, per machine, at 7 or 7 1/2 mph. If time will ever be an issue, I can't recommend the net wrap strongly enough!!! I can unwrap an alfalfa bale to feed it in about half the time it takes to cut and pull twine. 36 seconds to wrap an alfalfa bale is nice when it's drying out.
We feed with a Hydra-bed, and we tub grind to blend with silage and beet-pulp. Very satisfied on both counts, although we bale the hay to grind a little on the dry side. That works out when we save that 1/2 circle for last on baling morning. We unroll the alfalfa backwards of the baler, and grass and straw the same direction as it was baled. Except for rotary combined straw we usually get things strung out to our liking.
Most years the two balers will wrap 9-11,000 bales, we probably average three break-downs apiece. I spend ten hours or so pre-season fixing little stuff and maybe a bearing or two, and thirty minutes a day per machine cleaning and greasing. Five minutes in there somewhere to oil chains. It takes ten minutes to change a roll of netwrap, maximum.
 
Worked 3 years in a JD/NH dealership in texas, the 566' s are good machines, hard to plug up, the only thing if you have not worked on one a good bit they are hard to figure out. After that not much to go wrong with one, had problems with the wiring harness but that was from baler breaking away from tractor, not the design problem. LATCH THE SAFETY CHAINS
NH balers tend to be more of a this trigger hits that pin sort of a machine, when you understand how they work they are really simple to work on, just remember the simplest thing on them will cause headaches, namely dull wrap cutter blades, th over grease on upper throwout clutch, the belts need to be within 1 1/2 inches of the same length or they will cross over and are **** to get right in 100 degree weather and by yourself. They tend to have a lot of false starts in hay that is dry, so bale just a bit quicker than you might want. NEVER had a problem with the 566 in 3 years and some of the most unmechanical operators ever put on the face of the earth. owned a 510 jd & still a good machine just a bit tempermental.
If I can help hollar
 
Like Mr. and Mrs. Faster Horses, we also have a 2005 Vermeer 605M. My husband really likes it, but in some situations, it is quite difficult to get the bale to start, and it tends to plug the pickup. Personally, I just think that's operator error! :wink: :) Don't tell him I said so! But the baler itself is well built, and you can make pretty heavy bales. Good for us because we sell all our bales. He hasn't had much trouble with it, other than when he tried to catch it on fire. Bearing went out on the roller, but any baler can do that.
 
I looked last night on tractorhouse.com and around my area the JD balers and the NH balers where comparibale in price. With the JD maybe $1,000-$1,500 more depending on how many bales the balers has done.

Cowman52 we had trouble with the wiring harness on our 566 also. But I did have the wiring get caught up in the pto when I was baling a really big windrow that I never should have raked together. Scared the hell out of me when the connection in the tractor went throught the back window of the tractor :shock:
 
tenbach79 said:
I looked last night on tractorhouse.com and around my area the JD balers and the NH balers where comparibale in price. With the JD maybe $1,000-$1,500 more depending on how many bales the balers has done.

Cowman52 we had trouble with the wiring harness on our 566 also. But I did have the wiring get caught up in the pto when I was baling a really big windrow that I never should have raked together. Scared the hell out of me when the connection in the tractor went throught the back window of the tractor :shock:
Click to expand...

I keep all 4 hoses and the wiring lead tied together with a bungee cord and hooked over to the 3 point hitch arm. The one time I forgot to it cost 2 hoses and the wiring harness.
 
My baler's are all Antiques. Two of them are OMC 595's and the other is a M&W 5565. The OMC's make a 6x5 bale and the other a 5x5.All are the same as far as the windrow goes the bigger the better. They are soft core bales and I just break the strings and shake them apart as I drive with either the tractor or skid steer. You can bale tough hay and it will cure out in the bale without molding a big plus in the land of high humidity and rain. I start the spring with all 3 in working order and normally am down to one or none by fall I've got about $8000 in all three and each need's about $250 worth of parts to be ready for haying. You can plug them but it's normally water wet hay or tree limbs that do it. I know everyone else like's new paint but I'm a better fixer upper than buyer.

Are you planning on unrolling your hay or do you need a big square baler?
 

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