BALE OUT!

The lack of moisture this year has created a very high demand for cattle feed because all the grass on the pastures is gone.  Feedlots and ranchers like to feed corn stalks with a high protein source to fatten up their cattle.  Since the demand has been so high we decided to take advantage of the cornstalks that were remaining after our corn harvest this year. 

In order to bale corn stalks we used a power rake to create a windrow.   A windrow is a long pile of straw, hay, or corn stalks. When a baler runs over the windrow it picks up the corn stalks and begins to roll the bale inside the baler.  When the material that is being baled reaches the specified size the baler monitor beeps and the tractor has to be stopped to allow the bale to be wrapped.  Once the bale has been wrapped it gets ejected like in the picture below.

The bales can be held together by twine or net wrap.  Net wrap is kind of like the green grass you get in you Easter basket as a kid only a lot stronger and it is formed into a net to hold the bales together. We use net wrap in our baler because it does a better job for the materials that we bale.  You can see the net wrap roll in the back of the baler below:

In the sixty acres of corn stalks that we baled we made about 350 bales.  When I was operating the baler I would make a bale about every 50 feet. 

The closest thing that I can relate to operating the baler is driving in stop and go traffic on the highway.   You stop and start and stop and start.  The cool thing about baling though is that every time you stop its like making a deposit in you bank account.

-Bale Roller Ryan