The Perfect Hay Baler for Your Small Farm

To get one of these balers, You can reach Phil at:  +19792001473 Check out small farm innovations here: www.smallfarminnovations.com/new-equipment/mini-ro… And Takakita here: www.takakita-net.co.jp/english/?cat=11

NH farm equipment is famous for haybales and reliability.

we have a 4x5 round baler that is a m&w brand - had it for 15 yrs still doing what it suppose to - over 1000 bales , it has a chain roller instead of rubber belts

We own an ibex TX31 baler. We did the package deal, drum mower, and V rake. 18k total. 2 x 2 bales. The bales are around 40 pounds and we market them to older folks who can't move heavy items and may not own a tractor but have some livestock. If we had more than 10 acres we would have went a different route and made different bales most likely, but the 2 x 2 market (goats, sheep, mini-horse) needed someone it seems. Worked out for us anyway.

Awesome job Brock and Jake.

Great video! Lots of very practical information. Thank you.

Woooooo doggy! Have a blessed day Brock! Enjoyed it

Thanks for this video. I was just discussing what we would need to bail as I prep the newly cleared field. I would do the small baler at the end. I have enough tractors for any of the ones shown, but I will only have 5-7 acres to cut.

We have pulled rakes and balers for over 50 years with a 1967 Toyota land cruiser or a short bed F150 we bobtailed, to pull a NH 505 or a Freeman 370 bought used to replace NH 290.. We had NH "V" rakes but now have a set of Allen's. A small tractor to cut hay. Hay buck bales on a flat bed pulled by the F150. I don't make round bales as I am in a drier area.

I spent most of my career in New Holland dealerships. When I was a teenager, custom baling about 30K plus square bales per summer, we just drove our tractors and equipment around the county because the trailers around were big ones used to haul bulldozers. But when I was selling balers, I always asked first: How are you going to use the bale? How many critters are you feeding at a time? If you have 100 head, it will take a lot of work storing, moving, and feeding those sub-compact bales. But at the same time, the guy didn’t need a 4X5 baler if he was just feeding 2 horses or 4 goats. So that’s the first question. The best hayrake out there is a New Holland 256; you can find used ones for under $1000 and they rake the ground cleaner than about anything else and they tend to roll the hay so that the windrow isn’t as fluffy, which causes tractor clearance and baler pickup issues. To me, those compact balers need tucker wheels mounted on the side of the pickups to help suck in the hay that was getting left behind. Not sure if that is an option or not. And the PTO angle looked very steep on the one smaller baler but that may have just been the transport option; maybe the hitch would be lowered down when actually baling to get the PTO into a straighter line. Another problem with compact tractors is getting enough clearance under the tractor belly when driving down those fluffy windrows to keep from dragging the hay along. But, overall, good information and certainly an option. I’ve seen small balers around for some years and also thought about whether to sell them when we had our dealership (never did; worried about integrity of the importer and parts and repair issues).

Awesome video Brock

Hi Brock. I really like that small hay equipment. I can see a use for a cash cropper selling to multiple horse stables and / or small farm operations - farmets as we call them. Those small bales would be great to put in each horse's stable, and would be generaly easier to manage by the owners - whom up by me are most women - its just that way. Farmetts are usually ran by older farmers who have maybe ten or less head of cattle, so feeding and managing those smaller bales would make things allot easier. The poeple whom own stables and farmetts usually dont have the budget for this stuff, making them a good starter market. One note, the small baler is leaving about half the windrow because the crop was cut long - for full size equipment; cut the crop shorter and the machines will better habdle it - say six to eight inches, and get a greater number of harvests as well. Citting the crop low like this can have an effect on Relative Forage Value (RFV) on the first citting of the season, but subsequent cuttings have been better - research. I think the height to RFV is about 20 to 30 inches and before blooms develop. So finding a way to harvest the crop at that height but with cuttings short enough for the baler could be challenging. Good luck.

If I had a need for the smaller baler I’d totally be willing to consider that assuming parts and dealer support were available in my area. 👍🏼😊

Man would i loved to have that small bailer

Currently using NH tractors and NH br7070 baler

You also want to consider how much hay is lost by the different styles of rakes and the pickups on the balers used. We had the old style rolling bar type rakes and they tended to gather more than the vertical wheel types (shown in the video) plus avoid beating all the leaves off the hay like the tedders seem to do. Small square balers tend to pick up more hay off the ground that round balers leave behind.

Morning Brock!

Hopefully a helpful critique on raking technique...I noticed that the bailers were leaving a fair amount of crop on the ground aligned parallel with the direction the bailer was moving. Past experience for me says that happens when the rake rolls crop on top of already laid down crop versus the rake completely picking up and raking all crop material up and then laying the windrow out onto ground previously, and completely, cleaned up by the rake. Hope this explanation is clear enough and helps.

Yanmar does the small acreage equipment - SA 425 + mini-baler is a decent deal

I would buy the small bailer for smaller property. Especially if have sheep or goats.