To make large round hay bales, you need a large round hay baler. And in 1966, agricultural engineer Wesley Buchele invented one. March 18 th would have been Buchele’s 101 st birthday. Hay, Presto!

“When baling hay, make sure to develop a tight, dense bale at the correct moisture,” says Davis. Large round bales should be baled at less than 18% moisture.

Claas has bolstered its variable chamber round baler range, adding a heavy-duty model that packs far more crop into each bale ...

As Mark Mauldin’s article, Minimize Hay Losses to Save Money pointed out, large round bales stored outside on the ground can lose up 25% of their dry matter content in a year. At the most ...

1. Look at hay quality, or value. There’s a big dollar difference in a 25% loss on $120/ton of hay vs. $40/ton of hay. The better the quality, the more you’ll save putting it under storage.

According to the release, property owner Jerry Loxtercamp, 42, of Villard, reported his open-ended shed had smoke billowing out from the round hay bales stacked inside.

For example, a 5-foot by 5-foot bale has 98 cubic feet of hay: (5/2)^2 x 3.14 x 5 = ~98. Loosely packed bales have a density of 9 pounds per cubic foot of hay, which equates to 880 pounds of dry feed.