bale processers

[cowman]

I need to buy a bale processer this year. I was just wondering if anyone could give me some information on what ones are good and which ones to avoid?

[hgb]

If your looking for a processor for just bedding look at a high line or bale king. We tried one a few years ago they did an exceptional job bedding, but as far as processing hay or greenfeed we were usatisfied for reason of inconsistant feeding of the bale as the feed rolls spin the bale,then the bale stops turning you have to reverse the direction of the bale rotation. As you do this the rotor take some very aggresive bites out of the bale requiring a lot of horse power.
We've found the hay buster machine to be a very good all around machine. It feeds bales in very evenly, start the conveyer chain and just drive until the bale is gone.
Take a look at Brandt proceessors they look to have some good ideas, and they feed with a conveyor chain like a Haybuster, which I favor.
My opinion is to stay away from the Heston/CaseIH models as one year of a Heston was enough for us. It is quite slow and and only carries one bale, but fit into small pens very well.
My last word of advice is get some dealers out to demo 2 or 3 brands and go from there.

[Muttley]

I have a Bale King that I purchased used from Flamon Sales. It is about 8-10 years old and still going strong. We care for about 120 cows, 30 to 40 bulls a year so it gets lots of work. I strongly recommend this brand. Many other brands have been used in my area over the years and Bale King is the most used for sure.

[pandiana]

When using a bale processor to feed hay, I understand it is a good way to homogenize poorer type hay, mixing bleached outside with better core and breaking up long fibers, getting rid of some dust. However, is is good to process better hay? What happens to the leaf?

[bdiamond]

Our farm has used 3 different bale processors over the last 6 years. We just rent the units to apply mulch on our potato land to help control erosion.We used a Haybuster at first and we always thought this unit was the cadillac of bale processors but this year we rented a Jiffy Bale Processor and this unit outperformed them all. We had some old bales left over from last year that were out of shape and with the design of this unit with the cradle which swings from side to side it made an excellent job of spreading the bales.

[mcauley]

We have just purchased a Highline processor. just the greatest. One thing though, get the large tire options and the right hand delivery....worth there weight in gold.

[paladin]

Interesting discussion. We have used both the Haybuster and a Highline, and hands-down prefer the Haybuster. We've had a fair bit of problem with the Highline, particularly feeding older bales that are misshapen.