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John: I never meant to suggest your bales were costing a $100. per bale. Just using that as a figure of speech, in suggesting we try and keep the costs low. I went with a silage feeding program in the mid 1960s. I did it mainly because was putting up 35,000 small square bales per year with bale thrower and wagons. I was also competing for labor used to getting 3 times what we could justify on the farm. every year it got harder and harder to find that labor. Haylage was not cheap feed although it was excellent quality I first went with 560 and a NH S-717 harvester, too slow. Then the big guns, 1066 and NH 890. Yes, I've seen 1066 fill a 24x70 silo in 24 hours, but you had to keep pickup with fuel tank right in the field with it. In essence what I'm saying, had big roll balers come 10 years sooner, there would never have been silos or a 1066 on my farm. It took 656 on haybine round the clock to keep 1066 going. If I did the same round baling, 560 would bale it all up in about 6-8 hours per day. And yes I had a few hills, not many, about 80% of my farm was flat. I couldn't see where round baler and bale bothered 560 on the hills very much. Lets face it baler and bale wouldn't weigh 2.5 ton. I've seen it roll in my driveway pulling 6-7 tons of silage wagon in 4th and that was as steep as any farm field I've been on. If you want a pull for a 1066, try a dead highway tractor trailer up a 30% grade grossing 78,000 lbs., raining and on grass. Low 4th, high on the TA. I admit it just started raining as we tarped the load of grain. That load of grain had to come up that hill before it got too wet, as grain had to go to a dryer.
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