“Rebale” into small bales
Silage or haylage in big bales can be problematic for smaller horse farms. The big bales contain too much forage for a few horses to finish in 3-4 days and big bales cannot be moved manually. Therefore small bales are often requested when they are easier to handle. Small bales of silage or haylage are produced in mainly two ways: by using small round balers or conventional high-density square balers used for haymaking at harvest, or by harvesting the forage in large round bales which are later opened during winter and “rebaled” into small square bales. To get high enough bale density with the conventional high-density square baler the original knotters can be replaced with knotters intended for large square balers. Then stronger twines can be used to reach higher densities without breaking the twines.
A pilot study has been performed where big round bales of silage (45-55% DM) of good hygienic quality were opened at the end of March and immediately baled and wrapped into small square bales, using a stationary set high-density baler. After 30 days of storage samplings began, new bales were opened and sampled once a week during 6 weeks. Analyses done were nutritional content and prevalence of yeast, mould, lactic acid bacteria and clostridia.
The rebaling into small bales resulted in no differences in nutritional content. The hygienic quality of the small bales was not altered except from a small increase in yeast, which is difficult to determine if it was due to the rebaling or if this increase would have happened anyway. The small bales reached a high density, comparable to densities of big bales of about 200 kg DM/m3, after rebaling which can be due to that the crop was already ensiled, soft and compacted. Otherwise it is usually difficult to exceed 160 kg DM/m3 during conventional production of small silage bales.
Sara Muhonen, AgrD
References:
Müller C. 2003. Techniques for producing small bale silage/haylage for horses – a pilot study of “rebaling”. Proceedings of the Nordic Association of Agricultural Scientists 22nd Congress “Nordic Agriculture in Global Perspective”, pp. 59, Turku, Finland.
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