5 Ways to save Money by wrapping your Hay

 If you are new to bale wrapping, considering bale wrapping, or have been wrapping and want to get an idea of how you are saving money, keep reading!

1.       The first way you save money is your time=money. If takes approximately 9-12 minutes of time per bale depending on your swatch width to make silage/haylage as opposed to 22+ minutes of time per bale to make dry bales which includes mowing, tedding, raking, baling and moving bales. Whether you are paying for labor or doing it yourself, saving time means saving money.
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2.       The second way you save money by wrapping your hay is the fact that if you do not wrap your hay you will lose 1/3 of that bale. See the diagram below for a visual of how your dry hay loses value. The first 3” of the bale will be spoiled hay from being out in the weather and air getting to it (this is even if its stored in a barn). This equates to 1/3 of your bale being unusable because your cows won’t eat it and it’s of no nutritional value. By wrapping your hay, you are able to use the entire bale with better feed value for your livestock.
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3.    Piggybacking off the last point, it takes 25lbs of dry hay for cows to gain 1lb, whereas it only takes 8lbs of silage/haylage for a cow to gain that same 1lb. So you can save money by making your bales last longer if they are wrapped because not as much is needed in order for your livestock to gain weight.
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4.      You will save on fuel costs because, like mentioned in the first point, you will be spending less time overall with the whole wrapping process. This reduces your fuel costs, and is better for the environment.

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5. Not only will you have better feed for your livestock, if you choose to sell your wrapped bales you will make a larger profit since the feed value is greater in wrapped bales. You can charge more for your bales because the customer will be getting a better product for their livestock.
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There are many more reasons why bale wrapping is the most effective use of your hard work and best option for your livestock, so keep checking back for tips! Click on the link below for a useful guide to all things bale wrapping from Tubeline Manufacturing.

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Bale Wrapping Info

This article has been updated from a previous version.