making haylage - question for RodinNS and others?

I have a friend who is having trouble drying down the hay and is interested in trying haylage. Since I know nothing about it, I could only suggest a forage harvester, forage wagon, but tractor hp needed and the storage process is all Greek to me.
Can anyone give some suggestions?
RodinNS - these people are out your way somewhere.

thanks
Jason

I am guessing that they don't have upright silo's if they are trying this, so storage can be left to a couple of options. Bags, and piles. Bags make nice feed, but are bit more expensive and you need to be able to get a bagger. Piles have more waste, but are super nice for ease of putting up and feeding off of. If making a pile, make sure the feed is packed down tight, and it gets covered as air tight as possible, and that it is on bit higher, dryer land

HP wise, lots of variables involved there. How big of haybine are they using, size of chopper, type and thickness of feed to be chopped, how big are the wagons, etc...

Here in NH round baling and wrapping is what most are doing to shorten the time needed. An advantage is lower HP requirement compared to choppers and high dump wagon behind it. Don't know for sure but the baler for 4x4s probably needs no more than 50 HP. On hilly terrain of course more HP and weight is needed. The wrapper takes very little power, and of course a grabber is needed for handling the wrapped bales. Many small farms feed them by placing them on an unroller which then drives along the feed bunk. Larger operations drop them in the mixer wagon.

Chopping requires 80-100 HP minimum. If you don't have that, forget chopping. As others have said, storage can be as simple as a pile on the ground covered with an 8 mil sheet. We use bunkers with wooden walls covered in plastic and an asphalt floor. Bags are another option although I've never tried that.
If I had access to a small diameter bagger I probably would do that since a small bag is probably the most economical way of storing chop on a smaller scale when you consider waste. Even on our bunks... there is a lot more waste than I'd like to see for various reasons. If you're not feeding a lot of animals you need a very small feed face... PLAN on removing 6" of feed face every day and more in warmer weather. That is the killer with bunkers....
Depending on how you go about hauling chop... you either need a high dump and truck or a tractor and a few wagons... and mabey several tractors and wagons if you're going any distance... and another fairly good size tractor on the pile packing... or two packing... A bagger will also require a tractor of close to 100 hp on a small bag if I'm not mistaken.
In our case we pack with a Cat D4H and sometimes add a Ford 3930 loader tractor if there's help enough. When things are going well the dozer alone can't keep up packing. We can pound in 25-30 tonne per hour at times in haylage. It pretty well takes all of the dozer's time just to spread that on the pile never mind pack it.

Bales are probably better on a small scale. I wouldn't advise going with any less than 60 hp on the baler. 70 would be a lot better... but otherwise that same 3930 I mentioned loaded, hauled and wrapped a LOT of bales before we switched to chop. The iggest downside to wrapping is the cost of the wrap. That's going to run you 4-5 bucks per bale... but it's low overhead. It's fairly quick... and if you already have the baler... you just need the wrapper and you're in business. Either way you want to watch the moisture and get it down to 45-55% dry matter. Dry bales mold and wet bales.... make a sack of $hit.


Rod

I would look to hire somebody that has a round baler with silage capability. It is just as critical to harvest the hay at an optimum moisture for silage as it is for dry hay so this person would need to coordinate with the person doing the baling in terms of cutting.
It does not sound like an upright silo is an option here but I will name the equipment involved. In addition to a mower-conditioner you will need a forage harvester, forage wagon, and forage blower with pipe. To be timely you will need a tractor on the harvester, wagon, and blower at the same time. Blowing haylage can be a challenge as it has a tendency to brace (plug) the pipe under even good conditions. You generally want to chop it when it is in a stage of good wilt but leaves and stems are not dry to break or flake. It would be good to have somebody with experience to help so as the hay is made at a time where the feed value is best (their judgement). Make it too dry or too wet will result in storage issues and poor quality feed.
As somebody else said storage in a bag (long tube) is another way and maybe somebody in the local farming community knows somebody to do custom silage bagging. Similar tools as a upright silo but no blower needed. Bag needs to be watched for holes after being filled as the holes allow oxygen in which will result in significant spoilage. As you remove the feed care needs to be given to close the end of the bag to again allow minimal oxygen to minimize spoilage.
I have heard of a lot of success in regards to bale silage and might be the best choice even if the other two methods are an option.

4x4 silage bales need a bit more hp to turn and control the baler.
If you're selling, individual wrapped are the way to go. A lot of guys
get along with the tube liners too, use less plastic and the machine
is cheaper.

I've seen the sack rigs going, looks slicks but that packer is pricy,
needs a big tractor, takes a while to unload etc. Not sure how you
cleanly feed out of either? Seems like a silage clamp is going to
catch a lot of plastic.

I have a friend that is a dairy farmer , & I help him with chopping. he uses a bagger. he likes it over the stave silo, or bunker, because it is more tolerant of moisture content. we have started in the morning when it is a little wet , and by late afternoon we could have been bailing .. he says in a silo it would turn to slop on the bottom and catch fire on the top , cause it's too dry. The moisture in the bag balances out and make good feed. having said that , he is looking at going to a silage baler because of the fewer pieces of equipment & the lower HP required. he uses a MF1155 at about 140 hp ..and I believe a NH 798 chopper , & he keeps the knifes sharp, and in a heavy crop it still loads the tractor pretty good.he has 4 wagons , the bagger , the chopper , and the haybine. It seems we are always fixing something ..took us 3 days to get 48 ac in the bag, and he ended up bailing some . The bag held about 120 ton of choped hay. hope this helps..Shawn

I appreciate all the responses. I"ll send this info on to them for their information.