opinions on Round balers with cutter knives inside to cut ha

Thinking of up grading my baler , to a baler with a cutting rotor that will cut the hay or straw into smaller pieces. We would like to have chopped straw for bedding cows , but don't want another job to do each day. And straw choppers for large round bales are costly. So if we cut the straw some as we bale , seems like a good fit . My Kubota dealer would really like to sell one of their new silage balers , formally built by Kneveland I guess . Never seen any of these balers , and would guess none of you have either . My current baler is now 4 years old , and I can get most near all I paid for it on the trade.
Just would like to know ,how well baler knives chop material , and how much power do they take?
Looking forward to advise , Bruce

I have never ran one Bruce but have been told the NH units anyway work very well,, BUT when you cut the wrap/strings it can lay down in a pile as they are cut into segments, that was the complaint I was told about, far as I know he still uses it though,,sorry not much help
cnt

I have handled netwrapped bales of straw,(processed)from an '08 model year JD 582 round baler, (sileage special). I did not like the results with oat straw, using that feature. The bales were flimsy and they would come apart easily. They do not tolerate lots of handling, I barely got most of them onto the truck. Without using the extra knives to process, it makes nice firm bales that you can handle all you want until you feed them. I'm not sure if there is more to this, just thought it worth a mention.

I get my hay baled and wrapped by a neighbour's who has a Lely baler with wrapper. It has removable knives, so he can cut the hay to desired length. For wet bales, he leaves most knives in to get a more dense bale that packs tighter and is less likely to spoil . For dry hay, he can remove most or all knives and mesh wrap the bales.It was one of the first Lely balers in the country, and works well for him. Does some custom baling and wrapping as well. Can draw up to 125 hp with full set of knives in heavy hay wrapping on the go. I could forward you his number if you wish to speak to him. Expensive piece of machinery; he milks about 50 cows, so quality feed is paramount. Ben

Looked into a Kuhn wrapper/baler combo , cost near $120,000.00 . Yeow !!! Not wanting to go into custom work so I can own the baler/wrapper.

Bruce, I have a claas 280 rotocut. We only chop about 200 bales a year for tube wrapped silage, the hay and straw don't get chopped. The chopper does add to the horse power needed, my book says 100hp minimum and I don't think that are living... the baler is usually on our 160hp Massey which handles it no problem. Silage hard on balers, and I would be tempted to go with a European made baler just because that have been designed from the outset for silage. My claas weighs over 6000lbs without a bale in it.
Knives seem to chop OK, the claas chops about 4inches long, except for the sides of the bale which are longer. Claas balers have a rotor in the throat that forces the material through the chopper and into the bale chamber, the 3 hundred series balers have some kind of mechanism to drop the chopper floor to allow blockages into thw baler, my 280 requires we back out the blockage by hand.
From what I hear from friends in the UK, McHale is considered king of the silage balers but they only do a 4x4 baler.
One other thing to add, although the silage is chopped in the bale, the bales still take some effort to break up, it's not like they fall apart once the net wrap is off, we feed by rolling out bales and the bales take a bit to get them to unroll but once they start to unroll they fall apart very quickly.
Hope that helps, email is open if you want

Does anyone around you straight cut with a rotary combine?
Not the most fun stuff to bale but you will have as fine of bedding as you can get.

Our boys call them exploding marshmallows, all it takes is one animal to hit the bale after the strings are off and poof it is spread out.

Yeah, his was over 100 grand....

I wish I could help. I have discussed these issues with the fellow who bales my straw, but can't remember!

The round baler of choice here in southern Cayuga county, in central NY is NH. And using the net wrap, or whatever it's called, is pretty much standard. These balers seem to make a perfect bale no matter what the crop or condition. They have the removable knives. But I don't think they use them baling my straw, as I have a CaseIH rotary combine. We were told we couldn't make a decent windrow, or bale, would lose lots of straw, etc. None of that has happened.

Isn't the baler you have available with the knives? Seems it is the same baler as like a 7060 NH, my uncle has a 7060 NH with the knives.

Having a silage baler would be a benefit to you, I would think.Since you wrap a lot/all of your hay you could make baleage.You can cut hay earlier,during a smaller weather window.And probably get one more cutting per year.I have neighbors who are close to a third cutting already that do baleage.Due to rainier than normal spring weather,many around here are still working on first cutting.You can even double crop some ground,taking the hay first.I believe you have a shorter summer season than us here in northern Kentucky,so early cut hay could help.Mark

Can't give an opinion on how they work, but I bought a new New Holland RB560 last fall and the knives are an option on it. Price was less than 1/2 of $100,000.