"Best Buy" Bale Band-It

"Best Buy" Bale Band-It BALE HANDLING Bale Handling (31B) 33-1-14 Vince Heyer, Milan, Ill., grows 400 acres of hay and has good things to say about his bale-bunching machine called the Bale Band-It. It's pulled behind a small square baler and is designed to group 21 bales together. The machine automatically wraps the bales tightly with steel bands and then ejects the bundle on-the-go. Only the seven bales at the bottom of the bundle ever touch the ground, and then only for a short time until they're picked up. Once baled, most of the hay never sees sunshine again. The Heyers' transport much of their hay to Florida where it's marketed to very fussy buyers who raise horses. Heyer produces alfalfa, orchard grass, timothy, and mixed hay. As to the alfalfa, he says it produces a lot of dust when it's baled, loaded, or stacked by hand. "That dust is really produced by leaves falling off, which means lost nutrition. We want to retain those leaves. The Bale Band-It allows us to do that. It moves bales quickly from field to storage and gets them out of the sunlight," says Heyer. Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, GFC, 34273 210th Ave., Pittsfield, Ill. 62363 (ph 866 296-3717 or 217 285-6487; www. balebandit.com).

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