World's First 3-Bale Bagger

World's First 3-Bale Bagger CROP STORAGE Round Bale Silage 14-6-4 A Canadian cattleman and manufacturer who claims to have been the first farmer in North America to bag round bales for silage has come up with the "world's first" 3-bale bagger. Bill Stirling of Stirling Investments Ltd., British Columbia, is convinced bagged silage is the forage of the future. He thinks conventional chopped silage should go the way of the horse and buggy. "Chopped silage is put through a harvester and has air blown directly into it. The silage is finely cut and bruised, allowing exposure of plant cells to air and bacteria. If you can't seal off the air the silage will spoil. Even with properly sealed silage, the PH level is pulled downwards. That doesn't happen with bagged, bale silage because hay is in densely compacted bales which exclude air at harvest, the stems are left long and are not cut or bruised so they're not exposed to air and bacteria, and bales are stacked in a totally sealed-off environment. My system produces silage that's as close to natural forage as possible and it's the only system on the market that can put up hay at any moisture," explains Stirling, who holds 14 different patents, all on different aspects of silage production. The new 3-bale bagger, which has just been introduced into the U.S., consists of a triangular-shaped bagging frame that's fitted with a 200-ft. long "sausage" type bag. Bales are set into the bagger in batches of 3 and then the bagger is pulled ahead with the bale fork. Once the bag is filled, a 3-pt. mounted, pto-powered vacuum is used to suck all the air out of the bag before sealing. "The most important thing is to keep air out of the bales. I recommend using a variable chamber bale and while baling you should slow down ground speed of baler but speed up the pto to get denser bales. For the best quality forage you should bale at under 50%," says Stirling, who's also vice president of British Columbia Hay Growers Association. "Cattle require 10 percent less feed when fed the long-stemmed forage out of my bags than they do with chopped silage because they digest it better. Chopped silage passes right through them." The Multi-Bagger is designed for 4 and 5-ft. dia. bales. There are no moving parts and it sets up quickly for road transport. Stirling says the bagger is designed for one-man operation. He's bagged as many as 260 1-ton bales in 6 hrs. The 3-bale Multi-Bagger sells for $16,000 (Canadian). A Mini-Bagger for baling a single row of bales sells for $8,000. For more information, contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Stirling Investments Ltd., Box 202, Lower Nicola, British Columbia VOK 1YO Canada (ph 604 378-5788).

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