Rebaling Round Bales Into Squares: Does It Actually Pay?

By the XES Netting team — bale net-wrap manufacturer · Updated August 5, 2026 · ~15 min read

Rebaling is one of those ideas that looks obvious on a spreadsheet and gets complicated the moment hay hits the ground. Round bales are fast and cheap to make. Small squares and big squares sell for more per ton. So why not make rounds in the field and convert them to squares in the shed, on a rainy day, when labor is cheap?

Plenty of people have tried it. Some cleared real money. Others did five bales and parked the machine. This guide lays out both, using the numbers the operators themselves posted, and gives you a worksheet for deciding which one you would be.

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Why anyone rebales in the first place

Rebaling exists because two things are true at once. Round balers put hay in a package faster and cheaper than any small square baler, and the small square and big square markets pay more per ton than the round market in a lot of places.

The speed half of that gap comes down to how the bale gets tied. One Texas producer put the throughput difference plainly:

"RBs with string 20 bales an hour.

RBs with net wrap 40 bales an hour."

— hay wilson in TX · HayTalk, "Rebaling Rounds into Squares... Not what you think!"

He then named the operational reason that matters more than the cost per bale:

"The real advantage for RB's to small Squares is the RB will wrap more tons a minute than a small baler and you can get the hay wrapped into a package before rain and save a lot of usable feed."

— hay wilson in TX · HayTalk, "Rebaling Rounds into Squares... Not what you think!"

That is the honest, non-arbitrage argument for rebaling: you are buying a wider harvest window. You get the crop off the field ahead of weather in the package your machinery makes fastest, and you deal with packaging later under a roof, on your own schedule. See net wrap vs. twine for why the wrapping step is where round baler throughput is won or lost.

The price half is the arbitrage argument, and the spread is real:

"At auction around here nice bales of good grass are only bring 60-80 ton, and small squares the same stuff are bringing 125-165. Not to bad of a spread if your travel distances are not too far."

— Barry Bowen · HayTalk, "Rebale rounds to square"

There is a third motivation that has nothing to do with either: freight. When a drought moves hay across the country, package density decides what fits on a trailer.

"If I remember right, they could buy all the round bales they wanted in SK for $35-$40 a ton and they were rebaling just to be able to ship the hay into TX, KS, and OK."

— HALLSHAY · HayTalk, "Rebaling Rounds into Squares... Not what you think!"

And a fourth, which is the simplest of all: sometimes the buyer will only take one package.

"I have a neighbor that rebales Teff grass from large squares to small squares. Large squares let him get the hay off the field quick but the horse market for teff is in small squares. Extra work but it works for him."

— Jay in WA · HayTalk, "Rebaling Rounds into Squares... Not what you think!"

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The case where it clearly paid

The most complete worked example in the whole corpus comes from a central Virginia producer in the winter after a drought year. It is worth reading in full because every variable that makes rebaling work is present in it at once:

"It took 1 and1/2 rounds to make 1 big square. Big squares were dry dry dry and still weighed 1400 lbs. I sold them all for 250 ton plus delivery. Figuring the 1 and 1/2 rounds equals $120 putting it in big squares equaled around $180 for same amount of hay netting around 90$ ton premium. So I did 160+ tons at $90 ton premium netting me around 15k more than I had. Damn near bought my bale processor."

— central va farmer · HayTalk, "Rebaling Rounds into Squares... Not what you think!"

Count the conditions that had to line up for that to work:

• Grass hay, not alfalfa. The shatter penalty that ruins legume rebaling did not apply.
• Hay he already owned — roughly 700 net-wrapped 4×5.5 rounds, two to three years old, weathered from sitting outside. His alternative was $80 a roll to beef buyers, so his input cost was an opportunity cost, not a purchase.
• A buyer who had already specified the package and would not take rounds at any price.
• Winter, on frozen ground, when the machinery could move and the labor had nothing else to do.
• He already owned the bale processor. The $15,000 did not have to buy a machine, only justify one he had.

The execution detail matters as much as the economics:

"We picked a day when ground was froze and you could do 2 tractor trailers in a day. That's 1 man on ground cutting wrap, dad on bale processor, and me baling."

— central va farmer · HayTalk, "Rebaling Rounds into Squares... Not what you think!"

Three people. One of them does nothing but cut net wrap off bales all day. Hold that thought for the crew section.

A smaller version of the same story, on a much smaller scale, shows the arbitrage without the equipment:

"The rounds weighed 1,000# avg, I got an avg of 22 squares @ $5 each, instead of the $40 I was getting for the rounds."

— urednecku · HayTalk, "Rebale rounds to square"

$110 of small squares out of a $40 round. That is a 2.75× gross uplift — before labor, before shrink, before the cost of running two machines. He also found the single most useful process fix in this entire article:

"I did a lot better when I broke the packed stuff up with the rake."

— urednecku · HayTalk, "Rebale rounds to square"

A square baler will not swallow slabs of compressed round bale. Unroll it, then rake or ted it back into a real windrow, and the baler behaves like it is working a field instead of choking on bricks.

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The skeptic's math

Now the other side. The same arbitrage, run by a Northeast producer who was buying his input rather than converting hay he already owned:

"I can buy rounds for 60 per ton around here. Figure losing 30% to spoilage minimum and another 15% to processing. Big squares of meh quality sell around 150 per ton. Small squares sell about 90-150 per ton. Once the losses are figured in you have 90 per ton into it. A lot of tons have to go through to pay for maintain and hopefully have anything left at the end. Maybe others have a sharper pencil."

— hillside hay · HayTalk, "Rebaling Rounds into Squares... Not what you think!"

Follow what those two loss numbers do. Buying at $60 a ton looks like a $90 margin against $150 big squares. But 30% spoilage and 15% processing loss mean only about 60% of the tonnage you bought comes out the other end saleable — so the $60 you paid is really $100 per output ton, and $150 hay leaves roughly $50 a ton to cover labor, fuel, twine, machine payments, and maintenance. That is not zero. It is also not a business you would build a shed for.

His 30% is a purchased-bale number rather than a universal one, and the rest of the corpus explains where it comes from — the weathered outer shell of a round bale that has lived outside. Our guide to storing net-wrapped bales outside covers what a normal storage season actually costs in dry matter and how to cut it. But do the geometry once, because it is the number that decides whether a rebaling job is worth starting: on a 5-foot round bale, the outer 6 inches is about 36% of the bale's volume; on a 6-foot bale it is about 31%. If you have to discard the weathered shell to sell horse-quality hay, you are throwing away close to a third of the bale before the baler ever runs.

Which is exactly what one operator found when he tried it on bales that had been stored inside:

"I tried the unrolling thing too. Looks good on paper and the numbers work on the right product, BUT a lot of waste if you are looking too sell horse quality. I bought from a friend who had decent bales stored inside but when you discard outside surface (bleached color-bird crap-discolored bottom) and the occasional musty core and add all the loss of fines through the baler it really adds up."

— SVFHAY · HayTalk, "Rebale rounds to square"

And the shortest version of the skeptical case:

"Friend of mine bought a brand new unroller setup for rebaling. He did maybe 5 bales before parking the thing. Dusty, lot of waste, a lot of work. I think he sold it and bought more thrower wagons."

— slowzuki · HayTalk, "Rebale rounds to square"

The rule that reconciles the winners and the losers is not complicated:

"They must buy it cheap and sell it steep. Cannot imagine that would pay any other way."

— deadmoose · HayTalk, "Rebaling Rounds into Squares... Not what you think!"

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The rule that decides it: species

If you take one thing from this article, take this: rebaling works on grass and straw and fails on legumes. It is not a close call, and every operator who has run a machine says the same thing.

"Rebaling works very good for certain types of hay. Premium alfalfa is a disaster. You will have more leaf shatter."

— Production Acres · HayTalk, "Rebale rounds to square"

"garbage in garbage out, it will not improve the quality of your rd bales or your large squares. it worked well on grass hay and grassy alfalfa. Was of no use at all on alfalfa - too much leaf shatter! The grassy hay of adequate moisture 12-15% worked pretty good."

— Production Acres · HayTalk, "rebale"

"Actually, a moving floor feeder would work along with a bale unroller but only on grass hay you stated. Leaf loss on alfalfa would basically leave you bailing stems and thats it."

— ARD Farm · HayTalk, "Rebaling Rounds into Squares... Not what you think!"

Nine years later, someone starting a rebaling business got the identical answer:

"If you are doing legume hay its almost impossible. You'll be left with a bale of stalks. We have done oaten hay and pasture and it works ok. The margins are skinny. Only really do it at the end of season when everything else has been sold out."

— jwilliamson1 · HayTalk, "Help! Best Small Baler for Rebaling Operation"

Note what he adds at the end. Even on grass, the margins are thin enough that it is an end-of-season, use-up-the-inventory activity rather than a core enterprise.

There is one counterintuitive wrinkle worth knowing, because it will surprise anyone who assumes "grass is safe":

"First off bermudagrass is worse about shattering leaves than alfalfa. Only thing is a bale of bermudagrass stems looks reasonably good while a bale of alfalfa stems looks like a bunch of sticks"

— hay wilson in TX · HayTalk, "Rebale rounds to square"

Bermudagrass sheds as much leaf as alfalfa. The difference is entirely cosmetic — the customer cannot see the damage, so the bale still sells. That is a useful thing to know and a bad thing to build a reputation on, because the feed value left the bale either way.

Straw is the other end of the scale. It is brittle and it fights back:

"Have a friend that has a unroller and a square baler in a big warehouse. He said it works ok, but leaf shatter is a problem, so much of a problem that the workers have a hard time standing it! With wheat straw, almost impossible."

— somedevildawg · HayTalk, "Rebale rounds to square"

He also offered the one timing trick that changes the answer:

"I think if you immediately unrolled it in the first 48 hours or so it would work much better. Only advantage I can see is if you are in a tight window, you could roll it real fast and come back in a barn and square, just think you need to be Johnny on the spot to get it to work well."

— somedevildawg · HayTalk, "Rebale rounds to square"

That is the harvest-window strategy rather than the arbitrage strategy: roll it fast to beat the rain, then convert it within days while it still has moisture in it. It is a genuinely different business from buying dry rounds off a lot in February.

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Moisture is the whole game

Everything above is really one variable in disguise. Leaves shatter when the hay is too dry, and hay that has been sitting in a bale for months is very dry.

"When the hay is rebaled the moisture level probably is down in the 10 to 12 percent range. Unless their baler has a way to increase the moisture level of the hay, there will be a lot of leaves lost to shattering. You loose both protein and feed value but also total tonnage. May look good but a lot of good feed will be on the floor."

— hay wilson in TX · HayTalk, "rebale"

He later laid out the thresholds he works to, which are the most useful set of numbers in this article:

"Hay baled, in any size or type baler below 12% or 14% moisture will shatter leaves. Hay baled, during the day, time below 50% maybe even 55% RH will also shatter leaves, if the hay is not dampened."

— hay wilson in TX · HayTalk, "rebale"

"Hay baled, in small squares, above 20% moisture &/or 65% or 70% RH will mold."

— hay wilson in TX · HayTalk, "rebale"

Read those two together and you have the rebaling window: somewhere between about 14% and 20% moisture, with relative humidity above roughly 55%. That is a narrow band, and stored hay sits below the bottom of it, not inside it. Which is why an Indiana producer's moisture-probe experience is so damning:

"If your going to rebale, unless you have a way to add moisture as it's unrolling trying to rebale alfalfa would be a disaster in my opinion. I store all my hay in hoop buildings and even in a few months hay that was baled around 20% with Hayguard will be too dry for my handheld to even get a reading. I think the lowest it goes is 14%."

— mlappin · HayTalk, "Rebale rounds to square"

Hay stored under a roof reads below the floor of a handheld tester within a few months. It is not marginal, it is off the bottom of the scale. Anything you rebale out of storage is being handled at a moisture where leaf loss is guaranteed, unless you put moisture back in.

He also described the one way to schedule around it — deliberately bale wet with a preservative and convert later as the bale dries down into the window:

"A guy could roll all his hay quite tough or even wet and use a lot of acid then rebale it later when the round bales dried down to 17-18%. A lot of mine after being stacked in the hoop buildings all summer will read under 14% when tested with a probe."

— mlappin · HayTalk, "Rebaling Rounds into Squares... Not what you think!"

That turns rebaling from a salvage operation into a planned two-stage harvest — and it is the only version of the idea where the moisture works in your favor rather than against you. If you go that route, our guide to baling moisture for net-wrapped bales and the hay moisture tester guide cover the measurement side.

The commercial hay presses solve this problem with engineering rather than timing — rehydration or steam conditioning at the infeed. As one Texas producer put it while sketching the efficiency case:

"They could increase the efficiency of conversion if there is a system to re-hydrate the hay."

— hay wilson in TX · HayTalk, "Rebaling Rounds into Squares... Not what you think!"

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What you actually need

There are three tiers of equipment for this job, and they correspond to three completely different businesses.

Tier 1: a 3-point unroller and the square baler you already own

The cheapest entry, and the most common. A hydraulic or mechanical unroller peels the round bale into sheets and lays them out; a small square baler picks them back up.

"My neighbor has unrolled many 100's of rd grass bales with a 3pt bale unroller & re-baled them with a JD 348 sq baler-"

— Tx Jim · HayTalk, "Help! Best Small Baler for Rebaling Operation"

The cheapest option of all needs no unroller at all:

"The best Poor Mans Method I have seen was to unroll a RB and then rake it with a rotory rake."

— hay wilson in TX · HayTalk, "Rebale rounds to square"

Tier 2: a bale processor or purpose-built feeder into a baler

This is the setup that made the Virginia $15,000 work, and it is what a modern rebaling startup buys. In 2024 one operator's plan looked like this:

"Going to be using the Hustler Chainless SX105 to feed."

— SunshineHayCo. · HayTalk, "Help! Best Small Baler for Rebaling Operation"

Worth knowing what that machine actually is: the Chainless is a Hustler Equipment bale feeder — a New Zealand-built unroller sold in the US for feeding livestock, which unrolls a round bale in about two minutes (accessed August 5, 2026). It was not designed as a rebaler. That is the pattern across every rebaling setup in these threads: there is no mass-market machine that takes round bales in one end and small squares out the other. Every working operation is an unroller, a conveyor and a square baler that someone assembled themselves.

That thread produced the single best piece of equipment-selection advice in the corpus, and it is not obvious:

"I'm curious, why do you want to rebale with a side-feeder?

This if anything is where an in-line would shine as there would be more leaf retention!"

— Trillium Farm · HayTalk, "Help! Best Small Baler for Rebaling Operation"

"The reason is that with an inline the hay doesn't get shunted has much as it goes directly from the pick-up into forming a bale whereas in a the side feeder it zigzags and it's in zigzagging that leaves are lost."

— Trillium Farm · HayTalk, "Help! Best Small Baler for Rebaling Operation"

An in-line baler moves hay straight through; a conventional side-feed baler cross-feeds it into the chamber, and every direction change costs leaves. This is not a fringe opinion — it is the consistent view of operators across a decade of HayTalk threads on baler selection, including several running six-figure bale counts into the horse market. On a crop that is already too dry, that is a design decision worth real money. The practical catch, in that operator's case, was that the in-line baler's PTO shaft physically conflicted with the bale feeder he had already chosen — which is a good argument for picking the baler and the feeder together rather than in sequence. For general small-baler selection, see our best small square baler guide.

The same operator made a related point that explains why round bales are actually the preferred input:

"This is also why IMO a round bale is more suitable to re-baling than a big square as the hay peels off rather than being almost shredded. Now if one doesn't make legume-hay then this is moot."

— Trillium Farm · HayTalk, "Help! Best Small Baler for Rebaling Operation"

Tier 3: a commercial hay press

This is a different industry. Presses compress big squares into dense export or retail packages, and they cost accordingly. The two names that come up are Steffen Systems of Oregon — a family hay-handling manufacturer founded in 1969 that now has equipment operating in all fifty states and dozens of countries (accessed August 5, 2026) — and Hunterwood, whose press business now trades as Haytek (accessed August 5, 2026).

"Don't have any experience with the Hunterwood - it is supposed to be the cadalliac, but with the rolls royce price. We use a Steffen Systems press - It is a very good machine - it is not trouble free and won't perform like a brand new JD tractor - but they make them individually, not by the thousands."

— Production Acres · HayTalk, "rebale"

At this tier the loss numbers change completely, because the hay is sliced rather than torn and it never touches the ground:

"The steffen machine does loose about 1/2 ton hay per 22-24 tons processed due to product falling on the ground during the process."

— Production Acres · HayTalk, "rebale"

Half a ton in 22 to 24 is a little over 2% — an order of magnitude better than the 15% processing loss a tow-behind setup budgets for. A press operator working the export side reduced it further by selling the floor sweepings:

"The 2-3% total volume of hay that falls on the floor in the processing is only a portion of the hay that would have been left in the field had we small squared it and stacked it. It falls on a concrete floor and gets pushed into a pile to be sold as a good product. This is sold for about 60% of what it cost coming in. 1/2 price on 2% equals a 1% shrink in the process. Protein loss 0"

— HALLSHAY · HayTalk, "rebale"

Selling the shatter instead of sweeping it out the door is a real strategy at any scale, and it was proposed only half in jest by the Texas producer as well:

"Re-package the shattered hay and sell that as Rabbit Hay and double your income."

— hay wilson in TX · HayTalk, "Rebaling Rounds into Squares... Not what you think!"

The payback question on a press has a rough answer from someone who owned one:

"someone else may know the numbers better than I do, but my guess is that we will need to put about 20,000 tons thru the machine to pay for it."

— Production Acres · HayTalk, "rebale"

And the trap that comes with it, from the operator asking the question in the first place:

"its big bucks no matter what and a vicious circle forced to pump out the loads and hope for a good supply if i may ask how much do i have to produce to make it worth the investment i think i should maybe look for a used one thanks for the reply"

— leo · HayTalk, "rebale"

That "vicious circle" is the real risk at tier 3. A machine that needs 20,000 tons to pay for itself forces you to keep buying hay whether the spread is there that year or not.

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Crew size and realistic throughput

Rebaling is a three-person job at minimum, and the numbers people report are remarkably consistent across fifteen years.

Setup	Crew	Reported output
Hydraulic unroller → small square baler → bale bundler	3	1,000 small squares in a long day
Bale processor → big square baler, frozen ground	3	2 tractor-trailer loads per day
Commercial press, concrete floor	Crew + loader	864 bales / 23.5 tons loaded in 29 minutes

"I used a Kuhn/DeRuben hydraulic unroller(for sale-$1000) in front of a 575 NH into Bale Bandit. 1 operator to run controls of that outfit, 1 to cut and pull strings, 1 to run skidloader to load rounds and stack bundles. Everybody very busy to do 1000 in a day and enough waste to feed a lot of beefers for a week."

— SVFHAY · HayTalk, "Rebale rounds to square"

"I have a scale ticket in my file from a recent load of hay we stuffed into a van. 864 bales, 23.5 tons,29 minutes empty stamp to loaded stamp."

— HALLSHAY · HayTalk, "rebale"

Note that in both three-person crews, one full position is dedicated to nothing but removing string or net wrap from the incoming bales. That is a third of your labor cost spent on the bale binding — which is worth knowing before you decide the wrap on your rounds does not matter. Wrap that peels cleanly in one piece is the difference between one person keeping ahead of the machine and one person falling behind it. Our guide to removing net wrap safely and making net wrap peel off easier cover this directly.

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What you are really selling

Rebaling changes the package. It does not change — and usually degrades — what is inside it.

"Once again, quality control is paramont, bottom bales don't work, moldy hay is still moldy. If the hay is too wet, it will even go through another sweat as it is compressed and the moisture changes with the denisty and the hay becomes more anaerobic."

— Production Acres · HayTalk, "rebale"

That second sentence is the one people miss. If you rebale hay that is a little damp, compressing it tighter does not dry it — it makes it hotter and more anaerobic. You can turn a marginal round bale into a genuinely spoiled square one. See baling moisture for the safe ranges.

On feed value, the Texas producer stacked the losses end to end:

"Hay that starts out as >12% CP in a round bale is lucky to test 10% CP. Rebaled very likely will test 8% CP or less."

— hay wilson in TX · HayTalk, "Rebale rounds to square"

Treat that as one man's experience in one climate rather than a lab result — other producers in the same thread argued convincingly that a properly run round baler loses no more leaf than a small square baler, and that keeping the baler running at full capacity is what protects leaves. But the direction is not in dispute: every extra handling pass costs leaf, and leaf is where the protein is. Pull a forage test on the rebaled product before you quote it, not on the rounds you started with.

And if you are buying rounds to feed the operation, buy them the way you would buy any raw material:

"Also buy the hay by the ton. Many “1000lb” bales only weigh 450lb."

— Production Acres · HayTalk, "Rebale rounds to square"

Buying by the bale on a rebaling job is how a 30% margin becomes a loss without anyone noticing. Weigh a sample, price per ton, and see how to price hay for the rest.

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Worksheet: does it pay on your farm?

Run these six lines before you buy anything. The Texas cost sketch is the model:

"Think of the cost. Say $25 a baling cost for 5 X 5.5 ft bales, With 25 squares in a round bale that is $1/bale starting out."

— hay wilson in TX · HayTalk, "Rebale rounds to square"

"A realistic baling cost for the square baler is $1.50 for a total baling cost of $2.50/Sq Bale."

— hay wilson in TX · HayTalk, "Rebale rounds to square"

"This is before any dry matter loss from leaf shattering. Say 15% fewer bales due to leaf shatter."

— hay wilson in TX · HayTalk, "Rebale rounds to square"

One caution before you plug in numbers: there is no published national price for "round bales" versus "small square bales" of the same quality. USDA NASS reports a single blended price across all package types — for December 2025 it put all baled hay at $149 per ton nationally, alfalfa at $161 and other hay at $128 (USDA NASS, Agricultural Prices, released January 30, 2026). Those averages tell you the level of the market, not the spread you are trying to capture. The spread that makes rebaling work is local, buyer-specific and unpublished, which is exactly why every operator quoted here reports different economics. Get a written bid before you buy a machine.

1. Price the input per ton, not per bale. Weigh a representative sample. If you already own the hay, use what you could actually sell the rounds for today, not what you wish they were worth.
2. Subtract the shell. If the bales lived outside and you are selling into a quality market, plan on discarding the weathered outer layer — on a 5-foot bale, the outer 6 inches is roughly a third of the volume.
3. Subtract processing shrink. Budget 15% on a tow-behind unroller-and-baler setup; 2–3% only if you have a commercial press on a concrete floor.
4. Add both baling costs. You are paying to bale the same hay twice. Use custom rates even if you own the machines.
5. Add three people for the day. One of them does nothing but cut wrap.
6. Compare against the actual bid. Not the auction average — the price the specific buyer who wants squares has actually offered you, in writing.

If the answer is still positive after all six lines, the last question is whether the volume is there. A machine payment that needs thousands of tons a year to service will outlive the price spread that justified it. Which is why the most balanced summary in the corpus frames rebaling as a fit for particular circumstances rather than a general business:

"I do think it has its place, areas with labor shortages, very narrow harvesting windows, very large volumes all would be good candidates."

— JamesIII · HayTalk, "rebale"

And the driest verdict on trying to make the arithmetic look respectable:

"Just do not ask an AG economist to figure your cost per ton final product."

— hay wilson in TX · HayTalk, "Rebaling Rounds into Squares... Not what you think!"

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Where net wrap fits in

It is worth being explicit about something implied throughout this article: rebaling is a strategy that only exists because net wrap made round bales cheap and fast to make. At 20 bales an hour on string, the round baler is not fast enough to be worth converting out of. At 40 an hour on net wrap, it is — you can beat weather in the field and fix the package later.

That has three practical consequences for the wrap you buy.

The wrap has to come off in one piece. One of your three crew members spends the entire day cutting and pulling wrap off incoming bales. Wrap that shreds, welds itself to the hay, or leaves tails wound into the bale turns that job from steady work into a bottleneck — and every scrap that gets past the operator goes into the square baler and then into someone's feeder. Our guides to safe net wrap removal and what happens when cattle eat net wrap cover why that matters.

Edge coverage decides how much shell you throw away. The weathered outer layer is the single biggest loss line on a rebaling job. Wrap that doesn't reach the shoulders leaves an exposed band that weathers first and hardest — and on a rebaling job you pay for that twice, once in spoiled hay and once in the labor of pulling it off. If your bales are going to sit before conversion, that is the specification to get right. See net wrap not covering to the edge and net wrap sizes.

Bale density and shape decide how the bale peels. Bales made off a heavy, even windrow unroll in clean sheets. Bales made off a thin or ragged windrow come apart in slabs and chunks that a square baler will not eat. The operator with the most rebaling hours in the corpus said it in one line:

"The bales that worked the best were the ones that were baled off a heavy, consistant windrow."

— SVFHAY · HayTalk, "Rebale rounds to square"

If rebaling is part of your plan for the year, that means the decisions that determine whether it works are made in the field in June, not in the shed in January.

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Frequently asked questions

Does rebaling round bales into squares actually pay?

Sometimes, on grass hay, into a buyer who will only take squares. Producers report round bales at $60–$80 per ton against small squares at $125–$165 for the same hay, and one operator cleared about $90 per ton converting weathered rounds to big squares. It stops paying once you account for 15% or more processing shrink, a discarded weathered shell, and a three-person crew.

Can you rebale alfalfa into small squares?

Not successfully. Every operator who has run a rebaling setup says premium alfalfa is a disaster — the hay is well below the 12–14% moisture where leaves start shattering, and what comes out is a bale of stems. Rebaling works on grass hay, oat hay and pasture mixes. Bermudagrass actually shatters as badly as alfalfa; it just hides it better.

How many small square bales come out of a round bale?

Operators report 16 to 25, depending on bale size and how tight the squares are set. One producer averaged 22 squares from a 1,000-pound round; another figures 18 small bales from a 5-foot round, and a third works to 25 per 5×5.5 bale. Expect fewer than the arithmetic suggests once leaf shatter and discarded outer shell are subtracted.

What equipment do you need to rebale round bales?

At minimum, a 3-point or hydraulic bale unroller feeding a small square baler, plus a way to break up compressed slabs — a rake or tedder pass makes a large difference. Larger operations use a bale processor or purpose-built feeder; commercial operations use a hay press. An in-line baler retains more leaf than a side-feed baler because the hay doesn't zigzag.

What moisture should hay be to rebale it?

Roughly 14% to 20%, with relative humidity above about 55%. Below 12–14% the leaves shatter; above 20% in a small square, it molds. This is the core problem with rebaling stored hay: hay kept under a roof for a few months often reads below the bottom of a handheld tester, so it is handled at a moisture where leaf loss is unavoidable unless you rehydrate it.

Is it better to rebale from round bales or big squares?

Round bales. Hay peels off a round bale in sheets, while a big square has to be broken apart and comes out closer to shredded — which costs leaf. Round bales are also faster and cheaper to make in the first place, which is the whole reason the strategy exists. On pure grass hay with no leaf to lose, the difference matters much less.

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Rebaling is not a business so much as a response to a specific situation: cheap rounds, a buyer who will only take squares, grass hay rather than legume, a crew with nothing else to do, and preferably a machine you already own. When all five are true it can be a genuinely good winter, as one Virginia producer's $15,000 shows. When even two are missing, it turns into dust, waste, and a parked unroller.

Whichever side of that you land on, the decision starts upstream. Bales that unroll cleanly, keep their shape, and shed water on the outside are the ones worth converting, and that is settled by windrow, baler setup, and wrap — not by the machine in the shed. If rebaling is part of your plan, spec your net wrap for full shoulder-to-shoulder coverage and clean release, because the bale you make in June decides what you can sell in January.

The XES Netting team manufactures bale net wrap for round balers and writes these guides so forage operators can find clear, source-cited answers. Every farmer quote in this post is verbatim, with a link to the original discussion — go read the threads in full.

Featured photo: Example of a mounted round bale unroller by DELRAN, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.