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Those ARE 1/2 bales JB really they are! the full size bales are about 1/3 longer a bit wider and twice as heavy!
I used to sling enough of em as a kid on a farm to know
Ok 6 bags of layer down for you
So this had me Googling the size of bales, and I think that the best explanation is found with this one.
" Manufacturers use the term "Square" bales to differentiate between those and round bales, even though the bales are rectangular. The small and medium size balers have a fixed bale chamber that produces a bale that is either 14"x18" or 16"x18". The length can be varied to produce bales between 36" and 41". This is the range of length that is required by most automatic bale wagons that are used to pick-up the bales in the field and stack them. Occasionally you will find a bale that is 46" long, but most bales that you would purchase at the feed store are 41" long. If you are buying hay and paying by the bale, you will usually see the smaller 14"x18" bale but will see the larger 16"x18" bales when buying by the ton.
Given the mentioned range, most bales produced for hand loading are 16"x18"x41"
So given that for the most part that I have always bought hay at feed stores, and only once gleaned bales from a local grass cutting setting. The small bales are all that I am familiar with. I do know that the half bales that I get from Del's are a lot softer and more absorbent than the straw that I got from Scott. There is nothing wrong with Scott's straw, but given the size of my yard and coop, I have way more than I can use in a reasonable time frame.
When I got the bales from Scott I could not lift a bale, I just checked again and I can now lift a bale which is good to know. So they bale has continued to dry out nicely. I can manage to lift 50 lbs. if I have to, but I am fairly sure that when I picked up the bales they were on the very high side of 50 lbs. At this point I would say that they are much closer to 30 lbs. I know that the difference is enough to make thing very difficult for me, or really easy.
I also learned from my little bit of research that straw bale houses are made using large bales of straw. That is kind of useless information for building houses in the Northwest.
Wow.. never thought that these little bales were normal feed store sized... On the farm we would get it by the ton in bales so that is where my size ref came from. The straw bales we used to get were 100lbs and the hay was 120lbs plus.
My yard is large for a city lot (85' x 145') so if you come up this way I can buy those extra bales from you. I use it as mud stop as well as winter coop bedding then it all goes to the garden to be tilled in.
