We don't bale hay. I grew up tossing small squares for a couple of neighbors though, so I've been around it. We do cut our cover crop to use as mulch in our veggie operation. We also buy bales of straw to complete the mulching. I think I've posted this here before, but here's how we mulch with the bales.
We pick up the cover crop that we cut with a hay loader that would really work better as yard art. It's pretty ridiculous, but we're only filling one wagon and maybe covering half an acre. Then we run what we load through that bale chopper, but since it's on a wagon we can't pull it through the field. Instead we blow it into a pile and load wheelbarrows.
So anyway, my dad keeps saying we ought to buy a baler so we can bale up the mulch and blow it right out into the rows. I agree that it'd be nice to skip the hay loader and the wheelbarrows, but then you guys remind me that making good bales isn't a walk in the park. I'm the one on the farm who fixes all out old broken junk, and there's no way I'm gonna tangle with a sickle bar or a haybine and a baler for 50-75 bales a year. I told him we should just buy more bales.
I'll try to grab a picture of the hay loader in action this week. My wife took some pictures with her phone. We can all laugh at me together and it'll make your equipment look really nice by comparison.