A stalk cutter/shredder will save some wear on your baler. If I understand your post correctly, you will have to manually feed the stalks into your grinder mixer? I would strongly urge you NOT to do that as it would be very inefficient and dangerous. The only sound worse than a scoop shovel going through the grinder would have to be your screams if your arm was going in pushing those stalks. Are there any custom hay grinders in your area? Around here they charge $10-11/ton with a minimum (12 ton for the guy I use) $11 X 12 = $132 or $.0055/lb. Also I think you could find an older auger mixer wagon or even an older Knight reel wagon at a decent price. I used to get the Dairy Star publication and they had 100's of older feed wagons advertised in there. Lastly, if your going to make the investment and change in management as far as your rations, keep it in the wagon (no free choice). You decide what they eat and you manage the gains that you want.