First ever cut

[Draagyn]

I cut my hay last night for my first time.

Everything went well. Mower and tractor did their jobs.

Few questions:

20 acres took me 5 hours. Fast in the thin spots and slower in the thick spots. How is that for time? How long does it take you to cut per acre?

It rained a little right after I finished cutting, should I do an extra rake to fluff up and assist drying?

I have two power poles in field with four guy wires on each. I did a lot of circles and cris crosses lifting mower up and down. What a pain! Do you have a good technique for this? Should I bother lifting mower up every time I cross a previously cut swath?

Thanks

 

[bigbull338]

you cut 4acs and hour and thats real good for a pull type swather.sounds like you did fine cutting around the high line poles.

 

[rtimgray]

The time sounds good for me. I cut with a disc mower, but I don't lift by mower when I cross previously cut hay (until I'm leaving the field or going a long way, and that's just to not jam cut hay into the mower). I also give items like power poles/buildings/trees etc. a wide berth when cutting. I've discovered the hard way that it's way too easy to get the end of the mower into an obstruction, and the times that I've cut hay really close to an obstruction, nobody ever showed up to give me a prize.

I always figure that it's just hay, and if I lifted the mower every time I crossed a swath and cut slowly and carefully around each obstruction, I might get one or two (small) rolls out of it - for me, it's not worth the aggravation or risk.

Good luck and take care.

 

[Texasmark]

I used to use a MOCO like yours but was green. I usually planted a Sorghum-Sudan cross which was a tall plant and stemmy. Made for a tall windrow. Crossing with the MOCO in the mow position just made a mess and would pile up the product which made for slow drying. So I lifted it every time.

On the light rain don't worry about it if it was short. From the looks of your hay patch you don't have heavy stemmed-leafed product so you should be good to go. If you are worried about it, after a hot day or so, wait till afternoon when everything is dry and hit it with a tedder which will scatter the hay on the bottom and get it to dry much faster. Unless you have a hot day with a strong wind blowing across the ww, raking it into a ww is not the thing to do to get it to dry. If you have thick stubble that helps too to get the product off the ground and up in the air.

Your time is fine in my book.

Mark

 

[Draagyn]

Thanks for the input guys!

I thought I only had a little left over to cut the next day but I ended up spending another hour out there so totalled 6 hours for 20 acres. My dad was saying the guy who cut his 20 acres took two full days! So I don't feel slow at all

I checked after work at the rain had completely dried of the cut hay.

Raking and bailing tomorrow

 

[Bigfoot62]

. . .

Raking and bailing tomorrow

WELL??? We want to know how it went for you.

 

[wmonroe]

WELL??? We want to know how it went for you.

We are on the edge of our seats.

 

[Draagyn]

Enjoying the beers right now. Be back in a day or three

 

[Draagyn]

Everything went well. Spent 6 hours cutting, did a decent job. Was very time consuming going around power poles and guy wires. Sort of figured a technique for next year. Dried for two full days. Raked from 10am to 3 pm and baled from 5pm to 10pm. Had an issue with the one bill hook not letting go of the knots, but got that figured by the end. Did about an hour of cleanup the next morning, re-baling the duds. Bales were a little short which made stacking a little harder than it should've been.

All in all I'm quite pleased with the way everything went and all my equipment performing the way it did with minimal problems.
We got about 240 50lb bales off the 20 acres. Probably about 60 off the one half and 180 off the other.

 

[Draagyn]