Gathering and Storing Hay in Bulk?

[KubotaSam]

As a kid that is all we had to put in hay. A cut down model A Ford into a tractor pulling a converted horse drawn cycle bar mowing machine. Pull it into piles with a dump rake. Put it on a trailer with a pitch fork. Kind of labor intensive but it would be really easy to put in enough for a goat or two.

 

[2manyrocks]

My mother cleaned up the farm by getting rid of all the horse drawn equipment in the 1980s. The hay rake, the wagon, the horse drawn sickle mower, etc. are all gone.

 

[Egon]

Put it on a trailer with a pitch fork

Put a hay sweep type thingy on the loader and all manual work goes away.

If the distances are close you could transport, stack/store the loose hay to where it will be fed.

In days gone by many farmers used the methods described and then gathered and stacked the hay with a tractor that had a "Farmhand" [Large hay sweep] mounted on it. Later on they would use a stack mover to move the entire stack to the feeding area. Up until the advent of the large bales this was the haying procedure that used the least manual physical labour. It also provided the best quality hay.

 

[53gravely]

Chopping hay is done all the time on dairy farms. Know as "hayliage", like silage it's chopped by a haybine, blown into a dump wagon (tractor towing tandem units) that's dumped into a large dump body truck. It it then piled within easy winter access of the barn. They push each successive load up onto the pile with a tractor and FEL. The pressure from the tractor tries compresses it and then it's tarped. Between packing it tight and tarping it, it will last the wither without spoiling....just cut the plastic tarp back further as you use up the pile.

For a goat or two, I'd think you're better off buying a load of square bales as they're easier to handle. Best of all, they easily break into "flakes" so your DAUGHTER will have no problems caring for HER GOAT.

BTW. Don't even think of bringing green hay into a barn. Many a dairy barn have been lost to hay thru sponteanous combustion...not a joke, I've seen it and it ain't pretty.

 

[2manyrocks]

That toy haystacker is very similar to the plans in the book I have. I can't put my hands on the book right now, but I think the tines were made of hardwood just like the toy in the picture. I think it was winch operated.

Right now, the guy who bales our field only does round bales. Could tarp them and leave them outside to avoid any possibility of the barn burning.

 

[AKwelder]

my great grand father had no sons, so his hay operation was a one man show. he cut and windrowed like baling. then he followed with a new idea forage unit, he had a hay pick up head and a ensilage head. this was used to fill a forage box with a PTO driven unloader. The trailer was ten pulled to the yard and unloaded into a belt or pto driven blower unit and blown loose into the barn.

A mower, a rake, and maybe a tedder are needed no for every type of hay work.

A second Tractor(not a bad thing), forage unit, forage box and blower unit for this method.

A baler ,wagon and bale elevator will allow you put up small bales

 

[2manyrocks]

So your great grandfather actually did what I was asking about.

I used to know a guy who had a horse barn that was built so that the hay wagons were at the same level as the hayloft for loading and unloading.

I went to an auction recently where an international square baler went for $500. Was that a good or bad price for a working square baler?