Making hay with 30hp tractor

[deadmoose]

I answered a similar question for myself last year. I looked around like you and found most say dont try. Somewhere I decided to try just for fun if nothing else. I bought an ih990 7 foot haybine, old new holland rake and a hesston 5530 rounder round baler. I have a Kubota l3400 hst with 28.5 pto hp. All said and done it all worked. I know much more now then before and am happy with the results. I baled only a couple acres last year with hopes of tripling this year. My tractor had enough power to run all. The baler recommends 30 pto hp. Same as hesston 530 730 case 8420 mf 1734. I did not make full bales but it worked. The only true way to find out if it will work is to do it. Last summer i baled enough for maybe one of my cattle. By next year i hope to make more than enough for ten to fifteen head with same setup. Good luck to you. Gotta remember you can always upgrade tractor later and still use same equipment. Also the plus side of buying cheap equipment is thst it is a cheap education. Value doesnt have far to go down and you can always upgrade. Plus then you will know what you actually want better than now.

[IronHog]

Good points, since farming near me is pretty much gone, contracting or having another farmer do it is almost impossible. I'm not that old but when I was growing up 20 years ago we had 60+ dairies in our county. We are now down to 3. Farming is just dieing a slow death here. There is still quite a few beef farms but really only a 2-3 that aren't considered hobby farms.

You are definitely right that the square baler is my biggest risk. Sickle mowers and rakes are easy to work on and normally very dependable, especially because you can buy alot of backup parts that tend to break for pretty cheap. As for the baler any time i've ever had an issue(while helping other farmers, uncles) is with the knotters. But then again my uncle had a $5,000 baler that would work fine for acres and acres then have knotting issues for an entire day.

One advantage I will have is that i'm doing hay on such a small scale. I am already planning on doing an acre or two at a time. For a few reasons, 1) the weather, 2) using new to me(old equipment), 3) using smaller equipment and 4) having to handle square bales by hand.

Heck if I could average an acre or 2 a week, I'd be more than satisfied.

Contrary to popular belief it doesn't take a huge tractor to bale hay..... esp if you are using the older stuff like you described.

As long as the stuff you buy is just old and half worn out (vs rusted out junk) you'll be fine for hobby baling....... just be ready to work on stuff, spend money on parts, and baling/cutting in low range.

[tessiers]

I've made a lot of hay with my 41' Farmall H, mowed 25 acres with it last year, what I didn't bale with the Farmall, I baled with my 53' Ford NAA. It can be done, and it can be fun. We use 1200 bales a year and I sold enough to cover costs, no labor. What more can a poor boy ask for.