Pulling a hay rake with...

[dieselscout80]

I just bought a New Holland Model 56 hay rake, it seems to be in pretty workable order. So now I have all the equipment I need.
I have one tractor and it takes me about 15 minutes to put the sickle bar on it, so I'm motivated to explore options that would reduce how often I need to do that.
I have a polaris ranger (sort of an ATV with a dump bed on it). Is it crazy to think about pullingn that rake with my ranger? maybe in low gear?
Or if that's a bad idea what about pulling it behind a pickup?

Other than losing all respect with my neighbors, what are the considerations?
Wear & tear on the ranger? Too hard to regulate the speed? Ranger isn't heavy enough?

Thanks in advance and please don't laugh at me

I've seen guys raking with pickups before.

 

[5030]

Call me what you want but back when I had a side delivery rake also known as a 'roper', in a pinch I pulled it with my Honda Foreman 4x4. No biggie, not that much tongue weight. It's ground drive so no PTO needed.

I run a Kuhn twin rotor now (and an old Geihl) so PTO is mandatory.

The Amish put lawnmower engines on bailers, tedders and mowers and I've seen Amish pull about everything with a forecart.

You do what you need to do.

 

[Tx Jim]

I've seen guys raking with pickups before.

You're correct and I've seen 2 different neighbors hay fields with burnt pickups and burnt hay in them.

 

[Robert_in_NY]

I have pulled my NH 256 behind my F-250 diesel before. it was a case where I just needed to flip the windrow over as the bottom was a tad moist from the ground moisture. I had the baler in the field and just took the truck to get the rake, brought it back to the field and just went around the field flipping it over. The windrows were all doubled up already but I didn't have any issues with hay catching under the truck. It was a 10 acre field and extremely hot so I didn't mind the ac in the truck but you have to have a good field as trucks don't turn anywhere near as sharp as a tractor and on tight fields a truck is just not a good option.

That was the only time I have ever done it but it work fine and it was a much faster option then going to the other farm and stealing a different tractor from another implement as the tractor was on the farm in the opposite direction from the farm the rake was on and I was in the middle farm.

 

[sjbrunk0]

Thanks for the advice everyone! I wound up giving it a try and didn't like the way it felt... I think the rake weighs more than the ranger, and it just didn't feel like a good idea to put that variable speed transmission in that hard of a pull for that long, so I wound up borrowing my neighbor's tractor which worked great.

I hadn't raked before so learned the importance of a sharp turning radius right away and was glad I wasn't using my F-250