First Haying Season - Done (unless it grows enough for 2nd cutting)

[mattv1]

Seems like just yesterday I was making this post --

http://www.tractorbynet.com/forums/haying/283788-new-haying-validate-my-wish.html

Now here we are just a few short months later with well over 500 bales stacked in the barn.

Equipment:
Kubota L3540
Vintage IH rake (No. 5, I believe)
Case 1300 Sickle, modified to use hydraulic cylinder to raise/lower sickle bar.
NH 273 Baler

Everything worked better than i hoped it would. Broke the chain on the rake a few times and bent the main drive pulley mount on the sickle, but it was bent back into shape and braced with a thick piece of steel. After repairs, it continued to work perfectly. The tractor handled all the equipment very well, even on the rather steep hills I have to deal with.

Everything from cutting to stacking was done with just me. I used a very low trailer to haul the bales to the barn (1/2 mile or so) -- about 40 bales on the trailer at a time. It was easier to load on the low trailer and not have to walk around a vehicle to get bales from the far side. For sure I lost some time only hauling 40 at a time, but it was a good pace for me, especially this week when it was over 100 degrees every day

MUST-HAVE equipment for next year is a bale elevator. I thought I had one lined up, but it fell through at the last minute. By far, the worst part of the whole ordeal was stacking.

Many thanks to all of you for the encouragement and guidance. Here are a few pictures :

Part of one of the fields I cut this week:

Huge bale stack in the barn:

Freshly raked -- i thought the clouds looked really neat:

Loaded up and ready to head to the barn:

Just a little sweaty today. Topped out at 102 degrees:

 

[TomSeller]

Nice job and great pictures! Is 500 bales about what you calculate you will need?

 

[mattv1]

I'd say we have somewhere around ~1200 bales in the barn, and we should need only ~800 or so.

We had roughly ~300 bales left from last year, and my wife had contracted for ~300 bales from a local seller early in the spring that we were obligated to buy.

In addition to the fields I cut and baled, I shredded about 7 acres of -amazing- grass. The horses had to be turned out onto the field, I had no time to cut/dry/bale, and the grass was too tall to simply turn them out on because they would have matted it down and ruined it.

I think next year, if the spring is perhaps a little less wet and I can get into the field early for a 1st cutting --- i can get close to 1000 bales or more if I cut and bale all the ground I have.

 

[Sysop]

Impressive man! Time to kick back and enjoy the weekend

 

[keegs]

inspirational ...looks like quite a workout.. I'll bet you're feeling pretty good.

 

[Clint S]

That's how we do ours, except in a pick up truck. 3 guys. Uncle can just drive the tractor as his heart wont allow any heavy lifting. Dad drives the trunk and I load the truck. We put all ours in a mow so dad loads the elevator and I work the mow. Do 1k to 1500 a year. Sell 1/2 and feed out the other half. Hard work and makes you sleep good at night. Trying to talk dad into just keeping animals in the summer and selling all the hay out of the field. So there is just tractor work. He is still got alot of spunk in him so we still have them

 

[rankrank1]

Seems like just yesterday I was making this post --

Equipment:
Kubota L3540
Vintage IH rake (No. 5, I believe)
Case 1300 Sickle, modified to use hydraulic cylinder to raise/lower sickle bar.
NH 273 Baler

Everything worked better than i hoped it would. Broke the chain on the rake a few times and bent the main drive pulley mount on the sickle, but it was bent back into shape and braced with a thick piece of steel. After repairs, it continued to work perfectly. The tractor handled all the equipment very well, even on the rather steep hills I have to deal with.

Everything from cutting to stacking was done with just me.... I used a very low trailer to haul the bales to the barn (1/2 mile or so) -- about 40 bales on the trailer at a time. It was easier to load on the low trailer and not have to walk around a vehicle to get bales from the far side. For sure I lost some time only hauling 40 at a time, but it was a good pace for me, especially this week when it was over 100 degrees every day...

Oh I started out similar with an even smaller Kubota L285 tractor and smaller NH 65 baler. I will not comment on your equipment as it obviously worked fine for your needs (and I think I did comment that in your original thread anyway). As for the loading on the low profile trailer. That is still how I do it as well. I prefer a trailer over a wagon behind the baler as using a separate trailer keeps me out of the baler dust. Plus, I can use the trailer for other things where a wagon would be a 1 trick pony for me anyways. I am almost 6' 5" tall so I can actually stack pretty high on a low profile trailer from the ground.

I will say it will speed up your loading immensely if you can talk your wife into driving the trailer's tow vehicle (quad, tractor, truck). I have done it by myself as well as with the wife driving and it is much faster with using a driver.

As for the sweat and exercise....That is actually my favorite part of haying....Makes the body feel good!

 

[mattv1]

Oh I started out similar with an even smaller Kubota L285 tractor and smaller NH 65 baler....As for the sweat and exercise....That is actually my favorite part of haying....Makes the body feel good!

Yep i remember your comments, many thanks!

Thought about having the wife drive the truck and towing a bigger trailer, but the 5-month old baby wouldn't last long enough in the car seat to make it worthwhile. Maybe next year that plan will work, i'm sure it would be quite a bit faster than doing it all solo.

Also looking for a stooker style accumulator to drop the bales in "pyramids" of 6. Found one that is pretty cheap, but several hundred miles away. Hoping to do some sleuthing around this fall/winter and maybe get lucky. If I could drop the bales in groups, I could load them on my own very quickly, perhaps even using pallet forks on the tractor to pick up entire stacks.

 

[bigbull338]

you done real good for your 1st year baling hay.

 

[tessiers]

Looks great, they also make something called a bale buncher, I built one out of some old boiler tubing that works pretty good. Drops a pile of 6 or 8, not quite as neat as a stoker but simpler. I try to drop piles near each other so I can park between them and load a dozen or more bales without moving. I have several hay wagons and continue to use my trailer to haul bales, mine is a 23' equipment trailer so I can haul 150 or so without stacking too high. 1 thing I learned a while back is I do not fix old chains, they just break a few links down, if a chain is to the point of breaking its usually rusted rollers in the links and you can replace the whole chain reasonably cheap most of the time. Won't be too long and your 5 month old baby will be riding the trailer helping to stack. My 7 year old can push the bales into place if I toss them onto the right level and, lord help me, my 10 year old drove the truck this year, while my wife was bailing.

Congratulations on the new baby and the successful haying.