Hay gathering for 35 hp

[den75]

That’s gonna be a tough one, my brother does 700 at a time and does so by himself, but he has big tractors, baler with a kicker and four wagons so the only hands on work in stacking in his barn and his barn is big enough to put the three wagons in and he stacks a wagon an evening after work.

I understand. What I'm facing now is my neighbor gets his 30 acres done then it always seems we're waiting a good month or more for a few clear days to get mine done. I live in South central Kentucky and last year the first cutting wasn't done until late July. When I tell you the hay was crap that would be an understatement.

 

[aczlan]

I know there is equipment out there that I can get the hay cut and baled with my tractor. Just concerned now about how to get 1000 plus bales out of the field and stacked with limited manpower.

What kind of barn are you putting them into? If it is open, you could use one of those Bale accumulator trailers like someone posted earlier. That will let you get a whole stack in the barn at a time. However, if you have a barn that is taller than the stack, you'll have to add bales to the top of the stack, or be okay with losing several bales worth of height.

Otherwise, you need a whole bunch of hay wagons and a baler with a kicker on it.
Another option (if you are bailing for yourself and have an area where you can feed them) would be to do round bales. Those are much less labor-intensive to store.

Aaron Z

 

[atsah]

That is pretty late for first cutting. You can run a small baler, a rake and a Tedder with any 35 hp tractor but hay automation requires HP and weight..

 

[den75]

What kind of barn are you putting them into? If it is open, you could use one of those Bale accumulator trailers like someone posted earlier. That will let you get a whole stack in the barn at a time. However, if you have a barn that is taller than the stack, you'll have to add bales to the top of the stack, or be okay with losing several bales worth of height.

Otherwise, you need a whole bunch of hay wagons and a baler with a kicker on it.
Another option (if you are bailing for yourself and have an area where you can feed them) would be to do round bales. Those are much less labor-intensive to store.

Aaron Z

Barn is not really that open and I couldn't unload those stacks from those accumulators all at once. As far as round bales, I don't think I can get a round baler that makes 4x5 round bales that my tractor can handle.

 

[newbury]

I understand. What I'm facing now is my neighbor gets his 30 acres done then it always seems we're waiting a good month or more for a few clear days to get mine done. I live in South central Kentucky and last year the first cutting wasn't done until late July. When I tell you the hay was crap that would be an understatement.

Weather may be your main problem.
I'm in northern Virginia. We normally get about 7 inches for ALL of July and August. There's a Weather Underground station about 200 yards from me. Between the time I got back from Mississippi on July 16 and August 3rd we got 12.3 inches of rain. I don't think there were many days that you could cut hay. And even then the hay would have never dried out to bale. And it can only lay in the field wet for a bit before it starts to rot.
Meanwhile my Mississippi place which normally gets 8 inches for ALL of July and August only reported 1.8 inches for the July 16 through August 3rd period.

With the way weather is fluctuating you may need to get a bigger tractor to get it all done in a timely fashion.

 

[atsah]

The way to go would be to rake and tedd the hay with your 35hp tractor and buy an older big tractor and kick them into wagons, I don’t see any other way.

If you don’t have any equipment yet and this is something you are definitely going to do, I would buy a big tractor first and buy a NH baler with a kicker or whatever baler you want and four wagons, then your in business..

 

[den75]

Thanks guys, appreciate the ideas. Definitely have a few things to consider.

 

[prof fate]

they make roundbalers that make 80lb round bales. Still the issue of 1000 bales though.

We're considering haying some of the pasture next year..30hp PTO - cutter, no issue. rake, no issue. older square balers will work just fine.

But yeah, then you have a field of bales to pickup. 30-40hp won't be enought to pull a baler and wagon.

I've seen things that attach to the loader that can grab then stack multiple square bales - but they don't show that the bales need lined up first...

There's this...Hay wagon working slick - YouTube

read this for some ideas..
https://cpb-us-e1.wpmucdn.com/blogs...y-Making-and-Handling-Made-Easier-2ark77z.pdf

 

[quicksandfarmer]

I would look again at round balers, the reason they have become popular is that they are so much less labor-intensive. Round bales are also more weather resistant, so you have more leeway in getting them put away. Small square bales only make sense if you don't have the ability to feed round bales.

I also have a 35 hp tractor, and I spent some time looking at round balers, there are a bunch that make bales in the 500 pound range that require less than 35 HP. The bale is going to be about 4x4. Here's the list of models I came up with:
New idea 6343
Challenger rb34
Hesston 530
International 8420
Hesston 730
New idea 6243
Massey 1734
Hesston 5530
Krone KR 125, 130
Krone KR 100

(A lot of these are rebadging or renumbering of the same basic baler).


A couple that take 40 HP:
New Holland BR 730
Deere 330


Regardless of the technology, this is going to be a big job for a small tractor. I get a little under 5,000 lbs of hay per acre, if you've got 20 acres that's 100,000 lbs of hay that needs to be moved, one way or another. Your tractor is about 3,500 lbs, how much weight do you feel you can safely control? Would you feel comfortable going down a hill with a wagon that outweighs the tractor? Where ever you decide your limit is, it's going to be a lot of trips.

 

[StuartDK45SE]

I concur with quicksandfarmer. I fantasize about doing square bales on my place again some day, but it is a major headache handling them. I'm going 4 x 4 round bales with my 38 pto hp tractor. That way I can cut, rake an bale by myself when I want to. And I am still going to target horse people, they will just have to be ones that can feed round bales.

I bought an old New Holland 630 round baler which I haven't tried yet, but it should do okay. Vermeer rebel 400 may be another one to look at. Get something that controls bale density with spring tension. The only hydraulics on my 630 are to lift the tail gate.