Hay gathering for 35 hp

[prof fate]

depends how you feed. Our horses are in the barn during the day (heat, bugs) so they need hay and a couple of flakes from a SSbale is easy peasy. The 1200ish lb square bales are nice too, but not as common to find. And you need a tractor to mvoe them.

Rounds SUCK for taking a little bit off. We feed them in the winter and there is a good bit of waste, but it saves making daily or twice daily trips out to the pasture to feed hay.

 

[aczlan]

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.

Your DK35 should be able to handle a 700-1200# round bale on the loader. We have a L3830 that will make a 5x5 round bale with our Ford 552 round baler, it grunts for the last foot and that makes it hard for the B7500 to scoot the bale around on the 3 point, so we generally stick to a 5' Long x 4' Diameter round bale.

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..

We do it all with our L3830, we bale with either a NH 269 (with a belt kicker and a basket wagon in tow), or a Ford 552 round baler.

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

Add the Ford 552 (Aka the Gehl RB1500A) to your list. We run one with our L3830 and it makes up to a 5x5 round bale with 32 PTO HP.

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.

We run our baler with our L3830, with loaded tires and the snowblower frame on the front it is about 4000#. The only time I have felt a little pucker factor towing the NH269 baler and a ~120 bale basket wagon around the field is when going downhill into a curve on a cleanup pass (read, moving fast with a full wagon, downhill and into a curve). Otherwise, it has been fine.

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.

That is where we are at. With a round baler, my wife and I can bale a field by ourselves in an afternoon (me baling, her running the bales back to the barn), square bales takes at least 4 more people (2 to unload the wagon/feed the elevator and 2 to stack in the barn).

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.

Our Ford 552 is similar, the only hydraulics are the ones to lift the tailgate and to move the twine arm back and forth. Bale tension is done with belts and springs.

Aaron Z

 

[atsah]

I’m sure it can be done as long as you’re not pulling a baler and full wagons up hills or going down hills for that matter.. I had a TC45DA a few years back and I pulled a NH baler and a wagon, when the wagon had 150 bales in it, that tractor had all it wanted, a little hilly but not bad hills, if it didn’t have 4x4 it would have been pretty much useless.

 

[kthompson]

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.

Missed you were only concerned about moving the hay. First thing you have to do is be certain on the bales you will use and the size. Round bales and square bales use different equipment and of course size of bales affect the equipment.

If your tractor will handle a New Holland hay wagon that might work. Never used one myself but have worked in field with one and if all is running right again if your tractor will handle it probably can. Look at youtube for hay wagon.

 

[leeave96]

In your situation, you might consider a Massey 1734 baler. They make an approx 3x4 bale, around 500 lbs.

Here is a video 1734 Round Baler - YouTube

 

[powerscol]

If you do a search on my user name there is a lot of imformation.

I use either a IH 1300 9' sickle mower or PZ170 drum mower. I run a rotary rake and tedder, bale with a Heston 4550 inline - standard 2 string square baler. and to pick up the hay a small quick connect 205 hay grapple Specialty Grabbers | Kuhns Mfg LLC | North Bloomfield, OH

I use it to gather and stack on my Goose neck trailer which I pull with my tractor to the barn, then unload and re-stack with the grapple.

 

[LouNY]

I don't recall what your are feeding your hay to.
One option to consider is to have someone with a round baler and a wrapper do haylage bales for you.
The weather becomes much less of an issue with haylage, mow one day bale the next and wrap.
The worst thing with wrapped bales is handling them afterwards, they are heavy and you can't use a bale spear unless you are feeding it out that day.
The majority of our first cutting goes to haylage or haylage bales.

 

[StuartDK45SE]

@ powerscol

How many bales can you comfortably put on the ground AND get on a trailer(s) in a day?

 

[den75]

If you do a search on my user name there is a lot of imformation.

I use either a IH 1300 9' sickle mower or PZ170 drum mower. I run a rotary rake and tedder, bale with a Heston 4550 inline - standard 2 string square baler. and to pick up the hay a small quick connect 205 hay grapple Specialty Grabbers | Kuhns Mfg LLC | North Bloomfield, OH

I use it to gather and stack on my Goose neck trailer which I pull with my tractor to the barn, then unload and re-stack with the grapple.

View attachment 565834View attachment 565835View attachment 565836View attachment 565837

Do you use an accumulator to get the bales together first?

 

[den75]

I don't recall what your are feeding your hay to.
One option to consider is to have someone with a round baler and a wrapper do haylage bales for you.
The weather becomes much less of an issue with haylage, mow one day bale the next and wrap.
The worst thing with wrapped bales is handling them afterwards, they are heavy and you can't use a bale spear unless you are feeding it out that day.
The majority of our first cutting goes to haylage or haylage bales.

Feeding horses