The Hardest Part of Bailing Hay With a Friend

[Rockbadchild]

I actually almost forgot what it was like to walk on a moving wagon until I read this post it brings back old memory ... I bale a few bale last week, my first time since I was a kid, that night I was laying in bed and felt like my body was till rocking back and forth.

 

[dirttoys]

If this was anyone else's post I would call bs

When I was a kid hay crew paid 20 cents a bail. Nickel a bail for each guy, and a nickel for the wagon. I think a 1000 a day was a good day and 50 bucks worth of beer. I either couldn't do 400 a day now, or it would take a week to recover (we will never know which).

Balance goes with hearing and eye sight sadly. Walking around dive boats last week with gear on always entertains the younger folks.

Best,

ed

 

[hosspuller]

Three years ago, I couldn't get any help stacking the hay on the wagon. No walking. Just ride the wagon and stack the bales as they came up the chute. Not for $20/ hour. Year before, I had two HS "football" players help. They won't do that again, I near killed them. Had to stop mid field to let them rest. Year before the football players, had a 70 year old man (My hay mentor) stack the wagon alone. Strength, endurance and TECHNIQUE

So, I got an accumulator and grapple. Now, wife and I do it all.

 

[ponytug]

Three years ago, I couldn't get any help stacking the hay on the wagon. No walking. Just ride the wagon and stack the bales as they came up the chute. Not for $20/ hour. Year before, I had two HS "football" players help. They won't do that again, I near killed them. Had to stop mid field to let them rest. Year before the football players, had a 70 year old man (My hay mentor) stack the wagon alone. Strength, endurance and TECHNIQUE

So, I got an accumulator and grapple. Now, wife and I do it all.

Yes, technique counts for a lot. We often have city slickers come out and help around the hay barn and feeding, and I find myself coaching folks how to lift and move productively, without brute forcing it. I have a bad back, so brute forcing it has never been my go to solution...

All the best, Peter

 

[bigtiller]

I was usually stuck in the hot dusty haymow. But one time they let me work on the hay rack in the fresh air.

The catch was, the farmer had painted the floor of the wagon. The hay and dust made it really slick. I remember sticking the edge of my shoe in a gap between the boards to keep from falling.

 

[ponytug]

@bigtiller Seriously? Who paints the floor of a hay wagon? The ones I worked on were polished enough with tons of hay sliding across them.

The farmer have it in for you? Were you the lead suspect in some peach rustling?

It takes all kinds I guess...

I'm glad that you survived.

All the best,

Peter

 

[redman135]

Where I lived was to steep to hitch a hay trailer on the baler, so we did pickup with a truck if moving the hay out of the paddock, or with a sweep if the shed was in the paddock.
We came unstuck with our new truck on a side slope. It had a steel deck, and the load just slid sideways off the truck in slow motion. At least we only had 3 layers at that point. The old truck had a wooden deck and you could drive some steep side slopes and not loose the load.
Ponytug is right, stacking hay is mostly technique. It is particularly noticable these days as kids have no idea.
Mistake 1) jerk lift with their back, cue lesson on lifting technique.
Mistake 2) Near total ignorence on how to "tie"(stack) hay so stack is free standing(does not need shed walls to hold stack togather). It sucks having to go back and restack because the side or end fell off the stack.

 

[JasperFrank]

Of all the odd jobs I have done, small hay bailing, and loading into a barn loft, is my number one hardest thing I've ever done. I never wanted to stack more then 7 high on a wagon with small bails. This was a small bailer, with a shoot.
The Grandfather, for some reason, wanted 8 high one day, and he was driving the tractor.
After I was waiving him off. He still kept going. He ignored me. On the last stacks at 8, I fell off the wagon, right between the tow tongue and the wheels and survived. Then I got up and unloaded on my own Grandfather, with harsh language, that he was an idiot to go 8 High. I think I earned his respect over this. We never did 8 high after that.

 

[ultrarunner]

I guess lose hay in the loft isn't done anymore?

It sure made a great place to play as kids and the cows were below the loft and feeding was as easy as dropping some through openings in the loft floor... nothing back breaking...

 

[bigtiller]

@bigtiller Seriously? Who paints the floor of a hay wagon? The ones I worked on were polished enough with tons of hay sliding across them.

The farmer have it in for you? Were you the lead suspect in some peach rustling?

It takes all kinds I guess...

I'm glad that you survived.

All the best,

Peter

I suspect it was the only reason they let me work on the rack. Luckily he had only one with paint.

 

[Hay Dude]

I guess lose hay in the loft isn't done anymore?

It sure made a great place to play as kids and the cows were below the loft and feeding was as easy as dropping some through openings in the loft floor... nothing back breaking...

Yeah that’s pretty much done now. All the bank barns around here are still standing-pretty much useless because they were designed for loose hay.
I started stacking hay in my single digits at the D’orio‘s farm. We just did it for fun back then and tried to see who got the strongest. The dad made us a rope swing INSIDE the barn! Then came 1 bale in each hand, then “double fisting” in teenage years. Got crazy strong from that and still have broad shoulders to this day. Football came easy to me because haying requires effort and so does football.

I remember putting bales up as a kid and watching him get kicked castrating a bull. Feral cats everywhere. Always a mess, broken equipment everywhere, but the most fun place to be.

 

[MossRoad]

One of my daughters had a girl on her grade school basketball team that was raised on a horse farm. She looked like a normal girl, but was deceivingly strong! Throwing hale bales and pushing around 1000# + horses she wasn’t going to be intimidated by anyone when playing defense. We distinctly remember a girl trying to purposely charge her, slamming in to her, bouncing off, fall backwards on her back and start crying. Just bounced off her like a dodge ball. We just attended her wedding last summer, and she had twins a few months ago. She’s an ER nurse. Time flies!

 

[turnkey4099]

I guess lose hay in the loft isn't done anymore?

It sure made a great place to play as kids and the cows were below the loft and feeding was as easy as dropping some through openings in the loft floor... nothing back breaking...

Back when I was a kid, balers were just starting to become common. Every bit of hay that our animals got was harvested with a fork: from shocking it after mow/rake, load on wagon with fork, nets into the barn and most fun was picking the bunches apart up in the hey mow with a fork on hot days to get it all leveled off. The good old days...not!

 

[m1garand762]

We had a young couple that wanted to work off part of the cow I’m raising them. They left after an hour and said to not worry about taking money off the bill. My 12 year old nephew and the Amish kid across the street stack my wagons and stack the hayloft

 

[Mendonsy]

Back when I was a kid, balers were just starting to become common. Every bit of hay that our animals got was harvested with a fork: from shocking it after mow/rake, load on wagon with fork, nets into the barn and most fun was picking the bunches apart up in the hey mow with a fork on hot days to get it all leveled off. The good old days...not!

Yeah, I remember doing that when I was in grade school. Fortunately we upgraded to an IH 45 baler when I was in high school so I only had to handle about 3200 bales of hay and 800 bales of straw each year. I don't miss it a bit!

 

[Raul-02]

This time, we did 440 bales.

oh my~!! that's work

 

[MossRoad]

oh my~!! that's work

Nah. I was proud of myself for not throwing up and not being sore the next day.

Stripping my garage roof two years ago was work. That hurt.

 

[TheMan419]

We just had hay delivered. Bunch of youngsters stacking it. The 17 year olds could toss one up to the top of the stack as easily as I could have tossed a basketball.

They had their 5 year old brother there. He helped. He would basically flip the bale like a guy working out with a big tractor tire. He was also barefoot and all the older kids were wearing boots. That kid is going to be a beast when he grows up..... or he will decide he never wants to do that again and get an office job.

It was all stacked at ground level but the got the stack up into the rafters which are at 10 foot.

 

[MossRoad]

We just had hay delivered. Bunch of youngsters stacking it. The 17 year olds could toss one up to the top of the stack as easily as I could have tossed a basketball.

They had their 5 year old brother there. He helped. He would basically flip the bale like a guy working out with a big tractor tire. He was also barefoot and all the older kids were wearing boots. That kid is going to be a beast when he grows up..... or he will decide he never wants to do that again and get an office job.

It was all stacked at ground level but the got the stack up into the rafters which are at 10 foot.

Pretty impressive

My friend showed me an incident that happened several weeks back after he had two teenage girls (gender doesn’t matter here) stack bales in his barn. He was happy for the help. Unfortunately, he woke up the next morning and saw his cows eating a bale of hay out about 15’ from the barn. Then he noticed several more bales on the ground and in the water trough. Then a couple sticking out of a window of the barn!

Apparently they didn’t stack them so well, and overnight, the stack collapsed towards that area, and some fell out through the window into the paddock.

The cows didn’t seem to mind.

 

[MossRoad]

He also said this was their 4th cutting already. Been a really good year for them.

They live near Walkerton.