Ford 8600 For Hay Work

djsfarms · Jul 1, 2013

cowski said:
i would just use the tractors you have for square baling.later on you may want to add a cab tractor of about 60 to 75 pto horsepower.a 8 ft disc mower would fit them 3930s.as for balers mf 124 or 224 are good ol balers jd makes a good one.a inline baler is nice.you need to be careful about picking a rake.it is real easy to overload some square balers with a 8 wheel rake.

That makes sense on the tractor. The NH3930 should work fine with the NH565 baler. I will have to decide then on the mower. I like the simplicity of the drum mowers. Several guys in this area have CCM drum mowers. I'm not familiar with the technology differences between the various drum mower brands but the Reese looks tempting with no gears for me to damage. The two guys that have been haying my place both use disc mowers. One breaks down every time he's here and the other guy cuts about as fast as he can drive but seems to have a pretty good investment in cutter bar sections and blades. Open to suggestions based upon experience and knowledge.

Bigfoot62 · Jul 1, 2013

djsfarms said:
. . . The two guys that have been haying my place both use disc mowers. One breaks down every time he's here and the other guy cuts about as fast as he can drive but seems to have a pretty good investment in cutter bar sections and blades. Open to suggestions based upon experience and knowledge.

Kuhn GMD600 I have this mower. Also have a green one. (The JD 265 is the same mower with a green paint) My Kuhn is 4 years old. The JD is about 9 or 10 years old. The only repairs to the JD have been the nylon bushings on the gearbox, and I have reversed direction on the cutter discs. That's it, just normal wear. I've done nothing to the Kuhn. I can cut about 50-75 acres before turning the blades over. My ground speed is about 5-6 mph. That translates to 3.5-4 acres per hour.

mjcountrybumpkin · Jul 1, 2013

If you want enough tractor to really run a 8 foot disc mower you should look in the 5610-6610 size tractor. Yes you can mow with a 3930 and an 8 footer but you and your tractor are gonna get a workout. I have used a ford 4610 (52 hp) and a 7 foot fella disc mower and it would mow fairly good but 10-15 more horsepower makes a huge difference between fighting it and getting it done.
The 8600 you are looking at would definitely get it done but burn a lot of extra fuel doing it.
As far as pulling a square baler and a wagon in tandem I would want much more weight than the 3930 offers.
Not really sure about newer NH balers but definitely make sure it has the Long tongue.
Good luck haying. It's my favorite pastime

gabby · Jul 2, 2013

djsfarms said:
I have approximately 110 ac of fescue and bermudagrass pasture near Grantville GA where we get 3 cutting per year most years. Yield is 4-5 tons/ac in the 1st cutting most years & approx 3 tons/ac for the other two. I'm in an area with a lot of horse owners about 45 mins south of the Atlanta airport. I have previously contracted out the hay work but their schedule is not not my schedule and I'm considering haying myself. There are several round-baler operations in the area but no small sq balers. So there seems to be a good demand for small sq bales. I have a good shed for storage. I'm looking at a well-used Ford 8600 (110 PTO hp) for the work.

Does anyone have any experience with this tractor for haying (or other uses)? Reliability etc.

Also looking for the most reliable small sq baling approach. Considering a discbine, but also like the drum cutter technology (theoretically at least) but I'm open to anything that yields efficiency at reasonable acquisition costs.

Are you sure about the tons per acre? That sounds way too high.