wmonroe
Elite Member
I was amazed at the aging equipment you have in apparent usable condition! Warms the "get by with what we got" heart! It doesn't sound like you are in the high volume hay-as-a-cash-crop business and (thinking I have a pretty clear vision of your circumstance,) why do you bother to use that hay conditioner? Most people in that era used the conditioner ONLY if they had a hurried need to take up the hay a day before it would otherwise have dried. Maybe that hurry is "you" these days with so much going on, but unless you need to expedite things by a day it is wasting a lot of man and machine time IMO. Many in that era used a hay tedder between cutting and raking. The tedder does double duty in that it worked if you had an unfortunate rain too.
I spent some time this past winter going through the equipment to make sure it was adjusted per the manuals. The sickle has actually been working very well and the baler worked well the first round. The conditioner I’m still figuring out….the height adjustment is very particular as far as being low enough to pick up the hay and not too low so the lower roller doesn’t wrap. I’m not looking to make a living off of this, there are some long term plans and possible expansion down the road but right now the plan is to have my kids help and learn the value of hard work and the other lessons that are learned “farming”. I don’t have a Tedder yet so I’m using the conditioner to speed up the drying. The video I posted there was just enough days before rain to get the hay in using the conditioner. I’ll be watching auctions and local sales and would like to get a Tedder and a haybine but I’m not in a hurry at this point.