Hay Making Equipment: What Size Tractor?

[GirlWhoWantsTractor]

OP lives in the mountains of WV. I was told here on TBN in no uncertain terms to get 4WD for my hilly/steep property.

Re: square vs round bales. Round bales don't work well if your horses are stalled. Regional practices may differ. Around here, square for horses, round for cattle.

 

[searcyfarms]

agreed, we never stall horses unless sick - wounded/healing - birthing or they got in trouble!!!

 

[newbury]

<snip>

Because "Hay Days" tend to be hot and humid with pending thunder storms, you can get in a hurry and get dehydrated and exhausted easily. That can break your spirit REALLY FAST. And maybe threaten your health.

Bottom line from me to you would be to hang around a few experienced hay producers and offer to lend a hand for a season. Maybe you could hire them to do your field(s) and get close to the operation. Certainly driving around the county and watching the process can be interesting, useful, fun and life saving. Neighbors who can do hay are good at collaborating and helping out ("One hand washes the other" kind of thing.<snip>

Excellent advice. Find some neighbors to work with. I "hayed" in Northern Vermont for about 3 seasons before college, all square bales. The experience of waiting for the weather to be right then working from dawn to after dark just to get the hay to in FRONT of the barn built muscles I didn't imagine.

And remember, like most farming, you are subservient to the weather.

Hay baling equipment "is one of the most dangerous types of farming equipment."
S-80
National Ag Safety Database - National Ag Safety Database

Also quite expensive. You might want to run the numbers on that. You can usually work out an arrangement for someone to bale your hay and they keep part of it. Which makes more sense financially?

You're going to get very different advice from people who are experienced with heavy tractors on mostly flat land vs folks newer to the rural life, and especially those with hilly property. I think a lot of flatlanders have no idea what it's like in our kind of terrain. For example, if your WV land is hilly, an older Farmall may be risky:
View attachment 562146

If you're not mechanical, you'll need to learn all that unless you have shop nearby, especially with used equipment. Again, some of these folks with decades of experience wrenching on machines don't seem to understand how clueless we nonmechanical types are about this stuff.

Worries me a little to hear of a newbie wanting to take up haying, especially on hilly property, and especially with older equipment, which often lacks safety features. Have you ever been around haying equipment when it was running? I have (a lifetime of horse obsession and hanging around farms and barns) and I truly admire folks who can run this equipment. It is very intimidating.

Of course if your life's dream is to take up haying, do your research and go for it.

And if you have to take equipment to the shop or have someone come out to fix it those bills can add up fast.

 

[TheMan419]

We run a small (8 horse) operation. 20 acres will be more than enough to feed 2 horses. Around here the "best" hay is the second cutting around 4th of July. 20 acres here would produce about 1000 small squares. A horse needs 1/3 to 1/2 bale per day. So 125-182 bales per year.

We do not do our own hay, just buy it. The guy we buy from has a skid steer with an accumulator on the front. So he can lift and stack 10 bales at a time. Yesterday he unloaded and stacked 390 bales into our barn. Not one human hand touched a bale. He brought his skid steer with him when it was unloading time.

If your tractor has a SSQA mount you could use an accumulator. Just remember ballast is your friend. Also make sure you have enough lift capacity on the FEL.

Not sure how much those cost or how you plan to store the hay. If in lofts this plan would not help you.

Also look to see if there is a market for large square bales. They do not tend to have the molding problems a round bale can have. Yes you need to move them with a tractor or skid steer, but once cut open they flake like a small square (only larger flakes of course), so easy to feed if the horse is stalled.

20 acres of hay around here is hobby farm and you are not going to make much $$ off of it.

A good small square bale brings about $5-6 delivered and stacked. Often it is sold for $4.00 "out of the field" meaning the buyer brings their wagon to you and you load it as you bale rather than loading your own wagon. So you only handle it once, hence the less price paid for it.

 

[LouNY]

I am not familiar with the hills of WV, I am familiar with the hills of upstate NY, the eastern side of the upstate area next to Vt., while most of our newer tractors are 4wd the tractors of the 50, 60 and early 70's where almost all 2wd and on top of that, most of them where narrow front ends. We baled an unknown number of bales in that time about 5-6000 bales a year to start and over 10,000 bales a year by 1970. Untill 1968 they were baled with a Farmall 400, then a Farmall 560 both with narrow front ends, a person had to pay attention to what they where doing especially when towing a wagon behind the baler, you would swing up empty and bale some of the worst the drop down to the less steep areas and finish the loads, there were some places you'd bale on the ground and then pick them up by hand but not many.
So simply put a 2wd narrow front end tractor is one heck of a lot better then none and when used with care is quite capable of working hills and hill sides, especially for hay as you are not working wet ground.
You people with your scare tactics about narrow front end row crop tractors are just creating paranoia among people considering them. And repeating heresy that you have heard.

 

[atsah]

not debating, just stating fact - I have had over 20 head of horses at times, fed them for 15 years in a wet Missouri climate, moldy, muddy, had a john deere A for 7 of that to move my bales with so it doenst take much of a tractor to move them around - I also kept them in the pasture and fenced around them to restrict and deal with when muddy since sometimes it was difficult to move them on muddy hills - SO - yes very many advantages to squares but I have NEVER in all my life had any issues with sick horses - other than one got colic in the summer and two jugs of mineral oil and he was fine after a couple of days and lots of walking around. Vet said grass was too dry and he wasn't drinking enough was the cause. I have heard every excuse in the book around moldy hay, round bale waste, but honestly - I would do it the same all over again, round bales are less time consuming, less expensive, less hassle and no one could ever convince me that it makes horses sick I haven't seen it or experienced it. All my horse people around here feed rounds - only the prissy high end people with money to burn that have less sense us the small squares LOL - I love them as some are my dear friends so we kid around a lot about it every fall when we are getting ready for winter and stocking up.

my daughters horses ran/performed just as well or better than their spoon fed high end equine. ;-)

but to stay on track and their desires of squares, I would stick with a heavy 2wd tractor vs a light 4wd every time -

Lots of people have had your luck with moldy hay and many others have not. My sister has a horse farm in Florida with 50 horses, The horses she boards are worth between 25 and 100 thousand dollars, not one of there owners will let a boarding farm feed round bales in a pasture and I don't blame them, I have seen many horses with heaves because of moldy round bales laying in a field in the rain, from what I have seen over the years a square bale in better suited for horses but people can do as they see fit.

 

[zzvyb6]

As i've seen the round vs. square debate, the biggest issue is material handling. You need enough lift capacity to move them, put into a feeder and deal with the waste. Rounds come in various conditions, weight, wrapped, sat out in a field all winter and even oval. Stacked in a barn, they can push out the sides of the building.

If you have extras, you have to find people who have a trailer for them, can chop them up and then feed the hay out. How much simpler could square bales be ? Ever tried to put a round bale on an elevator for putting upstairs? Ever see a tractor pitch over forward because the ballast was insufficient? Ever see a round bale take off down a hill and wind up in North Carolina after starting out in Ohio ? If one knotter throws you off, what are you going to do when 4 out of 5 go Tango Uniform ?
Never saw a square baler catch fire, either at least not spontaneousl

And of course the cost to buy a round baler and the extra power to run it. Statistics show most horse owners and maintainers are women. Here ya go, lady toss this 1500 lb bale into the feeder when you are done riding, OK?

 

[atsah]

As i've seen the round vs. square debate, the biggest issue is material handling. You need enough lift capacity to move them, put into a feeder and deal with the waste. Rounds come in various conditions, weight, wrapped, sat out in a field all winter and even oval. Stacked in a barn, they can push out the sides of the building.

If you have extras, you have to find people who have a trailer for them, can chop them up and then feed the hay out. How much simpler could square bales be ? Ever tried to put a round bale on an elevator for putting upstairs? Ever see a tractor pitch over forward because the ballast was insufficient? Ever see a round bale take off down a hill and wind up in North Carolina after starting out in Ohio ? If one knotter throws you off, what are you going to do when 4 out of 5 go Tango Uniform ?
Never saw a square baler catch fire, either at least not spontaneousl

And of course the cost to buy a round baler and the extra power to run it. Statistics show most horse owners and maintainers are women. Here ya go, lady toss this 1500 lb bale into the feeder when you are done riding, OK?

Well said..

 

[searcyfarms]

bite my tongue...........

 

[atsah]

bite my tongue...........

No big deal, we all have had different outcomes to different things, everyone's input makes the world go around.. Either way it's all valid input and food for thought..