Haying with compact tractor

flusher · Jul 24, 2016

gdk22984 said:
Hi all,

I own a small farm with 2 (maybe 3 in the future) quarter horses. I have been toying with the idea of building up my small field (4 acres or so) and doing my own haying. Right now I buy 400 per year (as of now), however the haying business in my area is a dying breed. I keep finding I have to travel farther and farther for good quality hay and the price is climbing because of the demand. We use the standard square bale, so here are my questions.

-My tractor is a JD 4400 35 hp hydro. I understand that this may be to small for a conventional baler. I have researched some mini square balers, they would seem to work well but hard to find used. New they are around 17K not shipped. I understand New Holland makes or made a smaller unit for smaller HP tractors. Thoughts on this?

- I have first dibs on a JD MX5 rotary mower for cheap. How would this unit perform for hay cutting?

Appreciate all the help!

You can find small balers for $1-2K if you shop around.

Mine was a Massey Ferguson 124 (two twine, small squares) that I bought for $2K. The previous owner had used it the previous day to bale a part of his 30 acre hayfield. So I knew it was working OK.

The operator manual recommends 32 hp (pto) as the minimum power to run the baler. But balers this size have been run successfully with much less hp.

Check out this video that shows a Farmall Super A running a baler the size of my 124 on level ground. That tractor has about 17 hp (pto). The baler part appears at 6 minutes into the video.

FARMALL Super A - YouTube

Your tractor should have no problem running a baler like this on level ground. If your hayfield is sloped, you may have problems pulling the baler uphill (balers like this weigh upwards of 3000 lb). Solution: bale parallel to the slope.

That MX5 mower is a brush hog used to mow weeds not hay. The least expensive hay mower is a sicklebar. My mower was a Massey Ferguson 31 sicklebar with 7 ft cutter bar. Cost $600 at auction. Put in about $200 in new parts to get it ready for mowing.

Farmer495 · Jul 24, 2016

crabjoe said:
I don't know anyone that has ever used one but have you looked into the Chinese hay balers? They look cheap enough to buy new.

Chinese square hay baler

Looks like a Hesston clone for $2000 new? Freight to get it here, wonder if it's a crappy knock off, or an actual "parts interchange" with the real thing?

powerscol · Jul 24, 2016

vsteel said:
It is really going to depend a lot on the baler. I ran a JD 336 with an Oliver 770 for years and years. The Oliver is a ~8K tractor with fluid in the tires and 50hp and that baler would really rock the Oliver and when you got into thicker hay it would really kick in the governor. The 336 would beat the crap out of a smaller tractor even if it had the horsepower. Now if you can get one of the really old balers they are much smaller and you might be OK since you are working with a 4000 series tractor.

I had the same issue when I tried (demoed) a side pickup baler. With the flywheel on the side rotating in the same direction as the plunger it will put one heck of a force on the tractor. Think of the dynamics with it being offset from the tractor and working with leverage. My inline Hesston has the flywheel mounted up front sideways so it tends to cancel out the plunger action - Huge difference. It also is directly behind and easy to get through gates etc.

vsteel · Jul 24, 2016

flusher said:
The operator manual recommends 32 hp (pto) as the minimum power to run the baler. But balers this size have been run successfully with much less hp.

Check out this video that shows a Farmall Super A running a baler the size of my 124 on level ground. That tractor has about 17 hp (pto). The baler part appears at 6 minutes into the video.

FARMALL Super A - YouTube

I would caution people to take those kinds of videos with a grain of salt for a couple of reasons.

1. He was picking up very small windrows. I am guessing he was getting 30+ strokes in a bale.

2. Take what those old tractors can do with a grain of salt. Rebuilding those tractors a lot of them shared a same block so you can put in bigger sleeves and turn up the horse power pretty easy. For example I was looking at taking our old IH super C and turning up the horsepower to 50. It needs a rebuild anyway, looked on line and there are a ton of kits for it. I think it would be harder to keep it stock than to put in the bigger sleeves and pistons. We did it for our Oliver 77, it is now running the same size motor as the Oliver 770 just because when we rebuilt it we put in larger sleeves.

RickB · Jul 24, 2016

vsteel said:
I would caution people to take those kinds of videos with a grain of salt for a couple of reasons.

1. He was picking up very small windrows. I am guessing he was getting 30+ strokes in a bale.

2. Take what those old tractors can do with a grain of salt. Rebuilding those tractors a lot of them shared a same block so you can put in bigger sleeves and turn up the horse power pretty easy. For example I was looking at taking our old IH super C and turning up the horsepower to 50. It needs a rebuild anyway, looked on line and there are a ton of kits for it. I think it would be harder to keep it stock than to put in the bigger sleeves and pistons. We did it for our Oliver 77, it is now running the same size motor as the Oliver 770 just because when we rebuilt it we put in larger sleeves.

Putting a 770 kit in a 77 is a whole different deal than getting 50 PTO HP out of a Super C and making it run all day.

rankrank1 · Jul 24, 2016

I can only say I began baling with my little Kubota L285 compact tractor. Actually it handled the baler rather well. That said, There simply has to be a reason that every manufacturer voids your warranty on a compact tractor if you run a baler with it.

While I do not feel I hurt my tractor any running the baler, there is no camparison in the size of the gears and tranny driveline in my Farmall h or Farmall M to the little Kubota. They get baler duty nowadays and I can still feel the plunger strokes on them. My old Farmalls were both dirt cheap to buy and if the baler tears em up then I am out little of nothing so cheap insurance on preserving the little Kubota.

RickB · Jul 24, 2016

B.S. flag waving :whistleblower::whistleblower::whistleblower:

I'd like some proof that ALL mfg's void warranties based on that use. All, you say.

aczlan · Jul 24, 2016

rankrank1 said:
That said, There simply has to be a reason that every manufacturer voids your warranty on a compact tractor if you run a baler with it.

Can you provide a source for this? Kubota's warranty book (https://www.kubota.com/assets/warranty/kubota_warranty.pdf ) says nothing about balers other than they have a 12 month warranty.

Aaron Z

aczlan · Jul 24, 2016

We shoot for 12-16 strokes per bale with the NH 269 baler behind our L3830GST.
That is adequate as long as you adjust ground speed to not quite stuff the hay chamber.

Aaron Z

Creamer · Jul 24, 2016

I look at that video and I see the baler pickup tossing and tossing the hay. I have always wondered why balers didn't run a pickup more like a combine pickup so that it gently just fed a stream in.

aczlan · Jul 24, 2016

Creamer said:
I look at that video and I see the baler pickup tossing and tossing the hay. I have always wondered why balers didn't run a pickup more like a combine pickup so that it gently just fed a stream in.

He was baling some very short hay in a small windrow, it should look more like this:

Aaron Z

Creamer · Jul 24, 2016

I understand but still the combine pickups were so much smoother and picked up cleaner. I will bet they were more expensive though and probably not as rock friendly.

Sawyer Rob · Jul 24, 2016

RickB said:
B.S. flag waving :whistleblower::whistleblower::whistleblower:

I'd like some proof that ALL mfg's void warranties based on that use. All, you say.

A couple or three years ago, a guy "on this sight" shelled out the pto on his new "L" series Kubota while it was still under warr... Kubota REFUSED warr., telling him L series should not be used for baling hay, that they built the "M" series for baling!

Who ever the guy was, (I don't remember) wasn't very happy with THAT bill, and Kubota never covered it!

I'll stick to baling with a FARM tractor! thankyouverymuch!

SR

aczlan · Jul 24, 2016

Here is the thread (from 2002): http://www.tractorbynet.com/forums/haying/15697-baling-hay-cut.html
Per the thread, Kubota said that because the baler's minimum HP was higher than the tractor's PTO HP, it was abuse. The owner was planning on a lawsuit under the Magnum Moss Warranty Act. Not sure where it went as the thread kind of petered out.

Aaron Z

sd455dan · Jul 25, 2016

Yeah, This line from post 17 covered it: Kubota does have a catch-all phrase in the operators manual stating: "Use with implements which exceed the maximum specifications stated below, or which are otherwise unfit for use with the Kubota Tractor may result in malfunctions or failures of the tractor ... [Any malfunctions or failures of the tractor resulting from such use with improper implements are not covered by the warranty.]"

Still can certainly understand why the owner would have been (upset) with a catastrophic failure.

The thread reinforces my belief that given a choice, low RPM - high torque engines/drivetrains are preferable to a comparable (at least with reference to rated Horsepower) engine that has to run at an elevated RPM to achieve the same HP in CUTS /UTs

Sounds like the baler was about 17%? over Kubotas safe rating...

Also interesting that Kubota was printing brochures at the time showing an L series operating a larger round baler- http://www.tractorbynet.com/forums/...47-174963-kubotal4310hstbalinghay-cropped-jpg

Wonder if they still show a similar size L with a round baler on the new brochures?

Entertaining thread

Farmer495 · Jul 25, 2016

Seems to me square baler specs now have min PTO HP and WEIGHT of tractor to disallow compact use.

RickB · Jul 25, 2016

aczlan said:
Here is the thread (from 2002): http://www.tractorbynet.com/forums/haying/15697-baling-hay-cut.html
Per the thread, Kubota said that because the baler's minimum HP was higher than the tractor's PTO HP, it was abuse. The owner was planning on a lawsuit under the Magnum Moss Warranty Act. Not sure where it went as the thread kind of petered out.

Aaron Z

So much for the 'all manufacturers' thing. We have one instance involving one brand. And a new TBN legend.

aczlan · Jul 25, 2016

RickB said:
So much for the 'all manufacturers' thing. We have one instance involving one brand. And a new TBN legend.

And, its not a blanket prohibition, its a "don't use a implement that is too big for your tractor or we wont cover it under warranty when it breaks" prohibition.

Aaron Z