Mahindra 2615 4WD Gear - Can I Put Up Hay with it

[flusher]

Thanks so much for the suggestions/advice. I think my plan for now is to ask my friend to cut, rake/tedder and bale the hay for at a minimum this year. I will take the suggestions from you guys and begin shopping around to see what I can find with the tractor being the first order of priority because as @Ted says a man needs a couple tractors around! Once I find the tractor I can then start looking for haying equipment based on the size of the tractor I find. Have been looking around and would love to find an older IH, JD or MF for a reasonable price. I plan on working for another 5 or 6 six years, so my thinking is to get the equipment bought while I am still capable of saving up the money to make the cash purchases. Don't want any payments anymore that just does not fit into the retirement plan. My ultimate goal all along has been to convince the wife that the tractor will be the biggest purchase because I would love to find an older one with a cab, which would be nice to lower the dust while working the hay and would be real nice in the winter. Have seen them out there in the $8-$10k range and I just might be able to swing that price.

I forgot to mention another baler option, namely, a small square two or three-twine baler with an onboard engine (usually a 15-20 hp Wisconsin engine). So all your tractor has to do is tow the baler around your hayfield (assuming that it's relatively flat with no steep hills). My neighbor recently baled about 8 acres of oat hay using a 3-twine small square baler with an onboard engine.

Actually, you can run a small square baler with very small tractors. Here's a YouTube video showing a baler about the size of my MF124 being operated by a Farmall Super A.

FARMALL Super A - YouTube

The baling is about 6 minutes into the video.

Good luck.