Newbie to haying

[Darren from High River]

Hi all

I have a Kubota L4600. We have around 8 acres that the previous owner used to hay himself and, for the last couple of years, our neighbours have helped us to get hay off it. One year we got 26 round bales and last year, we got around 500 squares.

We much prefer rounds to squares but the neighbour that did rounds has moved away.

I am thinking of purchasing a mower and a baler myself, so that we have complete control over when the hay is taken off.

It is possible to obtain a drum or disc mower that leaves the hay in a state where it doesn't need any further conditioning until it is baled, or am I hoping for too much?

On a somewhat related question, we have lots of gophers and the odd badger that leave horrible mounds and holes. What would be the best implement to use to level these out without completely destroying the grass? Would something like a land leveler work?

Thanks in advance.

 

[Gee Ray]

Do you have a barn to store the equipment? Hay equipment stored out side will not last long. Have you checked on the price of the equipment? Do you have the time if you are still working vs retired?

Understand that 8 acres is not enough land to justify the cost of the equipment. If you want to do it anyway good luck.

 

[Darren from High River]

I am in Alberta, Canada, so we don't get much rain, but a fair amount of snow. We have a quonset so, keeping it indoors will not be an issue.

The cost/benefit analysis is something that I need to bear in mind. Currently, our neighbour splits the hay 50/50 which is, clearly, a good deal for us. I am not much of a mechanic either, so I would prefer to purchase new, rather than go for something that requires fixing up.

Any thoughts on the land leveler issue?

 

[stuckmotor]

My grandfather used to plant oats, cut them with a cycle bar mower and leave them on the ground until they were dry enough to rake and bail for hay. I've cut pasture grass with a 5' Woods Cadet rotary mower with the hay door removed. If it was damp after a day on the ground I might have turned it over with the rake once or twice giving it more time to dry before before bailing. The people who bailed my grandfarher's oats might have done the same thing. It depended a great deal on the weather forecast.

 

[stuckmotor]

I think they filmed part of The River of No Return in Alberta. Beautiful country, Marilyn Monroe didn't look bad, either.

 

[Jchonline]

Haying is an expensive endeavor. You will need to cut, rake, bale, and stack at a minimum. Timing is critical and can be stressful. With a 37 PTO HP machine you are severely limited in what balers you can use. If you have hilly property, even more limited. For medium sized round bales in TX the bare minimum is a 70HP tractor.

I havent seen a sickle bar that can also rake but they may exist. Balers are very expensive...if you find a cheap one its probably given the previous owner problems. You will spend more time messing with them than you do baling in some cases.

We have 150 acres and stopped baling our own a decade ago. Just not worth the hassle if you dont have a commercial level operation in my opinion. If you want to putz around with it I recommend a square baler....what type of livestock do you have?

For the gophers you need to get rid of them first. Traps.

 

[Darren from High River]

Haying is an expensive endeavor. You will need to cut, rake, bale, and stack at a minimum. Timing is critical and can be stressful. With a 37 PTO HP machine you are severely limited in what balers you can use. If you have hilly property, even more limited. For medium sized round bales in TX the bare minimum is a 70HP tractor.

I havent seen a sickle bar that can also rake but they may exist. Balers are very expensive...if you find a cheap one its probably given the previous owner problems. You will spend more time messing with them than you do baling in some cases.

We have 150 acres and stopped baling our own a decade ago. Just not worth the hassle if you dont have a commercial level operation in my opinion. If you want to putz around with it I recommend a square baler....what type of livestock do you have?

For the gophers you need to get rid of them first. Traps.

Our hay field is relatively flat.

The guy that used to round bale ours made bales that were around 1,100 lbs that our FEL could handle quite easily.

We have horses and sheep. The horses have seen better days so are simply living out their lives. Each year, we sell our male lambs and keep the females to increase our flock. Not for a commercial operation but what we get for them helps pay for feed for them during lean hay years.

Money is not too much of an issue as I work in Calgary. We were hoping that, if we were able to sell some of our excess (what we take off most years is usually enough to get our animals through the winter with some surplus) and, if we didn't have to give 50% away, we could sell that and use that to pay for any maintenance costs for the baler. We would be happy with a small round baler so that we could load into the back of trucks as not everyone has the ability to take round bales of a trailer when they get home.

We have 20 acres as do most of our neighbours. Gophers are everywhere and trapping them is not really an option. I thought that the small hills of dirt they make, and the larger one the badgers make, could be dealt with using a land leveler. Your thoughts?

 

[Darren from High River]

I think they filmed part of The River of Np Return in Alberta. Beautiful country, Marilyn Monroe didn't look bad, either.

We live a hop, skip and a jump away from where they film "Heartland", if you've ever watched that.

 

[KennyG]

Point one - You don't need a conditioner. Years ago, we cut clover and alfalfa with a sickle mower and just let it dry on the ground. You just need to plan ahead and find 3 or 4 days with no rain.

Point two - As pointed out, doing your own baling with 8 acres doesn't make much sense. When I grew up, there were lots of small farmers with 5 to 25 acres of hay. As I recall, there were 2 guys in the neighborhood with balers that did everyones baling. And they spent about as much time working on the balers as they did baling, which is why no one else wanted to own a baler.

 

[Darren from High River]

Point one - You don't need a conditioner. Years ago, we cut clover and alfalfa with a sickle mower and just let it dry on the ground. You just need to plan ahead and find 3 or 4 days with no rain.

Point two - As pointed out, doing your own baling with 8 acres doesn't make much sense. When I grew up, there were lots of small farmers with 5 to 25 acres of hay. As I recall, there were 2 guys in the neighborhood with balers that did everyones baling. And they spent about as much time working on the balers as they did baling, which is why no one else wanted to own a baler.

Thanks for your reply.

I understand that it doesn't make much sense but, if we have to pay for hay, we spend about $1,500 a year on hay. It's Canada and no competition. Recently, 1,200 round bales are selling for $200. Squares (65 lbs) are going for $12 each.

My thought is that, if I can get a relatively maintenance free drum mower and small round baler for around $10,000, in 6 years they will have almost paid for themselves and we would no longer have to rely upon others. I appreciate that I may be dreaming, but I thought I would ask the experts on here if I was.

The first year we moved here, our neighbour took 500 squares that, because he baled when he wanted to, got soaked and we had to pay him to do the work (long story), so we paid him $5 per bale and we could only sell them for $1 a bale to someone with lots of cows.

 

[stuckmotor]

We live a hop, skip and a jump away from where they film "Heartland", if you've ever watched that.

I've found Heartland on Prime. There's beautiful scenery in most of the thumb nails.

I'm pretty sure Alberta is a part of the world where huge hay stacks put up with sweep rakes and beaver slides were once the very popular. Here's a link to the modern small scale version. The guy covers his hay with a tarp and makes it look like fun. I've never tried it but have covered round bales with a tarp and had problems with moisture wicking up from the ground. Should you ever try the stack method, starting out small might be wise so you don't have all your eggs in one basket.

 

[Eagle1]

If it was me (and will be soon) I would find a mower you like and cut. Then either sweep or find an old dump rake to get the hay piled. Feed the critters and save some $$ toward baler if you decide it is needed.

 

[Gee Ray]

I was looking at this thread it got me to thinking. If you have a quonset hut, is it large enough to store the hay without baling it? This would allow you to do your own hay with a much smaller investment. The hay sweep would be a good tool to do such a thing. The addition of a hay trolley to move the hay into the barn, if the barn is tall enough.

Get a drum mower, a hay rake, a hay sweep, a low trailer or wagon and a hay trolley. This would let you mow, rake, and move the hay to the barn with the tractor that you already have. It would be a little more labor intensive then round bales but it relieves the need of the round baler. This would let you do your own hay at a much lower cost. Keep your current tractor as the round balers made today require more HP then what you have.

 

[eagle628]

My thought is that, if I can get a relatively maintenance free drum mower and small round baler for around $10,000, in 6 years they will have almost paid for themselves and we would no longer have to rely upon others. I appreciate that I may be dreaming, but I thought I would ask the experts on here if I was.

There is no baler in the world you can buy for less than $10k and expect to pay nothing to maintain over six years, to say nothing of squeezing a mower into that budget too. $10k buys you a fifteen year old machine that probably needs the pickup rebuilt. Or new belts. Or both. Plus you'll have to pay for fuel and supplies, and, depending on your point of view, opportunity cost in not generating income personally while you're puttering about. If you are willing to look at haymaking as a hobby, and are able to throw lots of money and time at it, with the expectation that you'll have to pay to buy feed once in a while anyway after you break down four hours before your field gets rained on, then by all means buy equipment. If you want to do it frugally, hire someone and accept that you won't be first on their list due to size. If you want to feed your animals really well, buy all stored feed, and graze/brush hog the field.

 

[stuckmotor]

I was looking at this thread it got me to thinking. If you have a quonset hut, is it large enough to store the hay without baling it? This would allow you to do your own hay with a much smaller investment. The hay sweep would be a good tool to do such a thing. The addition of a hay trolley to move the hay into the barn, if the barn is tall enough.

Get a drum mower, a hay rake, a hay sweep, a low trailer or wagon and a hay trolley. This would let you mow, rake, and move the hay to the barn with the tractor that you already have. It would be a little more labor intensive then round bales but it relieves the need of the round baler. This would let you do your own hay at a much lower cost. Keep your current tractor as the round balers made today require more HP then what you have.

Grest.video.
There was a time when I could get my wife on a tractor. The Cozy Cow couple probably hadn't been born then.

 

[stuckmotor]

I'm pretty sure Egon used to build the giant outdoor stacks in the old days. Maybe he'll join in the thread.

 

[sea2summit]

Haying is an expensive endeavor. You will need to cut, rake, bale, and stack at a minimum. Timing is critical and can be stressful. With a 37 PTO HP machine you are severely limited in what balers you can use. If you have hilly property, even more limited. For medium sized round bales in TX the bare minimum is a 70HP tractor.

I havent seen a sickle bar that can also rake but they may exist. Balers are very expensive...if you find a cheap one its probably given the previous owner problems. You will spend more time messing with them than you do baling in some cases.

We have 150 acres and stopped baling our own a decade ago. Just not worth the hassle if you dont have a commercial level operation in my opinion. If you want to putz around with it I recommend a square baler....what type of livestock do you have?

For the gophers you need to get rid of them first. Traps.

I think if you looked closely at a lot of old square baling photos you'd see them behind 25-30 HP tractors. I've done a lot of small squares on a NH 311 and it was never the tractor limiting the through put with that baler.

Every other part of the post I agree with.

 

[sea2summit]

Thanks for your reply.

I understand that it doesn't make much sense but, if we have to pay for hay, we spend about $1,500 a year on hay. It's Canada and no competition. Recently, 1,200 round bales are selling for $200. Squares (65 lbs) are going for $12 each.

My thought is that, if I can get a relatively maintenance free drum mower and small round baler for around $10,000, in 6 years they will have almost paid for themselves and we would no longer have to rely upon others. I appreciate that I may be dreaming, but I thought I would ask the experts on here if I was.

The first year we moved here, our neighbour took 500 squares that, because he baled when he wanted to, got soaked and we had to pay him to do the work (long story), so we paid him $5 per bale and we could only sell them for $1 a bale to someone with lots of cows.

My maintenance bill for my last hay cutting was $1,200 US for 16 acres. The year before I was averaging about $200 per cutting. That's not routine stuff like grease and bearings, that's "ohh crap that just broke and I have to replace it today" stuff.

My neighbor bought a brand new round baler last year and he's spent more than $2k having the maint tech come out to work on stuff that wasn't right and actually missed a whole cutting last year due to maintenance issues.

Don't look at the purchase price as you're break even.

 

[Gee Ray]

I put up thousands of square bales with a MF1528 hst with a NH 273 baler. The MF was outstanding at baling as it is very easy to adjust the ground speed to match the density of the windrow. I have a NH TL80A cab and the MF 1528 was the go to tractor for baling.

So the OP's tractor would work for square baling but not for round balers unless you buy one of the mini balers that makes small round bales.

 

[ROUSTABOUT]

There is no baler in the world you can buy for less than $10k and expect to pay nothing to maintain over six years, to say nothing of squeezing a mower into that budget too. $10k buys you a fifteen year old machine that probably needs the pickup rebuilt. Or new belts. Or both. Plus you'll have to pay for fuel and supplies, and, depending on your point of view, opportunity cost in not generating income personally while you're puttering about. If you are willing to look at haymaking as a hobby, and are able to throw lots of money and time at it, with the expectation that you'll have to pay to buy feed once in a while anyway after you break down four hours before your field gets rained on, then by all means buy equipment. If you want to do it frugally, hire someone and accept that you won't be first on their list due to size. If you want to feed your animals really well, buy all stored feed, and graze/brush hog the field.

We sold a round baler that would do it all day long. Sold it for 3500. It's in another state now. Bought a bigger one used for 4500. Worked on it a few days, mainly the belts, now it can go all day too. Yes I did pack that cylinder for the string tie. I've got one here now that works good that I bought a few months ago for a spare for 1500, everything works. Got a disc mower for 1400, cuts good and quiet. Just bought two months ago. Bought a double V rake for 1000, good shape ready to use. Had a guy try to sell me a John Deere (Kuhn) disc mower for 500, but I gave him 2500 for it and still think I got a deal. So now I have two mowers.

Baled for years with no trouble, thousands of bales a year, didn't work on it. Once I went through the bigger one, it's been going two years now. We kept both for a while. Once I work on something, I consider it good to go. I'll be honest. I can make a hay baler work like a dream. But, I've never baled a bale of hay in my life. I have cut, raked, fluffed a lot though. I have also built a lot of oil drilling rigs, but never drilled an oil well. I have drilled a few water wells, we bought a rig a few years ago. It was a real one, built just like an oil rig, just smaller. Had water pumps and all. I mean 4" pumps with 20 hp engines. It had a top drive and a chiksan joint to allow water to pump through the drill pipe. Had some TRI Cone bits. I have went 300' and it was no problem.