Successful haying with a compact tractor(and now I need advice)

DigitalCowboy · Sep 17, 2018

So, let me get this out of the way right off the bat: for the amount of hay I'm doing it probably would be cheaper/smarter/better to just pay someone else to do it. I'm not for two reasons, first I can't get anyone to reliably show up. Second, I kind of enjoy this stuff and I just feel like doing it.

We live on 40 acres, most of which is wooded. There's a ~10 acre clear area mostly taken up by a horse pasture. I cut and baled the rest of it in the past week, hay is for the horses.

I've had a Mahindra 3535 tractor for several years now. I saw people selling hay equipment cheap as the haying season is ending and bought a John Deere 37 sickle mower and a New Holland 65 compact hayliner. Both worked well, although I may need to tweak/sharpen the mower or improve my skills with it as it was clogging up frequently.

I have read some people saying you need a 50+ hp tractor to run a baler. Perhaps this is because the NH 65 is a "compact" baler that makes smaller bales but I got along just fine with 35hp. I feel pretty confident the Mahindra would be able to bale as much hay as could fit into the baler at at time. So for anyone contemplating this I can testify that it will absolutely work and work well.

I thought about a hay rake but I wanted to see if I could get by without one. Seemed like it worked allright, I wonder if I'd have picked up more hay if I'd used one but it dried out well enough with the 3 days of high 80s-low 90s weather we've been having and I'm not sure that I'm really saving myself anything consolidating hay into windrows running the exact same tractor on such a small scale.

So here is where I'm looking for advice. You can probably see all the goldenrod in the background where I didn't cut- didn't think it was worth it being so weedy. What's the best way to get rid of that? I'm not adverse to spraying, I understand some people mow it down before it goes to seed but there's plenty more of the stuff on the side of the fence I don't own to re-seed it unfortunately. I'd get a lot more hay if that was all grass and I could cut it. I also am noting we're getting more and more weeds in the pasture, was thinking of confining the horses to the small pen for a couple days and spraying that... maybe even trying to bale the larger part of the pasture if the grass gets high enough. If I do spray it has to be something that I can be sure won't harm the horses.... keeping them out of the sprayed area for a few days isn't a problem but eventually they'll be eating this hay and I'd be in big big trouble if I killed one of my wife's horses.

The other thing I'm wondering is should I plan on fertilizing this and when? I would assume if I'm cutting and baling the hay I'm taking something out that needs put back somehow. What's the best way, do I go buy a broadcast spreader and some bags of fertilizer? Take soil samples somewhere and have them tested?

If it helps I'm in Pike co, IL... or a little over an hour north of St Louis.

Halftrack · Sep 17, 2018

Hay making has been furious in my neighborhood the last week, thanks to FLORENCE stalling our weather pattern. Not something you can or want to count on when making hay. You might consider a drum mower for your cutting needs, fast and no clogging and it windrows the hay. As far as the spraying and weed removal, I would check with your county ag agent. HE can suggest times, types of spray chemicals and guide you with reseeding recommendations. I would also check with your local ASCS office for a no till seeder to reseed after spraying. A soil test is also warranted at some point, especially to determine ph and lime needs. Its fortunate you were able to make a harvest, with your limited equipment, but these were unusual circumstances and not often repeated. In normal weather conditions I could see a tedder/rake combo benefitting your operation. good luck

leeave96 · Sep 18, 2018

When you consider tractor hp, PTO hp is what to look for. Your tractor might be 35 engine hp, but the PTO is, I think, around 29. Another thing to be mindful of with these compact tractors is the shock the plunger pits to the tractor. It was enough to brake castings on some compact tractors and if you read the fine print on some compact Kubota tractors (from several years ago) they state the tractors are not recommend or warranted for baler use. But if your getting along fine...

You should find a rake and 2 basket tedder and you値l have a better time of it haying.

Get with an extension agent for herbicide and fertilizer recommendations, as well as soil samples for analysis.

10 acres will keep you busy with the equipment you have.

Good luck,
Bill

corl · Sep 18, 2018

It depends on your time frame but mowing is the long term answer to weed control in pastures. The horses eat the good stuff and allow the weeds to mature and go to seed. Constant mowing reduces the weeds. I started a cattle operation some years ago after buying some property that had lots of multi floral roses. Just constant mowing has eliminated the roses and the cattle added nitrogen so that the pasture has nicer grass now than my lawn. Rotational grazing is also helpful at least in my case.

DigitalCowboy · Sep 18, 2018

Thanks, guys I will check in with local ASCS and see what they have to say.

I was looking at rakes, in keeping with my buying old used equipment theme it looks like I could find an old wheel rake or ground driven bar rake cheap. Don't have experience with either- I do have a lot of obstacles to maneuver around which makes it more difficult.

OTOH I like the idea of this belt rake, looks like it would be a good size and do anything I needed. I would also guess it might work better on some of my uneven ground
TX78 Mini Belt Rake by Ibex Tractor Tools Direct $2,000 will more than double what I've got invested in equipment already though.

I have a brush hog, would it be worth my effort to go mow down all the weedy areas now to thin them out for next year?

Hiptfarms · Sep 18, 2018

For what it is worth, I have been putting up hay on the cheap for a few years on a little more than the area you mentioned. I use a NH sickle bar mower, a Ford roller bar rake, and currently a MF 3 square baler. I have a tedder but it is unnecessary for my situation thus far. I find the rake a necessary item for my operation. I bought it for $400 and like it very much. It is a simple design which is fairly easy to repair.
The fields I cut are all mostly native grasses. The weeds and native flowers have slowly thinned as the grasses have thickened. I believe that the competition from the grasses has helped, along with the harvesting, to diminish the weeds as well as golden rod that were previously there. I did take the time to spot spray for bull thistle and some larger briars but otherwise, I haven't found it necessary to waste my money on herbicides. Your mileage may vary. Also, I spent 800 bucks fertilizing to spec's after soil samples were analyzed by my local extension service once. I used a spin spreader. And yes the fertilizer made the grass grow better; however, my thoughts are that as long as I am able to see good growth and am able to harvast as much hay as I need for the winter, I'll be keeping my fertilizer money in my pockets. I do have a manure spreader and I spread manure, composted bedding, and wood ash on my own fields but not at the ones I cut that I do not own. Again, depending on how much hay you need, you may want to completely ignore my experience and spray and fertilize til your heart is content. Fyi, if you are feeding horses be sure to not put nitrogen in your field within two weeks of harvast. At least that is what I have been taught.

Congratulations on your haying success. It is a great feeling to see a nice stack of hay in your barn and know your work put it there.

Hiptfarms · Sep 19, 2018

Digitalcowboy,
I sent you a pm.

rankrank1 · Sep 19, 2018

No way could I put up hay without a rake. Heck I use 2 old JD 594 rakes on steel wheels that I have less than $125 total in both. They are my most used hay tools as I improvise tedd with them too by flippying windrows to get hay dry.

NH 65 baler is a fine baler and certainly the best pick out there amongst the old and cheap for one to put behind a compact tractor. I baled for several years with one behind a small 23 PTO hp at 540 PTO rpm speed Kubota L285 compact tractor. My little tractor handled it fine (likely still pics on this site if you search). I usually use a farmall h (26 hp) or farmall M (36 hp) on the NH 65 now though even though I still have the Kubota. Not really because either of the antique farmalls handles the baler any better at all. In some ways, the farmalls are actually inferior as less gear choices to choose from compared to my Kubota. That said, the Farmalls have beef in the PTO driveline where the Kubota (or any other compact tractor for that matter) not so much beef in the PTO driveline. Plus the farmall's of mine are of very low monetary value where my Kubota still has some monetary value yet so I use the Farmalls instead. Any baler can be hard on the PTO drivelines with gyro effects and the rocking but the NH 65's smaller bale chamber size and hence smaller plunger do lessen that harshness.

TheMan419 · Oct 13, 2018

Dow AgroSciences — GrazonNext(R) HL herbicide

Grazon is a good choice for many pastures. Not sure what kind of grasses you are growing so read the label directions. Also ask your extension agent.

prof fate · Oct 13, 2018

Glad to hear..how many bales on how many acres?

We got a kioti CK3510 this year - similar to yours in power with the thought of maybe haying with it, so i'm interested in your results.

The horses don't eat it all - last year and in the past the brush hogging was hire out but it got to be too hard to get someone to come and do it..so now I do it. Last year only got cut once in the fall - EVERYTHING went to seed.

How to rehab the pasture? Mowing..let it mature and flower and mow to 5" or so, no shorter (grass needs to come back and that is, i've read, ideal height).
They have equipment that uses a wick (aka rope) set at a height above the groud to distrubute glyphosate/2-4D - it rubs on weeds of a height, so you don't kill everything like you would if you spray.

reseeding/overseeding...haven't got a good answer on how to do that.

Thoought is we should get enough hay off 10-12 acres that we don't need to buy any - saving $4-5k a year. So the equipment would be paid for in year 1. BUT we need a place to store all that hay...so costs involved there.

Time wise...we hog 20 acres or so monthly or so (very wet thisyear so it's growing like mad). 5 or 6 mowings. Haying you'll mow 3 times - BUT also rake/turn the hay and then bale it..and another trip 'round to pick it up -so no time / fuel saving over mowing it, perhaps even more time spent - BUT - you get something for your work.

Next year we'll see what the grass looks like. The two 'paddocks' are beautiful grass/hay...the big pastures not so much. The paddocks were mowed (2 acres total maybe) where the big pastures were not and when the brush hog 'guy' couldn't come...it got bad.

DigitalCowboy said:
So, let me get this out of the way right off the bat: for the amount of hay I'm doing it probably would be cheaper/smarter/better to just pay someone else to do it. I'm not for two reasons, first I can't get anyone to reliably show up. Second, I kind of enjoy this stuff and I just feel like doing it.

We live on 40 acres, most of which is wooded. There's a ~10 acre clear area mostly taken up by a horse pasture. I cut and baled the rest of it in the past week, hay is for the horses.

I've had a Mahindra 3535 tractor for several years now. I saw people selling hay equipment cheap as the haying season is ending and bought a John Deere 37 sickle mower and a New Holland 65 compact hayliner. Both worked well, although I may need to tweak/sharpen the mower or improve my skills with it as it was clogging up frequently.

View attachment 571317

I have read some people saying you need a 50+ hp tractor to run a baler. Perhaps this is because the NH 65 is a "compact" baler that makes smaller bales but I got along just fine with 35hp. I feel pretty confident the Mahindra would be able to bale as much hay as could fit into the baler at at time. So for anyone contemplating this I can testify that it will absolutely work and work well.

I thought about a hay rake but I wanted to see if I could get by without one. Seemed like it worked allright, I wonder if I'd have picked up more hay if I'd used one but it dried out well enough with the 3 days of high 80s-low 90s weather we've been having and I'm not sure that I'm really saving myself anything consolidating hay into windrows running the exact same tractor on such a small scale.

So here is where I'm looking for advice. You can probably see all the goldenrod in the background where I didn't cut- didn't think it was worth it being so weedy. What's the best way to get rid of that? I'm not adverse to spraying, I understand some people mow it down before it goes to seed but there's plenty more of the stuff on the side of the fence I don't own to re-seed it unfortunately. I'd get a lot more hay if that was all grass and I could cut it. I also am noting we're getting more and more weeds in the pasture, was thinking of confining the horses to the small pen for a couple days and spraying that... maybe even trying to bale the larger part of the pasture if the grass gets high enough. If I do spray it has to be something that I can be sure won't harm the horses.... keeping them out of the sprayed area for a few days isn't a problem but eventually they'll be eating this hay and I'd be in big big trouble if I killed one of my wife's horses.

The other thing I'm wondering is should I plan on fertilizing this and when? I would assume if I'm cutting and baling the hay I'm taking something out that needs put back somehow. What's the best way, do I go buy a broadcast spreader and some bags of fertilizer? Take soil samples somewhere and have them tested?

If it helps I'm in Pike co, IL... or a little over an hour north of St Louis.