Tiny tractor hay.

[5030]

So I I hate sickle mowers personally,

So do I actually, don't hate them, don't hate anything but maybe my ex wife....lol I don't like them is a better term but I do own one as a backup in case my disc mower has a brain fart. Sits in the barn and has for a couple years but it's 100% field ready in case I need it Of course you cannot operate a disc machine with a low horsepower tractor, not in the cards so you are kind of limited to what you can cut with in the first place. With a disc machine, it's not so much as having adequate power is it's having adequate power to get it up to cutting speed, lots of mass there to get rotating. Once it's up to cutting speed, it don't take a lot of power to keep it there., so long as the knives are sharp and you don't have the crimp rolls set too tight.

 

[jdmeth]

I am purchasing a Massey Ferguson gc1725mb for land scraping and chores on my hobby farm. As I approach retirement the farm will transition into my full time gig (men tend to die when they quit working). I have about 9-10 acres of hay and am looking for the best way to take over the haying (currently have a deal with a farmer a few miles away) with my small tractor. I have been looking at sickle mowers and belt rake/tedders. No idea for baling. I’m all ears.

 

[Dale in MI]

Look at what some Amish do using 1 or 2 horsepower to get hay to the barn. Found this picture on the internet:

When I was a farm kid in the 60s, it was a common sight to see old hay loaders rusting on the edge of fields. I wish I had one now. I have an old JD 14T that I bought for $1200. I broke both knotters after a year. Turns out rebuilding those knotters is about $1200.

From other pictures online, you can see the common set up was to pull the loader behind the hay wagon, so it loads from the back.

I was only getting about 25 bales of hay off my small fields, so loose storage is more attractive then the cost of running a baler.

There was a huge barn in the Brooklyn, MI area that I saw some years ago. Before it started falling down, it had a ramp where mules pulled the hay wagon up to the top. Then they dumped the hay off the wagon onto the pile.

 

[jdmeth]

Any man with a home and wife will always have a job. I became disabled in 2009. With little money I had to do all the home repairs myself. It seems like I have done more work in the last 13 years then I did in the preceding 13. My wife got a good job so we do have some money so I got a John Deere 1023E to help with my gardening and yard work. I owned a form for 25 years so I am really enjoying having my little tractor to play with.

 

[Dmacleo]

I am purchasing a Massey Ferguson gc1725mb for land scraping and chores on my hobby farm. As I approach retirement the farm will transition into my full time gig (men tend to die when they quit working). I have about 9-10 acres of hay and am looking for the best way to take over the haying (currently have a deal with a farmer a few miles away) with my small tractor. I have been looking at sickle mowers and belt rake/tedders. No idea for baling. I’m all ears.

you ain't gonna bale it.
unless you want 1ft square bales.
own a gc2400, got a gc1723 here, often use a GC1725MB couple hundred feet down the road, lot of time on GC1710, etc. you get my drift.
you ain't gonna bale with it.

 

[oldpilot]

During the War years 1943-45 my father was caretaker at a mansion in Concord MA. To get gasoline for his two 12-cylinder Lincoln Continentals, the owner became a farmer and hired Dad, two Norwegians up the road, some teenagers from Boston who bunked in the former Conservation Corps barrack, and my brother and me. I don't know what the others earned, but Joe and I got 25 cents an hour the first year, 30 cents the second, and a near-adult wage of 35 cents that final summer. Not only did the owner get a farmer's ration coupon for the Continentals but unlimited gasoline for the Allis Chalmers tractor.

The implements were all for horse-farming. As the littlest guy, I got to ride on the side-bar cutter and the tedder and when the hay was all windrowed, I got to ride on the wagon, tramp down the hay, and with my pitchfork catch the hay that the older boys forked up to me. So you don't need a baler; all you need is a gang of elementary- and high-school boys. (Girls too, I suppose, these days.)

I never saw any mice in that hay barn. There were rats in the horse stable, though. Dad killed them with a pitchfork.

>(men tend to die when they quit working)

Damn right. I've kept working, and I'll be 91 in three weeks.

 

[Rod in Forfar]

I am purchasing a Massey Ferguson gc1725mb for land scraping and chores on my hobby farm. As I approach retirement the farm will transition into my full time gig (men tend to die when they quit working). I have about 9-10 acres of hay and am looking for the best way to take over the haying (currently have a deal with a farmer a few miles away) with my small tractor. I have been looking at sickle mowers and belt rake/tedders. No idea for baling. I’m all ears.

I have been retired to a farm for nineteen years, and the best decision I have made in that time has been to allow the local retired veterinarian to harvest the fifty acres of field I have not converted to tree production. My three little diesel tractors have plenty to do with a crop of trees. The two wider tractors, 35 hp diesels, are useless for the tree husbandry because of their size, and too small for modern hay harvesting.

 

[rScotty]

I am purchasing a Massey Ferguson gc1725mb for land scraping and chores on my hobby farm. As I approach retirement the farm will transition into my full time gig (men tend to die when they quit working). I have about 9-10 acres of hay and am looking for the best way to take over the haying (currently have a deal with a farmer a few miles away) with my small tractor. I have been looking at sickle mowers and belt rake/tedders. No idea for baling. I’m all ears.

Is this to be a hobby or a profit making adventure? Or are you interested in something altogether different - like comparing types of grasses, or the various ways to store hay .....or if in bales - the types of balers?

Knowing where you are headed will help you to get there. "Hobby Farm" covers a lot of territory. Do you have a use for the hay yourself?

TBNers are kind of oriented towards opinions on cost and profitabiliy rather than say a discussion on haying equipment, curing, or grasses.

rScotty

 

[Hofzer]

My 2c. Spend the money you would spend on new "mini" hay equipment ($$$) and upgrade your tractor to a larger compact roughly equivalent to the Kubota "L" series. Many options out there. Then some old, well-kept hay equipment. For example, a NH 268 or 273 square baler.

You will like having the extra tractor for chores and many people, including me, mow with a tractor that size.

 

[Gizmos]

I am purchasing a Massey Ferguson gc1725mb for land scraping and chores on my hobby farm. As I approach retirement the farm will transition into my full time gig (men tend to die when they quit working). I have about 9-10 acres of hay and am looking for the best way to take over the haying (currently have a deal with a farmer a few miles away) with my small tractor. I have been looking at sickle mowers and belt rake/tedders. No idea for baling. I’m all ears.

Many opinions but ultimately you will have to decide how mechanically inclined you are and how much labor is too much. I have square baled plenty with an 8N and it doesn't take too much horsepower but it does take patience and be prepared to do a lot of your own wrench turning. I have a few years of auto and industrial mechanic experience and would not be afraid of tackling this with a sickle bar and an old New Holland baler. I would look for sickle mower that does not have a pitmann arm like a NH 451. Smoother running and less likely to break if you hit a small tree or big weed. I like the older New Holland baler because parts seem to be more avaiable as compared to other brands. I started on my 15 acres with a Ford 4000, Massey Ferguson 81 mower and a NH 271 baler. Tractor engine was froze up, MF 81 came out of a tree line been there 20 years and the NH271 baler needed every bearing and bushing replaced. More HP than you are starting with but not nearly enough according to neighbors. But on the flip side I could turn out tighter more consistent bales than most everyone else around here and selling them has never been an issue.