Why not pull a wagon behind a baler?

[Robert_in_NY]

NOTE: Unlike today, there was always plenty of Highschool kids who looked forward to the summer work!!!

One way I found to get help is to hire a 16 year old high school girl to help. I was lucky as my friends daughter was raised around baling and her Dad gave up baling hay so she works for me full time. All she has to do is bat her eyes at her guy friends from school and I get helpers. I had one kid who was allergic to hay and he would keep coming back when she asked until his parents told him to stop. She is 19 now and is in college locally and already has asked about helping me this year. She has been a great asset to me as I can park the equipment in the field to be done and tell her to go for it. I don't have to worry about her messing up my cutter or baler as she knows if there is a problem to call either me or her father if I am unavailable and we will advise her from there or fix it.

Young girls are great workers also as they usually want to prove they are as good a worker as the boys. And with them in the loft the boys tend to want to go up there to work for some reason

I dread it when my daughter is older

 

[jwcinpk]

Are you looking to go with a chute and flat wagons or a thrower and kicker wagons? The thrower is great if you are doing small fields as you can load up the wagons if labor is unavailable till later and if rain is approaching you can just tarp the wagons. I have a tarp that will cover three of my wagons if I park them side to side. I have some plastic twine that does a good job of tieing the tarp off if I need to tarp. So far I have been caught twice having to cover a load as rain approached, one time I covered a load as it was suppose to be delivered the next day and I didn't have any more room in the barns (all 5 wagons were filled for delivery, one in my barn, three in my friends warehouse and one left in the field).

One trick I found with unloading into low barns is that you can usually find conveyors that were hung in barns. If you have to unload on the end of the barn you can set the conveyor up and use the unloader to unload the bales where you are stacking and just move it down the line. If you have a 200' barn and a 100' conveyor then you eliminate half the walking and that is the hard part (draging the bales gets old quick )

Strictly chutes and flat wagons for me. No way a kicker wagon would fit in my low barns. I figure I can just drive in with the flat wagons and stack to the side on pallets. That way the hay will be staying close to the same height all the time. The way I got it figured I'll stack off to the sides as I drive through and then leave the loaded wagons in the middle and sell from them first. My barns are 30 x 60 with a maximum height of 10 ft in the middle on the low ends. 6 foot sidewalls.
I got girls who will soon be at that age you are talking about. I dread it but maybe I can use it to my advantage.

 

[Farmwithjunk]

Funny how the absolute minimum HP for baling with a wagon behind the baler has steadily increased over the years. I've been doing it with a 47 hp tractor for 36 years. On rare occasions, I'd use a 60hp tractor, but that always seemed a waste of fuel to me.

I have 4 wagons big enough to stack 110 to 125 bales per load. I would fill them and back 'em in the barn until there was time to unload. Generally, I wouldn't cut much more hay than they would hold at any one time. On the rare occasions when I would, I'd drop the balance on the ground, empty a wagon or two as fast as possible, then get the rest of the hay on a wagon.

Anyone who's been to this part of Kentucky will tell you there's not a lot of flat ground. We learn to deal with hills. No going straight up or down a hill with a full load. And we keep our tractors weighted to provide enough traction and control. HP itself isn't as important as weight/traction.

I baled with a New Holland 273 for years, then swapped out to a Deere 336. Next year I'll probably switch to an MF #12 baler I just recently bought at an auction.

 

[billbill1]

I can't tell you how many bales I have stacked right off of the baler-but it's a bunch of them!! Old JD balers with a slanted sheetmetal ramp that fed the bales about waist high. It got tough at the front of the wagon but we always managed. In this area, the farmers were forced to go to the big round bales due to they couldn't get the kids to help haul hay anymore. I much prefered this method over throwing from the ground but I've thrown a bunch that way too.

 

[grnspot110]

I grew up using a JD 720D, 58HP, on a JD 14T baler. We only dropped bales on the ground if a patch was too small for the tractor-baler-wagon setup. When we went to contoured fields, a wagon hitch was added under the center of the bale chute to allow easier left turns than the factory hitch would allow. Always used spring wagons, easier on the man on the wagon. Back then, haying was a neighborhood operation, Dad supplied the tractor, baler, two wagons & 3 people. Other neighbors supplied tractors & wagons w/ whatever help they had. In this area you couldn't find the labor now!

 

[Robert_in_NY]

Funny how the absolute minimum HP for baling with a wagon behind the baler has steadily increased over the years. I've been doing it with a 47 hp tractor for 36 years. On rare occasions, I'd use a 60hp tractor, but that always seemed a waste of fuel to me.

I have 4 wagons big enough to stack 110 to 125 bales per load. I would fill them and back 'em in the barn until there was time to unload. Generally, I wouldn't cut much more hay than they would hold at any one time. On the rare occasions when I would, I'd drop the balance on the ground, empty a wagon or two as fast as possible, then get the rest of the hay on a wagon.

Anyone who's been to this part of Kentucky will tell you there's not a lot of flat ground. We learn to deal with hills. No going straight up or down a hill with a full load. And we keep our tractors weighted to provide enough traction and control. HP itself isn't as important as weight/traction.

I baled with a New Holland 273 for years, then swapped out to a Deere 336. Next year I'll probably switch to an MF #12 baler I just recently bought at an auction.

You are right Bill, with todays compacts putting out over 50 hp now I need to start rethinking what I say in regards to certain things. I have been use to 50 hp tractors as being utiilty tractors and having some weight to them, heck even the old 35-40 hp utility tractors had some weight to them. But like anything, the operator has to use his head and know his equipment. If he has a lighter tractor and working on hills the fill the wagons less or if you have flat areas, bale the steep sections till you think the wagon is full enough for the slope then finish filling it on the flat ground.

In regards to using heavier, higher hp tractors I think that is mostly related to people running 575's like I use. NH wants 75 pto hp minimum in front of a 575 and that isn't figuring using a thrower also. With enough hp you can eat a lot of hay with the 575. The difference in performace of the 575 between being run by the TN65 and the 7710-II is night and day. The TN65 ran the baler but no where near as well as the 7710. The extra (well, my 7710 is putting out 120hp at the pto) hp made a huge difference in how well the baler gobbled up the hay. I try to get around 15 strokes per bale so both tractors can accomplish this but if rain is forcasted and I need to get the hay off the ground I can skip worrying about the strokes and just bale as fast as the baler will eat hay and have the wagons being unloaded or if it looks like rain is very close I just park the wagons in my friends warehouse until the rain passes.

I hope to buy my friends Case 230 baler with thrower and play around with the TN65 on that one for fun some time. If the baler works well (it looks great) I want to find an old Case 30 series to put in front of it. There is something about tractors and implements matching that just gets me

 

[CumminsLuke]

I too am amazed at the people who say you can't pull a wagon behind the baler with any less than 70hp. Until I got this 62pto hp tractor I have now, I pulled my JD 24t baler with a wagon behind it with up to 125 bales on the wagon with my M4700 Kubota which was 42hp at the pto. Never one time did a situation arise that I felt I needed more hp or weight. Maybe I am just lucky.

 

[Rara Avis]

I too am amazed at the people who say you can't pull a wagon behind the baler with any less than 70hp. Until I got this 62pto hp tractor I have now, I pulled my JD 24t baler with a wagon behind it with up to 125 bales on the wagon with my M4700 Kubota which was 42hp at the pto. Never one time did a situation arise that I felt I needed more hp or weight. Maybe I am just lucky.

Well there is the difference...my wagons average 250+ 50 to 60 # bales... so I'm hauling 6 1/2 to 7 1/2 tons of product

 

[CumminsLuke]

Well there is the difference...my wagons average 250+ 50 to 60 # bales... so I'm hauling 6 1/2 to 7 1/2 tons of product

What the heck size of wagon you pulling that you can get 250 bales on it? How high do you have to stack? Dang, I don't put more than 350 on my 48'Lx102"W stepdeck gooseneck.

 

[CATMAN]

Back to the original question; I grew up on a Iowa dairy farm and the reason my dad would sometimes bale alfafa in small square bales without a wagon in tow, was to capture the leaves when the morning dew was still on the windrow. You could tell the difference in the leaf content per bale. With a family of six kids, we always had enough workers. Usually, the wagons were pulled behind the baler with a 1961 JD 3010(55 HP) on rolling hills. The old hay racks were spoked, steel wheels, no suspension, and held 90-100 bales with one "stacker" or 120 bales with two "stackers". We have "lost" a few loads due to unseen gopher/badger holes when those narrow steel wheels fell into a big hole and the wagon was full.

As far as barn stacking; I ,too, have been hit on the back by a bale of hay/straw because my lovely sisters didn't "time" the spacing of the bales when they unloaded into the 56 foot elevator outside.​

Today, He has five blue Harvestore silos and everything is chopped. Two years ago, as a gift, I purchased the Attach-matic auto hitch system for the forage wagons and they work GREAT. They work on balers/hay racks, too.($1218 for whole system=2 wagons, one chopper, one tractor hitch mechanisms)

 

[Robert_in_NY]

I have looked at some of the automatic hitch systems but never could see it working well for me. My friend gave me a brand new hitch system for my baler that you pull a rope from the seat of the tractor and it unhitches the wagon. This way you only have to back up to the new wagon and hop off the tractor once to hook up. Of course I have not hooked it up yet but with my new situtation I am going to have my friends at the machine shop hook it up for me as the hitch was designed for a different setup and I am going to need some fabrication work done to make it work with mine.

I can't complain with the price either as the hitch is new and was given to me free of charge. So the only cost is going to be buying another hitch pin or two so that each wagon has a pin without stealing the pins from the trucks and tractors (you can never have too many hitch pins )

 

[CATMAN]

Just a little info on the speed improvement that these hitches made. The best normal cycle times for corn silage or good alfafa was 3 loads per hour before auto-hitch with myself unhooking the wagons, move tractor, hookup empty wagon to the chopper as Dad backed up, then I hooked up to full wagon and went to the silos. Last May, We chopped winter rye(heavy) and achieved an average of 4 loads per hour with the Attach-matic auto hitch system. No one has to ever get off of the tractor out in the field. We did 44 loads(JD 112 Chuckwagons) that day with 2 minor breakdowns(shear bolts). I do have to get off at the silos to hook up the wagon PTO and start the silo blower which is the same as before. It really does save time.

 

[Robert_in_NY]

We use trucks to haul our wagons as we take all of our hay to a storage barn down the road or to customers barns. The hitch system is a good setup for operations like you describe where everything is farm based but there are times where we have wagons going multiple directions at once with our trucks or customers trucks pulling wagons so hitch pins are the best setup right now.

Do you happen to have any pics of your setup though?

 

[CATMAN]

Robert: They have a website with two videos: Attach-matic

 

[charlz]

Around here the big operations are big square bales... which sometimes go onto a 'drop' table/trailer... they hold it there and end up dropping all the bales more or less in a row. Next is semi's with trailers and a loader tractor. I guess having the bales lined up is worth the cost of the drop table/trailer?

Smaller operations run small square bales and either self-propelled stackers or pull stackers.

Hay has doubled here in the last year or so. I see people trying to get rid of their pet horses on Craigslist. I wonder how long the small bale market will last.

Charles

 

[Robert_in_NY]

Around here the big operations are big square bales... which sometimes go onto a 'drop' table/trailer... they hold it there and end up dropping all the bales more or less in a row. Next is semi's with trailers and a loader tractor. I guess having the bales lined up is worth the cost of the drop table/trailer?

Smaller operations run small square bales and either self-propelled stackers or pull stackers.

Hay has doubled here in the last year or so. I see people trying to get rid of their pet horses on Craigslist. I wonder how long the small bale market will last.

Charles

The tables behind the balers are called accumulaters. They make versions for small square balers also. With large squares it is much easier to have bales lined up instead of driving all over the field for each bale.

The small square bale market will always be here. The thing that is going to disappear are the smaller baling operations that don't provide good hay or a good service. I know a lot of my customers are looking to either sell some of their horses or all of them. The stables are doing just well though as the people looking to sell are generally people who keep their horses at their place but don't do anything with them. The people who ride their horses still are keeping them so there is always going to be a market for good hay.

 

[sammyd]

70 HP to pull a baler and wagon???
We never had a 70 HP tractor from 69-90 and got along just fine.
We used a JD A G and 720, a Farmall M and 460, a Cockshutt 50 and Allis D17 and 170 at various times and never had a problem. (Besides the non live pto issue with the really old Deeres).
Some wagons only held 120 or so bales and some we could pack over 200 on.
From 79-85 we worked with a neighbor and had about 7 wagons to fill, 4 flat racks, 2 thrower racks and 1 old rear unload chopper box. Someone would drive and someone would load. In the morning I would help either dad or the neighbor unload the wagons while it was still relatively cool and in the afternoon we would fill them up again.
Not the easiest way to make hay for sure, but I do not like unloading thrower racks or the amount of broken bales from that system.

 

[Robert_in_NY]

70 HP to pull a baler and wagon???
We never had a 70 HP tractor from 69-90 and got along just fine.
We used a JD A G and 720, a Farmall M and 460, a Cockshutt 50 and Allis D17 and 170 at various times and never had a problem. (Besides the non live pto issue with the really old Deeres).
Some wagons only held 120 or so bales and some we could pack over 200 on.
From 79-85 we worked with a neighbor and had about 7 wagons to fill, 4 flat racks, 2 thrower racks and 1 old rear unload chopper box. Someone would drive and someone would load. In the morning I would help either dad or the neighbor unload the wagons while it was still relatively cool and in the afternoon we would fill them up again.
Not the easiest way to make hay for sure, but I do not like unloading thrower racks or the amount of broken bales from that system.

You don't need 70hp to pull a baler and wagon and has been discussed over and over you can get by with less if you use your head.

However, a 70pto hp tractor will handle the baler and a full wagon in just about any condition with not much trouble. So from a safety factor a bigger tractor is better.

As for a NH 575 baler you need at least 75pto hp to run that baler efficiently. Anything less and the tractor strains to keep the baler efficient. You have to slow down and watch the windrow carefully to see if there are any changes as if you get to a thick section you have to slow down a gear or else you will plug the mouth of the baler. A stronger tractor will allow the baler to eat the hay without plugging. Having run three different tractors on my 575 I know this, the more power and weight the better. The TN65 was undersized hp wise and I had the issues I discussed, I put a TL100A on it and it baled perfectly. Now I use the 7710-II on it and I don't have to worry at all, plus I can see the wagon better as I sit up a lot higher.

 

[CTW]

Minimum paid help is zero if I do 200 a night to her place, 1 if they are full and I need to load into my barn, 2 if its not for a committed horse barn. I pay $20. per hour for a helper if they are not from a local client. A case of cigarettes (from your Reservation) is even better. (Winstons). This ensures the help will show up when called. If you pay minimum wage, they show up for a night and its too dirty, too hard, or too tough.

Wow, we used to get paid .10 for each bail we picked up which increased to
.25 by the time I was in high school, that was big money right there! These pay rates of course were paid by "other" farmers/ranchers, when Dad or Papa bailed we were "free" labor. Great memories!

 

[slowzuki]

I'm one of those ground drop idiots. But with hills and a small tractor, I'd tear it up trying to pull a wagon too. Also my thrower is missing its hydraulic pump and other parts so it would be almost 2000$ to get it back in service. I don't make enough margin on my squares to pay for that right now.

I would sure love to get a bale wagon or get a bigger tractor for a thrower, maybe someday in the future.