Hay crazy

[bandmiller2]

Rebuilding that old Ferguson 20 three point side delivery rake.Pulling all the starwheel tine bar bearings and replacing anything questionable.Bearings are just common 203 and 202 sealed ball bearings.I'am considering replacing all the rake teeth [108] the cheapest I've found is Shoup at $1.99 ea with free shipping.Anyone know a better deal.? Frank C.

[mooleycow]

buy hay from a man in rockymount n.c.  was in s.c. few years back.  went to the s.c. draft horse association event, old time farming machinery, mules and horses.  they let yougn's and city folk plow, was a hoot!  seen pictures, new pictures not old books, horse drawn  square hay balers. there is a mule festival in n.c. some folks might want to chime in, never went.  hear tell a lady ask a man if his mule was easy to load he dropped the tailgate to the truck and the mule put his 2 feet in the bed of the truck.  i seen the picture. 

[chevytaHOE5674]

Kansas I'm still able to order the small twine balls for it, but can't buy it locally anymore (could up until about 2-3 years ago though). I've been thinking about making a new twine box to hold standard size twine balls to make my life easier though.

[Kansas]

Chevy, I am trying to remember. Is the twine the same size diameter on those small rolls and sisal for big round balers is? I was thinking it was smaller, but its been too many years to remember for sure.Not sure if that would affect your baler.

Sisal was getting scarce for even big round bales. Everyone was going to plastic. Now I suppose a lot of those have gone to net wrap.

[chevytaHOE5674]

True roto-baler twine is/was a smaller diameter. But if you clean and open up the twine mechanism the larger twine will feed through i think. Just have to be able to fit the larger twine balls on the machine someplace.

[sandhills]

My siblings and I followed an old Allis baler around for summers, pulling two silage wagons with the endgates removed with a 4010 JD, 12 mile round trip getting them home.  If I remember right one wagon held 70 some bales and the other 80 some, nothing to load with but hay hooks and us, I'd have rather been irrigating  .  Dad still has the baler and one he bought for parts but haven't had to pick those little bales up for years, thank the good lord for big round balers! 

[Taylortractornut]

Ive been buying the rubber mounted single teeth at TSC for my rake.  Every time I use it I lose a few of te old ones.      I dont know the number on  my rake but its  pretty old.     Right now I need 31 teeth.  Its doing fine now I just buy a handfull every time in TSC as they  only keep a few at a time. 
Im working on a bale loader trade now.  I wonder if an old side  chain loader will work. 


Heres another small baler used with a walking tractor.

[Corley5]

  I've been putting up 500-600 4X4 round bales a season since 2005 when I bought a new New Holland 730 baler.  We did small squares before that to the tune 10,000 -12,000 bales per season.  The most we did was 14,000 in a season to sell.  A New Holland Super 68 and an IH 46 were the square balers.  I've still got the 68 in the barn.  Grandpa Whittaker bought it new in the spring a 1960.  It's in working condition just in case.  I have no plans of using it anytime in the foreseeable future.  The labor costs are just too high for little bales.  All hay is sold none is fed.  Hay consuming animals are not allowed    The last years we had beef cattle we dry chopped our hay and blew it in the barn loose.  Grandpa Bob did that too but he also baled hay.
  In 2007 I upgraded to a new 488 New Holland haybine from our NH sickle bar and in 2010 moved to a 12 wheel New Holland batwing rake from the old NH 56 Rollabar.  Now I'm planning on downsizing  in the next few years as my wine grapes begin producing.  I'd still like to upgrade to a haybine with at least a 12' cut.  Faster is better but more wine grapes in the ground are the best    I dropped a couple hay customers and was glad then a couple came along to replace them    It's hard to quit   

[WDH]

Corley5,

Soon you will be able to console yourself on the vagaries of the hay business with wine  .

[bandmiller2]

After I bale a field I go over it again with the side delivery, usally can pick up a few more bales per acre,figured that paid for the fuel. Frank C.

[bandmiller2]

Still rebuilding that old fergy side delivery rake straightening the tine bars.Rolling them on the mill ways marking where they wobble with chalk then to an old oak tree crotch and pull them straight.Just got 108 new tines from Shoup.Supposed to be high 50's today may just paint that old sucker in January. Frank C.

[mooleycow]

Rufus brought a load of hay this morning from rockymount nc.  still $5.00 a bale.  drought cut them short last year, about 5,000 bales short on  fields  good folks to do business with

[Woodwalker]

Guy has some square hay over at a local convenience  store. It's looks to have been rained on just enough to turn it. It's got a little Bahia, something that looks a little like what I was told is Millet, some weeds and some switch cane. Loose 65# bale for $9.50.

[chain]

Our great-granddad began a alfalfa farm in 1900, they called it the Alfalfa Farming Co. The government built a experimental drying barn that had double walls and air ducts I guess the drying came from natural drafts from wind through the barn. Later when I came along we had about two hundred acres of alfalfa. All other work stopped on the farm during haying... of cutting, raking, baling, and stacking in the barns.

We usually never sold a bale untill the dread of winter, that is, always a snow or ice and the most frigid weather of the season then, at that time, the truckers came to the door to buy up tons of bales of alfalfa, going whereever the market was best. I was always caught with a couple other farmhands as my Dad was the Boss, didn't make any difference, down to the barn I was ordered, often pulling the semi-trucks in with a tractor or two and loading them up. The truckers were masters at stacking the bales just so, as they wanted the leafiest and greenest bales to the outside and sell the whole load at a premium.

We had a crop-duster lease a air strip that was also our alfalfa field. I was raking along one afternoon down the middle and a roaring got louder and louder, just then a double-winged crop-duster came over about ten feet over my head and dropped not over ten yards in front of my tractor and blew hay ever which way. Just part of the job, boy, those were the DAZE!