First ever cut

[Draagyn]

I cut my hay last night for my first time.

Everything went well. Mower and tractor did their jobs.

Few questions:

20 acres took me 5 hours. Fast in the thin spots and slower in the thick spots. How is that for time? How long does it take you to cut per acre?

It rained a little right after I finished cutting, should I do an extra rake to fluff up and assist drying?

I have two power poles in field with four guy wires on each. I did a lot of circles and cris crosses lifting mower up and down. What a pain! Do you have a good technique for this? Should I bother lifting mower up every time I cross a previously cut swath?

Thanks

 

[bigbull338]

you cut 4acs and hour and thats real good for a pull type swather.sounds like you did fine cutting around the high line poles.

 

[rtimgray]

The time sounds good for me. I cut with a disc mower, but I don't lift by mower when I cross previously cut hay (until I'm leaving the field or going a long way, and that's just to not jam cut hay into the mower). I also give items like power poles/buildings/trees etc. a wide berth when cutting. I've discovered the hard way that it's way too easy to get the end of the mower into an obstruction, and the times that I've cut hay really close to an obstruction, nobody ever showed up to give me a prize.

I always figure that it's just hay, and if I lifted the mower every time I crossed a swath and cut slowly and carefully around each obstruction, I might get one or two (small) rolls out of it - for me, it's not worth the aggravation or risk.

Good luck and take care.

 

[Texasmark]

I used to use a MOCO like yours but was green. I usually planted a Sorghum-Sudan cross which was a tall plant and stemmy. Made for a tall windrow. Crossing with the MOCO in the mow position just made a mess and would pile up the product which made for slow drying. So I lifted it every time.

On the light rain don't worry about it if it was short. From the looks of your hay patch you don't have heavy stemmed-leafed product so you should be good to go. If you are worried about it, after a hot day or so, wait till afternoon when everything is dry and hit it with a tedder which will scatter the hay on the bottom and get it to dry much faster. Unless you have a hot day with a strong wind blowing across the ww, raking it into a ww is not the thing to do to get it to dry. If you have thick stubble that helps too to get the product off the ground and up in the air.

Your time is fine in my book.

Mark

 

[Draagyn]

Thanks for the input guys!

I thought I only had a little left over to cut the next day but I ended up spending another hour out there so totalled 6 hours for 20 acres. My dad was saying the guy who cut his 20 acres took two full days! So I don't feel slow at all

I checked after work at the rain had completely dried of the cut hay.

Raking and bailing tomorrow

 

[Bigfoot62]

. . .

Raking and bailing tomorrow

WELL??? We want to know how it went for you.

 

[wmonroe]

WELL??? We want to know how it went for you.

We are on the edge of our seats.

 

[Draagyn]

Enjoying the beers right now. Be back in a day or three

 

[Draagyn]

Everything went well. Spent 6 hours cutting, did a decent job. Was very time consuming going around power poles and guy wires. Sort of figured a technique for next year. Dried for two full days. Raked from 10am to 3 pm and baled from 5pm to 10pm. Had an issue with the one bill hook not letting go of the knots, but got that figured by the end. Did about an hour of cleanup the next morning, re-baling the duds. Bales were a little short which made stacking a little harder than it should've been.

All in all I'm quite pleased with the way everything went and all my equipment performing the way it did with minimal problems.
We got about 240 50lb bales off the 20 acres. Probably about 60 off the one half and 180 off the other.

 

[Draagyn]

 

[wmonroe]

Looks pretty good. Is it raining in the background of your cutting picture? What model baler is that? It looks very similar to my NH 68.

 

[Draagyn]

Looks pretty good. Is it raining in the background of your cutting picture? What model baler is that? It looks very similar to my NH 68.

It is raining in background. We got about half hour of rain right after we finished cutting.

The baler is a super 67!

 

[Bigfoot62]

Nice! :thumbsup:

You DO have a lot of poles and wires in that field!!! (not really poles, those are towers)

I was thinking that if I stacked a bunch of square bales outside like that down here, I would have a giant pile of mold and mildew in about 3 days, IF it didn't catch on fire!!!

 

[Ed of all trades]

Is the # of bales good in your area or was it a thin crop?

 

[Draagyn]

Is the # of bales good in your area or was it a thin crop?

Thin crop. This is my first year owning field and previous owners let it go so hopefully it will only get better from here on

 

[Texasmark]

You are there and I am here so here is some idle speculation. Something to think about.

One year I tried to beat the rain and baled squares well into the night as you said you did. There was dew on the hay as we bailed the last of it.

I almost had a barn fire out of it. Just to be safe I suggest you dig down into your stack and feel for heat.

Mine was so hot after a couple of days, down a couple of bales from the outer bales, I couldn't hold my hand down there. Solution was to get it all out of the barn and scatter it till it went through the sweat. Course this was so bad that it burned the hay, it stunk and no telling what happened to the nutrients. Was a mess.

Mark

 

[Tx Jim]

Having been it the custom hay baling business since '87 I learned a long time back to not bale hay at a moisture over 16 -17 % trying to outrun a rain. It's much better for hay to get rained on & then get it dry(15% moisture) then bale it.

 

[Draagyn]

Thanks for input guys. I wasn't baling to out run rain, just wanted to get it done in my timeline. Sunsets a 9 this time of year so I have daylight to at least 930 and it's been hot so there was no dew in hay when I was baling. I have no way to check moisture level. Two days in 30 degree weather. I check the stack today and it was not hot at all. Thanks

 

[zzvyb6]

Having been it the custom hay baling business since '87 I learned a long time back to not bale hay at a moisture over 16 -17 % trying to outrun a rain. It's much better for hay to get rained on & then get it dry(15% moisture) then bale it.

This really good advice and I follow this method, too. I use a tedder to fluff out the rained on hay as soon as possible.

 

[Bradtina11]

i have no advice as i am a new hayer as well.

just wanted to say "good job!" . i did my first hay cut last month. i am now figuring out how to connect my cat 1 rake to my cat 2 tractor.