All Time Baling Record?

[5030]

Big difference between wrapping silage bales and running dry hay......

 

[square1]

if you already have wagons loaded in the morning when you started that isn't a baling in a day number.

I'm counting them if there were as many wagons loaded up at the end of the day for the next morning.

We did it that way. Putting it the mow in the morning when it was cooler helped people last longer into the day. WE baled after the dew burned off untill it started to settle again. When the milkers would leave for the day we'd load up all the wagons. Every tractor / pick-up would take a loaded wagon back to be put up the next morning.

We busted our butts with two pick-ups shuttling wagons from field to barn all day long. I know one guy loading a wagon would bust his tail to keep up with the baler. If you could that, you were revered by the others on the crew and no one did it for long especially on some of the hilly fields we baled. Losing a load. or part of one, because of shoddy stacking would only happen once, ask me how I know We always rotated (with the exception of the older men operating the tractors with the rakes or the balers) between the mow, elevator, shuttling wagons, loading wagons, etc...

Me, being a dumb teenager at the time that would rather bail hay then do my "real" job, never thought to count how many wagons we put up in a day. Just musing here: (2) pick-ups probably averaged 15 MPH for the average 5 mile one way trip from field to farm loaded and back empty running non stop for ~ 6 hours. So say (3) full wagons per hour were delivered to barn X 6 hour days X 140 bales per wagon so maybe we could do 2500 bales a day if everyone was available, nothing broke down and the weather was perfect.

 

[Tx Jim]

Big difference between showing and telling. This thread is all tell, no show.

I'm still not buying.

DITTO

 

[MattLynch]

I had no problem putting up 1000 bales a day with one baler w/thrower and 3-4 workers, very inefficient. I worked for my neighbor about 15 years ago when he still did 10-15k square bales a year. He ran 2-3 balers w/kickers, and a lot of wagons. His barn had hay elevators routed through the rafters that could be dropped anywhere the length of the barn for stacking. It was normally a crew of 10-15 people, non stop other then water breaks. Very efficient set up. Can't start baling here until lunch time or so when the dew is off and we usually went until dark. I don't remember the exact numbers of bales per 9 hour day but it was easily 5000+.
They only make a few square bales now, almost entirely chop silage. I sold all of my square bale gear and make round bale silage now. It's nice to have a few square bales, but terribly inefficient to make and feed in any number.

 

[SPYDERLK]

--- I have asked my Uncle Lee this question a couple of times over the last 20 years so I am fairly certain it is accurate.
--- I asked him what was the most bales of hay he had ever baled in one day. He said that he and his buddies baled, and put up, about 10,000 bales in one day.

He specified, "he and his buddies" so he could of had 9 'buddies' which each had a baler. 10 balers could do it in one 24 hr day.

... More buddies. - And good choreography.

 

[yanmars]

We did not do many and I am old enough to remember getting paid a penny a bail for my work efforts, family.

 

[rmk700]

... More buddies. - And good choreography.

Yeah.... the way the OP worded it....it could be possible. There could have been an astounding amount of 'buddies' (and farm equipment) for the task.

 

[swines]

Unless you have a lot of "buddies" WITH balers...the math doesn't work out.

So, let's look at the math using easy numbers. I'm using a 20 hour work day as that's easy to multiply and follow the math.

Let's assume they baled for 20 hours - that's 1200 minutes (60 x 20). 1200 x 60 = 72,000 (seconds).

72,000 / 10,000 (bales) = 7.2 - or, one bale every 7.2 seconds.

I've never seen a baler that could make one bale every 7.2 seconds...

Nice story - but, numbers don't lie.

So, unless we have lots and lots of "buddy balers" helping out - 10,000 is not achievable with one baler even given a 20 hour day with an unlimited number of "helpers" because the time to make a bale is the critical number.

The best I've seen with a small baler is about 5 bales / minute while the baler was in an alfalfa field that was running about 10 tons to the acre, with perfectly raked windrows.

But, you can't use 5 bales / minute as the average as there is dead time while the tractor + baler turn around at the end of the field, line up the next windrow, change twine, check the knotters, etc.

 

[CDennyRun]

This has been a fun read!

 

[WillysWoodPile2]

--- I have not been out to my uncles farm in two years I cannot sit down with him and discuss what equipment he had to get 10,000 bales in one day. All I know is that he did do it. There is too much assumption going on and I haven't provided enough information for you guys to simply take my uncle's word for it. Life goes on.
He is laid up from back surgery at this time so I do not know if he will be up here in town for our family reunion this year (2016). If and when he does come up I will ask him to give me the stats for that day. In the meantime... have any of you ever had a fire that you were pretty sure came from wet/spontaneous combustion of bales?