A few pics from today’s square baling

[MoKelly]

Another day of 4x4x8 square baling. This one went good. All 6 knotters worked great and the Magnum 270 pulled that big ol 12 ton Hesston baler around like a toy. Now I need the same luck tomorrow

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Nice picture and field. Looks like a fantastic day.

MoKelly

 

[cqaigy2]

Another day of 4x4x8 square baling. This one went good. All 6 knotters worked great and the Magnum 270 pulled that big ol 12 ton Hesston baler around like a toy. Now I need the same luck tomorrow

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Nice Picture! How long are those rows, and how, approx, many bales are you getting in a row?

 

[LouNY]

Absolutely. That's me on that same Oliver, once my legs were long enough to reach the pedals. Mom and Dad are up in the wagon spreading out the hay that the "hayloader" was pulling up into the wagon. Note the date on the top of the photo and the steel wheels on the wagon. There was a "hay fork" that ran on a rail high up in the barn that you had to jam down into the loose hay. It would then hoist the hay up into the hayloft.
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Don't remember the dates anymore but soon we had other tractors and went to baling hay. My job, until I went in the service, was always to grab the hay bales out of the baler and stack them on the wagon. When I came home on leave one summer I found I had been replaced by a "kicker" on the baler...no more stacking the bales. That's my brother on the David Brown.
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The bales were then unloaded one by one into the barn. Someone was always in the loft stacking the bales - used to hate that job as it was always stifling hot up under the barn roof.
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I'm just getting around to reading this thread, lots of interesting stories.
I grew up on a dairy farm we always did small squares. Back when my father and Grandfather went over twenty milkers they went to baled hay as the barns couldn't hold enough loose hay to feed the cows, that was also the end of the horses which I fortunatly never had to work with. I can recall them but never had to work with them.
What I found interesting was with all the comments on the old pictures with the kicker racks no one commented on the converted false front silage wagons. We stayed with small squares as long as the farm was a dairy, over 10,000 bales many years then started mixing round bales in for heifers. The milk cows have been gone for almost 15 years now and replaced with a good sized bunch of beefers so now it's several hundred round bales and several hundred wrapped round bales of haylage as well as several ag bags of corn silage and haylage along with 1000 small square bales for the beefers.
We unloaded an uncountable number of loads of silage into forage blowers to blow up into the silos from those false front silage wagons.

 

[Hay Dude]

Some more from today. Getting in a few more days of late baling before the wet dreary days of fall hit. We have been inundated with rain and cool temps. Hey it helps the grass grow!

Anyway, a few from today brought to you courtesy of a 8.3L Cummins powered Case-IH and a Hesston 4x4x8. Sorry for the glare from the cab glass ahahahaha

Anyway, here’s the hay, flyin into the pickup…

Couple nice 1500 pounders….

Then it’s on to the next field via Baltimore Pike. I’m one of those big, bad, meany redneck farmers..who…who…HOG UP THE WHOLE HIGHWAY!
THEY SHOULD PAY ROAD TAXES!!! LOL

Here we are at the next field making some more bales. I got to listen to the Eagles lose their game today. Wait….did I just say that?

 

[Hay Dude]

Nice Picture! How long are those rows, and how, approx, many bales are you getting in a row?

The rows in THAT picture are probably 1000’ long.
I get various numbers of bales per row. Probably 1 on every 2 rows raked together.

 

[deserteagle71]

What I found interesting was with all the comments on the old pictures with the kicker racks no one commented on the converted false front silage wagons. We stayed with small squares as long as the farm was a dairy, over 10,000 bales many years then started mixing round bales in for heifers. The milk cows have been gone for almost 15 years now and replaced with a good sized bunch of beefers so now it's several hundred round bales and several hundred wrapped round bales of haylage as well as several ag bags of corn silage and haylage along with 1000 small square bales for the beefers.
We unloaded an uncountable number of loads of silage into forage blowers to blow up into the silos from those false front silage wagons.

Here you go, Lou. Photos I took in 1972 on Ektachrome slide film - nearly 50 years ago and I see there's a strong color shift now. (Our farm was in Pennsylvania, but just south of Binghamton, New York)
My brother on the David Brown chopping:

At the silos...Farmall H driving the belt since it had the belt pulley always mounted on the side. An "unloader" gearbox was attached to the left side of the wagon to the mechanism that pulled the false front of the wagon rearward, bringing the silage with it.

My dad, pulling the silage down into the blower trough. This was a new one to me...when I left for Vietnam we had a "Papec" brand blower instead of the John Deere in this photo.

 

[LouNY]

When we were filling the old wood stave silos with our Papec blower that was also a chopper we used our Allis Chalmers Wd45 with the belt pulley.
At that time we were going out with corn knives and hand cutting the outside two rows and several rows in then a couple of roadways through the fields so as not to knock any corn down opening up the field. Got real fortunate on day I cut and stacked a load on a flat wagon after milking for my father to chop and blow while I was in school the next day, the apron chain broke and went into the blower and twisted up the chopper blower section so he had a newer international table blower delivered that day so he could have the wagons full when I got home to unload. We had the same style ratcheting gear box to unload the wagons with, I would guess that the fork your Dad was unloading with was what we called a potato fork the tines were bent down to a 90 so you could reach in and up and pull the silage down into the table and not have so much to shovel up off the ground. We used those old silos for silage up into the late 60's, in 64 we went with a 20-22x 70 concrete stave silo with an unloader in it, the wood stave we went up with a silage fork every day and forked out enough for 40+ cows.
I was quite happy when the self unloading wagons arrived in 64 also that was the year we went to 100 milkers, a double 6 Delavel herringbone Parlor and a 100x100 free stall barn. A whole bunch of changes in a year.

 

[Gregster613]

It's the same thing for me as LouNY stated - these pictures sure bring back memories!! I also grew up on a 360 acre dairy farm. Made a lot of small bales every year. The hay kicker was a large improvement as it cut down 1 person having to be on the wagon to stack. I was then moved to bringing and retrieving the wagons, which meant I was the "unloader" of that packed wagon back at the barn! Ha! Just couldn't get away from having to hand handle those bales! It was a good, although hard, life and taught many lessons.
I do sorta miss it - especially when viewing these memorable scenes. My hat is off to you farmers and I am glad you are still in existence!! Greg

 

[Hay Dude]

Back to the modern era! Hahahaha (love the old pictures, please keep them coming).
Hauled in a load of round bales this morning. This load was 12.6 tons.

Then it was back to square baling. Had a tough choice to make today: Bale this hay a day early (still a bit high on moisture) or let it get soaked in tomorrow’s heavy rain and lay out another 5 days. I decided to get it bales today. Strange weather day. Very cloudy, but warm, humid and WINDY.

Then I brought the big squares from a field across the street today over onto some flat ground where I can load them.

The days are getting shorter and the window for hay is closing…

 

[civilian]

Back to the modern era! Hahahaha (love the old pictures, please keep them coming).
Hauled in a load of round bales this morning. This load was 12.6 tons.
View attachment 714306

Then it was back to square baling. Had a tough choice to make today: Bale this hay a day early (still a bit high on moisture) or let it get soaked in tomorrow’s heavy rain and lay out another 5 days. I decided to get it bales today. Strange weather day. Very cloudy, but warm, humid and WINDY.

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Then I brought the big squares from a field across the street today over onto some flat ground where I can load them.

View attachment 714304The days are getting shorter and the window for hay is closing…

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I take it, you are enjoying your new Ram. How many mile now? Enjoying the pictures. Jon

 

[Hay Dude]

I take it, you are enjoying your new Ram. How many mile now? Enjoying the pictures. Jon

Yeah, I love it so far. The CP4 pump scares me a bit. Truck pulls twice as hard as my F-550 it replaced without feeling like its struggling.
I used to laugh when guys would brag about the bottom end torque on a Cummins. Now I know what theyre talking about and I am a believer. I have tractors with Cummins engines in them, too. They are a great motor.
Never thought what is essentially a beefed up pickup would easily pull 17 tons.

I can post up more pictures if you like them and thank you for the compliment

 

[Hay Dude]

Here you go, Lou. Photos I took in 1972 on Ektachrome slide film - nearly 50 years ago and I see there's a strong color shift now. (Our farm was in Pennsylvania, but just south of Binghamton, New York)
My brother on the David Brown chopping:
View attachment 714056

At the silos...Farmall H driving the belt since it had the belt pulley always mounted on the side. An "unloader" gearbox was attached to the left side of the wagon to the mechanism that pulled the false front of the wagon rearward, bringing the silage with it.
View attachment 714057

My dad, pulling the silage down into the blower trough. This was a new one to me...when I left for Vietnam we had a "Papec" brand blower instead of the John Deere in this photo.
View attachment 714058

God Bless your dad and your family. THEY should be given respect and admiration for what was typical of a Pennsylvania farm family back then. Hard work, staying together, raising their children with work ethic and a son who would sacrifice so much for God & country.

I am humbled by your service and sacrifice in Vietnam.

 

[buckeyefarmer]

Here you go, Lou. Photos I took in 1972 on Ektachrome slide film - nearly 50 years ago and I see there's a strong color shift now. (Our farm was in Pennsylvania, but just south of Binghamton, New York)
My brother on the David Brown chopping:
View attachment 714056

At the silos...Farmall H driving the belt since it had the belt pulley always mounted on the side. An "unloader" gearbox was attached to the left side of the wagon to the mechanism that pulled the false front of the wagon rearward, bringing the silage with it.
View attachment 714057

My dad, pulling the silage down into the blower trough. This was a new one to me...when I left for Vietnam we had a "Papec" brand blower instead of the John Deere in this photo.
View attachment 714058

Love all the pics guys!!

 

[Hay Dude]

Here’s a view from the Massey 7495 & Pottinger front disc mower of today’s take down of 31 acres of hay.
I have another 75 acres to go and will be able to smell the end of hay season in a few weeks.
I heard Bryce Harper smacked a home run while I was sitting in the cab taking this picture lol

 

[Hay Dude]

Well today was a mixed bag. Got up early. Thanked God for another day of life on the green side of the grass in a *ahem* free country, and hit the road.
Got to the shop planning on dropping another 15 acres only to have a surprise dead batteries. My Massey always had a slow battery drain, but usually the summer is ok to leave the battery switch “on”.
Not today. Even on 15 minutes of vehicle jump start, not enough reserve to start!

Plan was to mow in the morning, then rake & bale all afternoon. I cut the cord on the mowing after trying to get the Massey going and ended up raking and baling 2 fields I had down.

 

[civilian]

Well today was a mixed bag. Got up early. Thanked God for another day of life on the green side of the grass in a *ahem* free country, and hit the road.
Got to the shop planning on dropping another 15 acres only to have a surprise dead batteries. My Massey always had a slow battery drain, but usually the summer is ok to leave the battery switch “on”.
Not today. Even on 15 minutes of vehicle jump start, not enough reserve to start!
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Bummer on the Massey, Jon

 

[Hay Dude]

Got it back and running again that day.
Baled a couple small fields yesterday.
About 75 acres to go and I’m done. I can feel the end of hay season is upon us here.

Loaded up and hauling out a few nice feed hay bales

 

[EddieWalker]

Seems like there are a lot of advantages to those big square bales. I haven't seen them here yet, but I think it would be nice if my supplier switched to them. I'm sure it's too expensive to change from round bales to those massive square bales, but they sure would stack better with less wasted space in a barn.

The thing I like about round bales is when he brings them here with a self dumping trailer. He just turns the handle on the trailer and 16 bales are all on the ground at once. I don't even have to have my tractor there!!!

 

[MoKelly]

Seems like there are a lot of advantages to those big square bales. I haven't seen them here yet, but I think it would be nice if my supplier switched to them. I'm sure it's too expensive to change from round bales to those massive square bales, but they sure would stack better with less wasted space in a barn.

The thing I like about round bales is when he brings them here with a self dumping trailer. He just turns the handle on the trailer and 16 bales are all on the ground at once. I don't even have to have my tractor there!!!

We don’t have big square bales here either. Only the round ones. I’ve never even seen a big square one - except on the picture!

I’m not all that educated in hay. Around here, the hay that I see baled is simply field grass allowed to grow. It’s nothing special in my mind. It could either be mowed like grass or allowed to grow and baled.

Is that typical or do some folks grow special grasses for “real” hay?

MoKelly

 

[Bearsixty7]

...Is that typical or do some folks grow special grasses for “real” hay?

Where I grew up in SW MO. most "Good" hay fields were Orchard grass, Fescue, Timothy, Red Clover and less common, Alfalfa.
Many "hay fields" we did for other people were thistle, dandelion and a little fescue or ryegrass scattered through out.

Here in Texas they talk about Coastal grass and Bermuda grass a lot.