The Life of a Custom Mowing contractor

[LHF2019]

it still has to dry down a little (I don't remember the %) and that's even giving him a little trouble!

Anywhere from 25-60% moisture. I try for 50% and just under. Depending on your area. for 1st cutting mow one day bale the next. Crops like oats, rye, sorghum sudan, etc might leave it for a couple days. Heavy clover almost never gets dry enough. That is a tough crop. Fine line between getting it to a decent moisture level and keeping the leaves on. That's a good one to rake together very early morning with dew on then bale.

 

[deserteagle71]

Anywhere from 25-60% moisture. I try for 50% and just under. Depending on your area. for 1st cutting mow one day bale the next. Crops like oats, rye, sorghum sudan, etc might leave it for a couple days. Heavy clover almost never gets dry enough. That is a tough crop. Fine line between getting it to a decent moisture level and keeping the leaves on. That's a good one to rake together very early morning with dew on then bale.

Here in the desert most baling is done starting about 2 in the morning (middle of the night!) when the humidity is highest. Baling during the day when humidity is in the single digits just results in "shattered" hay.

From the National Weather Service - typical summertime conditions:

 

[dodge man]

Here in the desert most baling is done starting about 2 in the morning (middle of the night!) when the humidity is highest. Baling during the day when humidity is in the single digits just results in "shattered" hay.

From the National Weather Service - typical summertime conditions:

View attachment 3638436

That dew point is insane, ours is in the mid 60’s today and yesterday was around 70.

 

[Hay Dude]

Crazy day today. I was able to get some more hay down. Beatiful sunny morning. Chance of T-storms later

I got one field baled and got nailed with downpours on my way back to the shop.

We got nailed square upside the head with a red cell.

My buddy called me and told me a tree fell on or near my hay mowing tractor.
I thought the worst. Got there and luckily, the tree fell the other way onto the road. My tractor was spared. We survived to fight again tomorrow.

 

[sandman2234]

Glad your tractor (or house!!) didn't catch that tree!
David from jax

 

[Hay Dude]

Glad your tractor (or house!!) didn't catch that tree!
David from jax

Not my house, but I’m glad it didn’t hit it, either. Nice mom with kids live there.

Looks like it’s going to be a ROH summer (Rained on hay)

 

[Hay Dude]

Some baling today. Hot, dry & breezy. A hay farmers 3 best friends.

Mrs HD bought me a new cooler pack for Fathers Day.

 

[Hay Dude]

Bringing up some bales during some unexpected rain showers. It cleared up and we were able to make quite a few bales-even after 5PM, we were still baling.

 

[Hay Dude]

On to the next customers fields. We are back at the big field, but this time to rake & bale. Off in the distance you can see the Challenger raking tractor.

Now here I am at the other end of the field where the raking tractor was in the baling tractor.

Was very hot. Hit 97* today with high humidity.

All of this hay saw rain, so it’s going to the mushroom growers. Sad, because it was beautiful stuff.

 

[Cycledude]

How do mushroom growers use the hay ?

 

[Hay Dude]

How do mushroom growers use the hay ?

They mix hay, straw, lime, chicken litter and some top soil together to make a bedding soil for the mushrooms to grow in.
Its a huge business in my area.
Any hay we make that’s not up to our feed hay standards is sold as mushroom hay.
There are also some fields in my area that would be rotary mowed. Owners don’t want rotational or row crop farming. Instead of rotary mowing, we bale them and sell that hay specifically as mushroom hay.

 

[EddieWalker]

What's the price difference between mushroom hay and horse hay?

 

[Hay Dude]

1/2 price

 

[Hay Dude]

I started off the day delivering a feed 4x4x5 feed bale. It was too early to start baling, so it was a good time to get this bale delivered. Barely fits in my customers old Hay Hut.

Now back to baling…..
This stuff has a little color left, but got rained on twice. I was beautiful stuff.

It’s so hot, our hay is drier than a popcorn fart. I’m baling right behind freshly raked rows from my son in the raking tractor. Here we are out by the road. He’s raking some new headlands while I take a quick break.

By 6PM we were pretty whupped. About 99 degrees and humid. Tractors AC systems being stressed pretty good. My tractors are pretty old, I bet both could use an AC recharge.
I stayed out until 8 and stacked bales.

16’ high.
Because it’s so dry now, these averaged only 1,600lbs. Usually with typical moisture levels around here, they’re more like 1,800+ lbs. We made some over the weekend that were 1,800-2,000lbs. Just 2 days of extreme heat and bale moisture went from 18% to 0%!

 

[Rustyiron]

Yeah at 8 pm yesterday it was just starting to get reasonable at about 82* here.
That's usually my upper limit but yesterday in comparison to earlier it felt nice.

 

[Hay Dude]

It was a high of 63 degrees and constant rain here last week. Crazy how much the weather changed in just a few days. Now its mid 90’s and humid…
Looks like a lot of rain headed our way later this week (again).

 

[Hay Dude]

We had a very strange occurrence on Monday I forgot to tell you about.
My son was in the raking tractor and a adult doe ran between the tractor and the wheel rake! The dumbass thing hopped around inside the “V” of the rake then bounded away before he came to a complete stop.
It ran back into a thicket, uninjured.
My son was kind of shocked and needed a moment to get going again. Sorry, no pictures.

 

[dodge man]

That deer was just showing off. Agile aren’t they?

 

[Hay Dude]

That deer was just showing off. Agile aren’t they?

I was thinking more like stupid/suicidal?
I hear they can get nasty tick viruses that make them crazy.

 

[bearthebruce]

I was thinking more like stupid/suicidal?

Yep, stupid... They keep coming closer and closer to me when on the property in Virginia. They are no longer afraid of the machines. They do not move and then do the stupidest things when decide they should move... If I stop and wait, we end up in a staring contest. Make a jerky motion, hoping to scare them? NOT.

Does are really not very bright animals. The bucks bolt always!