2018 HAY SEASON Post your results here

cat fever · Jun 25, 2018

japody said:
That's some pretty hay fields you have.

Thank you. Just bought the place a couple months ago. Building a house soon.

Most of the 800 bales are in the field in front of the tractor.

kansas one · Jun 27, 2018

Have a little under 13 acres of brome, got only 200 squares, far off from last year.

scons · Jul 1, 2018

1st cut results:

Mowed on 2018-06-02, packed 2018-06-06, 0.7 acres, 108 small round bales, approx. 40lbs each., temp of hay after 1 day storage

Hay is for our horses.
After testing result hay contains energy (EWpa) 0.51-0.56/kg DS, Proteine 123-138 g/kg DS, Sugar < 65g/kg DS (DS stands for dry substance)
Pretty happy with these results.

majorwager · Jul 1, 2018

Our first cutting has been substantial. Estimate about 7 tons or so per acre. Big change from years past where unanticipated rainstorms had devastating losses. 3 day cycle this year, usually scrambling at 4 . Not sure about a 2nd, rain in the proper intervals is the key.

BurningBushFarm · Jul 1, 2018

Reply to scons:

Nice looking hay. Congrats. :thumbsup:

Where is BE?

Baler is Italian small round baler?

Did you test your hay yourself? Or send it out?

Just starting to make our own hay (last fall and now this year). Doing small cuts while we get used to equipment and of course trying to fit between the rain.

cabinhollow · Jul 1, 2018

Work around the rain today.
Raked, rain, waited two hours, re-raked, waited two hours, then started to bale.
Got just under 300 bales done by dark. Still have app 100 more bales to do.
They are on the wet side, so I will have to stake them lose, 3 high and then re-stack in 2 weeks.
My Hesston 4600 was put out lead weights.

cat fever · Jul 3, 2018

I got my haybine repaired and I'm ready to finish cutting. It rained yesterday and might today so I'll finish cutting tomorrow. Here's a few shots of the work so far. I've baled about 860 bales so far and maybe 600-700 left.

joeu235 · Jul 3, 2018

If nature isn't gong to rain, got to make your own.

mjw357 · Jul 3, 2018

Got our first cutting done fathers day weekend. We got almost 900 squares out of our 10 acre field (got about 500 out of same field last year). We have another 3 acre field we plan on cutting and baling in rounds.

This all for our horses, we are very well for the next year.

scons · Jul 4, 2018

BurningBushFarm said:
Reply to scons:

Nice looking hay. Congrats.

Where is BE?

Baler is Italian small round baler?

Did you test your hay yourself? Or send it out?

Just starting to make our own hay (last fall and now this year). Doing small cuts while we get used to equipment and of course trying to fit between the rain.

Thanks. BE = Belgium. We got the hay tested in a lab. Just to know if all the work we put into it is worth it. Now we know

.
We started out last year with all old equipment. Except the baler. It is "supposed" to be italian but it really is china import. It is the same model as advertised on tractor tools direct (ibex TX31) but it is better then the second hand stuff that is for sale around here with bad knotters. And it takes much less space to store it.

cat fever · Jul 5, 2018

Finished all my cutting yesterday.

Starting out.

Part way.

All done.

BoylermanCT · Jul 5, 2018

My FIL hays his 14 acres and had a bumper crop this year. 1,400 bales. No room in the barn to put that much!

BurningBushFarm · Jul 6, 2018

scons said:
Thanks. BE = Belgium. We got the hay tested in a lab. Just to know if all the work we put into it is worth it. Now we know .
We started out last year with all old equipment. Except the baler. It is "supposed" to be italian but it really is china import. It is the same model as advertised on tractor tools direct (ibex TX31) but it is better then the second hand stuff that is for sale around here with bad knotters. And it takes much less space to store it.

Ah ha! We also have the Ibex TX31. Not quite as fancy as the Italian or Yanmar ones, but a lot more affordable. There is no -- or at least I couldn't find any -- used baling equipment for compact tractors (yet) here in the US. We are still newbies with this. Used some square baling hemp type twine after the roll that came with it ran out, but it had slubs which jammed up the winding, so we are using polypropylene this time. I think the mechanism has got to be simpler than a square baler. . . for us. And I can handle the mini rounds pretty easily. (I'm a girl.

)

It is deeply satisfying to bale our own hay. Will post our final number when we get done.

BE -- as you live in BE? And you're here on TBN. Mmmm. Cool.

scons · Jul 7, 2018

It is value for the money (so far) in our opinion. We also use the polypropylene twine, much better and cleaner then the sisal twine that came with it. And yes it uses a lot of twine, but the mechanism is simpeler then any knotting system so ... we will see how it works out in the upcoming seasons. But we think it is a very nice machine to get into haying when you do not have many many acres to do. The handling of the bales is indeed a + too.

Ah well, I found this is a very mature forum with very nice people on it. So I like it here.

redman135 · Jul 7, 2018

Does any one use net wrap instead of string on the rolls?
I have fed out both and much prefer the net wrap as it is easier to cut(string resesses into the bale making it hard to cut).
Also it appears to only be hay made by the ops. Does any one make silage (rolls or sqares)? Much easier in iffy weather, with the higher moisture content and the shorter weather window. My part of new zealand is fairly wet, even in summer.

cat fever · Jul 8, 2018

I got the last of my hay done. I decided to go with 3X3 square bales, tired of moving small bales. Ended up with 40 of them. Here are a few pictures of my brother unloading some of them with a small tractor and the hydraulics not working so great.

My brother has another 35 acres of oats that we'll cut on Wednesday.

Some of the small bales. Stacked to high. IMHO

scons · Jul 8, 2018

That's a nice looking hay stock you have there.

cat fever · Jul 8, 2018

Thanks, but labor extensive. And it's leaning

There is a total of about 1750 small bales in the barn all from the first cut. When done with the oats there might be around 110-120 3X3 bales total. That'll last all winter. Although mine is all for sale, until I get my house built and fencing done I will not have any cows.

freedomlives · Jul 8, 2018

I have around 8 acres total for cutting, I guess about 4 done. I've been doing with walk behind tractors with sickle bar mowers, but this year-- the new-to-me Goldoni I bought last year that was much faster than the Czech one broke in the drive mechanism, so I felt good that I hadn't sold the slow Czech one yet, but its blade bar broke yesterday when almost done with the large field.

I got a 35HP Iseki this year, and borrowed from my neighbor the belt rake-- so much faster than the walk behind for turning the hay yesterday. Less than 2 hours for the 2 acre field, including the drive there and back. I'm tempted to buy a disc mower for it now-- see someone has a BCS with 2 meter cut, which I think a 35HP tractor could run.

Rained this morning, again a bit now, hoping tomorrow things change and stay sunny.