All Time Baling Record?

[SPYDERLK]

I used to be in a crew for a guy in the hay business, and we did lots of days around 2500+- into the barn. We'd show up @ 8 with 3-4 wagons lined up and maybe get ahead of the baler by mid afternoon. If two balers we're going then we wouldn't get ahead. Usually we'd have 4 in the barn and 2 unloading and 1 running wagons. The elevator could handle hay end to end and if Jim came from the field and the elevator wasn't packed solid, the guys on the wagon would hear it.

True, but it made more sense for the farmer to have hay ready to go into the barn as he could get more work out of us while we were there while not having to run two balers that day.
From my perspective in the barn all day, it didn't matter when the bales where made, those wagons just kept coming...

Yes. ... And 2500, even with that preparation/headstart, goes to show the magnitude of a 10K bale feat.

,,,larry

 

[WillysWoodPile]

In the 70's we did custom baling and made a lot of hay to sell. David Brown 990 and NH 273; 1740 bales dropped on the ground about 4 hours. Hay was raked from day before and didn't get dry till late afternoon.
Windrows were big; You could jump from 1 bale to the next. And by the way that old 273 would bale in 1000 rpm and do a good job of it.
Same era we baled 3400 and 2 boys stacked them on flatbed wagons more help took them to the barn and unloaded. 6 wagons 1 baler 1 rake 2 other tractors and a pickup moving wagons.
Move up a few years help got harder to get, NH 311 with a thrower, I do 1000 bales after work with a kid in the field to have the empty wagon right where I need it when I need it.
Now I make mostly round bales and work by my self and don't sell hay anymore , just feed my cows and horses.
By the way I have neighbor that does 5-6000 square bales in a day 1 new jd baler a huge rake and lots of help...............SO yes it can be done easy with 2 balers.

Thank you DirtFarms. I appreciate your showing that it can be done.

As to the other posts in effect calling me a liar... shame on you. Just because YOU can't do it doesn't mean somebody else can't [do it].

I apologize if I presented the facts in a way that made it seem impossible. In any case... "It was done". And I remember talking to my uncle Lee and he [re] figured and it may have been between 9,000-10,000 bales.
--This is the last post I will make in this thread. If any do not believe my uncle then that is their choice. But do not call me or him a liar on these boards.
-- We have not had animals on our farms for many years now. We grow about 800 acres of corn and about 700 acres of soybeans. We have around 2,000 acres. My grandmother died a couple years ago and my uncles are splitting up the farms.

 

[texas42]

As I explained before, I grew up on a dairy farm. We would put up about 20,000 bales of hay per year given 1st and 2nd cutting. We also did custom baling which when I became a teenager was my job. If you bale good 16 x 18 x 36 inch bales, 1,000 to 1,200 bales per day with one baler is about the limit. Now if you are talking about the small kicker bales, or two or three balers that could be a different story.

 

[slowzuki]

I think there is a bit of a tall tale there. In that area of michigan doing dry hay you have at most in the best part of July 8 hours to bale, and you likely need acid to do that. Most days closer to 6 tops. Lets run with 8 hours, and a baler from the late 70's like a JD 336 to get you some extra capacity, you can make 200 pretty and 32" shorty bales per hour or 350 or so rougher looking bales per hour. You won't find many fields to keep that up all day but 300 bale per hour average on that era baler can be done.

So we have 300 x 8 = 2400 bales per day. I've baled for many years with a JD 336 before I got my JD 348 to go with it and I'll tell you, 2400 bales, that would be a baling day for the record books.

I ran my 348 hard one day last year on a 100 hp tractor and we managed to get almost 1700 bales in about 5 hours one day. It has about 10-20% more capacity than my 336. I didn't stop for barely anything and the person raking did a perfect job ahead of me in good yielding fields so the pickup was full. With a few more improvements I could have made 2500 bales if I had the full 8 hours but that is the exception.

When we run the 336 and 348 together 500+ bales per hour is pretty easy but that is still only 4000 bales per perfect day.

I know of a farm running a triple hitch with 3 high capacity inline balers in the dry west were they can do 12 hour days, and they are getting 6000 bales a day.

I also know a neighbour that running a high capacity baler, running with acid to extend his baling window to maybe 10 hours, has made into the 3000's with one baler in a day maybe twice in the last 20 years.

Growing up I worked for a farm that ran an 80's era MF224 baler with 18 people on the haying crew the best day I recall was 18 wagon loads that would average about 200 bales each.

--- 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 also said that they did not quit at the normal time (if there is such a thing) but continued [I assume] well into the night.
--- This would have been in the 60's or 70's.

--- Does anybody have a similar tale where you baled until you couldn't bale anymore?
--- I've yet to ask him how many guys he had baling with him to get an accurate picture of what I am describing. But I will tomorrow.

 

[dlrfarms]

Now if ya'll were baling with ih 45 I could see where it would hardly be possible to bale 5-600 a day . Mom and my bro tied more bales
by hand than it tied the whole time we had it. I wish I was in my 20's again with the machinery we have today;cabs,ac,sunshades etc.
When you got paid by the bale you learned to make every move count.Dad would never stop the baler only to switch wagons if we was pulling one. You added more twine on the go, Try and ride the wagon hitch and tie a knot that will go thru the knotters! You should see some of these guys around here that sell to the horse market go after it when things are right.

 

[5030]

2 years ago I did a contract wheat straw behind a combime (rotary) and baled 3000 small squares (on the ground) in 8 hours with my large frame Kubby and NH 575. All I did was stop to fill the twine box 2 times and get a bottle or 2 of water from the cooler. Glad I didn't have to pick them up.....

I would never bale hay after dark, in fact I would never bale hay once the sun goes down. Too much moisture from dew.

 

[RickB]

Thank you DirtFarms. I appreciate your showing that it can be done.

.

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

I'm still not buying.

 

[rmk700]

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.

 

[Sysop]

This would get some work done in short order...

 

[murphy1244]

That was way cool! Thanks!:thumbsup:

 

[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?