Baling with a compact - minimum size?

[yankee7]

Not to doubt you, but your experience runs counter to what almost everyone else is reporting. What brand/model/size baler and and other hay equipment are you dragging? Is there a certain technique -- other than going slower -- that you're using? Have you had a lot of breakdowns?

Thanks for the alternative POV!

Dave

I hear this over and over while I routinely use a Kubota L2550 and sometimes even a BX 1500 for baling. The L does perfectly. The BX you have to go slower than youd like on the uphills. Square balers take only a few HP to run unless youre try to cram thru wet hay.
larry

 

[SPYDERLK]

Not to doubt you, but your experience runs counter to what almost everyone else is reporting. What brand/model/size baler and and other hay equipment are you dragging? Is there a certain technique -- other than going slower -- that you're using? Have you had a lot of breakdowns?

Thanks for the alternative POV!

Dave

OK. To start with the seemingly ridiculous - I use my IH 37 baler on my BX1500. Slow on hills, but still Ok for reasonably tight bales. We dont like them too tight so that excess moisture is not trapped. Amazingly, the main problem with doing reasonably efficient work with this setup is that the baler knotter wont work at 540 pto rpm so I have to idle the BX back to get the RPM around 400-450. On level ground its still ok, but uphill the HST wont pull in high and low range is too slow. At 10 PTOHP a big windrow must be done very slowly. Full rpm gives decent thruput speed, but leaves a long row of nice wafers and twine with maybe a good bale mixed in. I was really ecstatic the 1st time I used it with the BX wide open - - til I looked back!
The Kubota L2550 28ptoHP is a totally different story. It has plenty of power to do anything the baler is capable of on any terrain. The balers limitation of around 450 rpm just limits how fast we can pull it without it choking. When that happens it stalls the baler - the big flywheel stops and the tractor keeps driving the input at the flywheel slip clutch. You notice this instantly and disenage PTO and go unchoke the baler and slow groundspeed down a little. With regard to surging due to the oscillating ram - this is a balanced mechanism. The surge is caused by the resistance to compression of the hay and the force needed to drive the bales along the chute. This makes the pto harder to drive during the compression stroke. Nicely dried hay goes thru the baler smoothly producing firm bales without huge ram force. The induced surge is gentle and kinda neat really. Going even harder with dry hay is no problem either, but the strings are too tight for pleasant bale handling. Then if you really want max stress try some wet hay. The baler surges much more and jams out rock hard bales unless you loosen the friction shoe in the chute nearly all the way. The bales mold unless they are very loose packed.-- Its a time not to be baling.
I also use the L2550 to run the 7' Hesston Haybine and the 16' Tedder. The 70HP Mahindra is total overkill and I only ever use it for the weight when pulling the hay wagon behind the baler. Based on what Im hearing about other balers requiring lots of power and tractor weight I would recommend the IH if you can find one in good condition. To tell the truth I cant see why it would be better than any other, but my experience with it is so different from the group story on baler/tractor requirements that I can only recommend IT.
larry

 

[yankee7]

OK...now you've gone and confused me even more! (easy to do! ).

I had all but given up on the idea of doing my own haying/baling since it seemed that it would require a larger -- and more expensive -- tractor than I can afford, or using "custom" smaller implements that are prohibitively expensive and not widely found on the used market. Now you come along and tell me that if I have a 28 - 35 HP (engine hp) tractor that I should be able to do the job! Since I'm not planning on rushing out to buy haying equipment, and since haying isn't really my primary purpsoe for the tractor, I'll still proceed with my plans to get a 28 - 35 HP unit, but at least I'll know I have the option to hay if I want to later on. Thanks!

Dave

 

[Farmwithjunk]

Square balers take only a few HP to run unless youre try to cram thru wet hay.
larry

That probably should read "SOME square balers only take a few hp......"


Your IH37 is what would be considered a smaller baler. Just about every brand built small capacity balers and large capacity models. In later years, just as the market trend is with EVERYTHING "farm", there were finally small, medium, large, and extra large.

I started off years ago with a New Holland 273. I've seen them behind 8N Fords, C FarmAlls, and a host of older, smaller, lower hp tractors. They did just fine.

I currently have a Deere 336. Run it at anything like an acceptable ground speed in even the driest of hay and it would probably choke the life out of one of those smaller tractors. A friend has a fairly new Deere 348 he's trying to sell me. The 348 is a modern HIGH CAPACITY baler. In "average" conditions it hammers my 60 HP Deere 2440 and flat puts a hurtin' on my 150 Massey. You can only run a baler so slow.

But yes, find a nice SMALLER baler and 17 to 20 hp is more than enough in most cases. The single biggest liability to a tractor that size when baling is it's typically a little light weight. A baler, especially one with a wagon attached can shove it right on down a grassy hillside.

 

[Willl]

Back when I baled hay as a teen, the bailer was 'pony engine' driven. No PTO.

I would think this would drop tractor HP requirements some ?

Do they still do pony engine bailers ?

 

[JoeinTX]

Easy, SPY', ain't nobody said anything about your momma or nothing.


Can you, ever at all, bale hay with a smaller tractor? Yeah, there's a narrow margin there where you can. Is it common or in great use today or really popular? No. Is the equipment to do it with a 25hp tractor easy to find? No, not that much anymore. The makers did produce small square balers in the 1940/50/60s that would work for small tractors and small operations but those aren't very commonly found anymore. And, if you do, many of them are not worth the PITA to make them work anymore. All of the new mainline OEMs recommend 35 pto HP minimum on their smallest square balers.

Made a quick swim through eBay and Craigslist and I found one baler, an old Ford 542 in working shape, that might come into this. Maybe not since I'm not up on Ford balers.


So, when someone like Yankee7 (who appears to be new to all of this) asks this question...........I'm gonna give a general "no" because of the caveats involved. Look for an older machine....does he know anything about them or would he know one if he saw one? Got any hills? Hay wagon? What kind of crop? Good with fixing old stuff? Like "down" time since the reliability of most of the machines in question is also going to be in question. I would recommend trying to find the baler first (if possible or reasonable) before he buys his tractor just so he knows what kind of tractor he's going to need or if he wants to try to hay.

So, yeah sure, Yankee it is "possible" to make a few square bales with a 25hp CUT. BUT, I wouldn't want to be the one doing it.

"Do they still do pony engine bailers ?"

I don't know of any company still making them but that is one option........I've seen one in my entire life and never run across one for sale.

 

[WilliamBos]

How about on of these MF 1800 Series Small Rectangular Balers

The 1843S or 1843N would work well, I think, if being dropped on the ground.

Will

 

[yankee7]

Thanks Joe for your candid response.

Being new to tractors and of course haying, I wouldn't know an older baler that I could use on a CUT if I tripped over it...but that's where a forum like this can help a lot. As to being mechanically knowledgeable, I've done some of my own auto repairs and repairs of equipment/machines. That said, I'm far from being called a "mechanic". What that boils down to is that given that I'll have a very small haying operation, I'm going to have to go "cheap", which I realize means that I'm going to have to make do with older (ancient?), equipment that will need repair. Do I really want to do that? No, but as I said in the beginning, if I can't find anyone else to do it I might have to.

Of course I could continue to simply let the grass grow and not harvest it, but it seems like such a waste. Also, I don't know how healthy it is for the grass to not be harvested regularly.

Where I'm at right now is trying to figure out what tractor (size/brand) to get that will handle my other projects: moving rocks, dirt, etc.; repairing/making irrigation ditches; making a slab foundation for a new pole barn; moving materials; clearing snow from my 100' gravel drive; drilling post holes. My acreage is pretty level...almost "flat", so no hills to deal with. I'm leaning towards a 30 HP tractor with a FEL and BH to start and adding the other stuff as I go. If I happen to come across a baler, etc. that might work for me, then maybe I'll attempt getting into the hay game, but for now I'm driving myself crazy enough with the rest of it.

Dave

Easy, SPY', ain't nobody said anything about your momma or nothing.


Can you, ever at all, bale hay with a smaller tractor? Yeah, there's a narrow margin there where you can. Is it common or in great use today or really popular? No. Is the equipment to do it with a 25hp tractor easy to find? No, not that much anymore. The makers did produce small square balers in the 1940/50/60s that would work for small tractors and small operations but those aren't very commonly found anymore. And, if you do, many of them are not worth the PITA to make them work anymore. All of the new mainline OEMs recommend 35 pto HP minimum on their smallest square balers.

Made a quick swim through eBay and Craigslist and I found one baler, an old Ford 542 in working shape, that might come into this. Maybe not since I'm not up on Ford balers.


So, when someone like Yankee7 (who appears to be new to all of this) asks this question...........I'm gonna give a general "no" because of the caveats involved. Look for an older machine....does he know anything about them or would he know one if he saw one? Got any hills? Hay wagon? What kind of crop? Good with fixing old stuff? Like "down" time since the reliability of most of the machines in question is also going to be in question. I would recommend trying to find the baler first (if possible or reasonable) before he buys his tractor just so he knows what kind of tractor he's going to need or if he wants to try to hay.

So, yeah sure, Yankee it is "possible" to make a few square bales with a 25hp CUT. BUT, I wouldn't want to be the one doing it.

"Do they still do pony engine bailers ?"

I don't know of any company still making them but that is one option........I've seen one in my entire life and never run across one for sale.

 

[yankee7]

I saw these on the Net, and while I can't seem to find a site that has any prices right now, it seems to me that they're pretty pricey, so whiel they would probably work great for what I want, they exceed my budget BIG time.

Dave

How about on of these MF 1800 Series Small Rectangular Balers

The 1843S or 1843N would work well, I think, if being dropped on the ground.

Will

 

[SPYDERLK]

How about on of these MF 1800 Series Small Rectangular Balers

The 1843S or 1843N would work well, I think, if being dropped on the ground.

Will

I bet thats expensive. I paid $500 for mine and itll do full 5' width 2.5' height windrows that wouldnt pass under the tractor. Thats a special niche use item. Big premium on that usually along with the insult of not being suitable for full sized windrows.
larry