Baling with a compact - minimum size?

[slowzuki]

Soundguy, you've got a big batwing don't you? I've seen guys rake up the remaining of clipping and bale that up just cause it was there. I've heard of people who do it on purpose to save buying a mower but it wastes a lot of hay.

 

[zzvyb6]

When my haybine was down for repairs, I used a 5' Bush Hog to cut a hayfield. The hay dried faster than usual because its been thrashed around. I used a NH rollabar rake to rope it into windrows instead of the Kuhn rake's tendency to hedgerow it. If the baler pickup will grab it, you get decent hay bales. The bales are easy to disassociate because the stems are short, but the horses loved it.

 

[Farmwithjunk]

For many a year, Woods sold a rotary cutter with a removable side skirt. It was intended to be used as a hay mower with the side off, and a brush cutter with the side panel on. It was essentially an early attempt at a disc mower of sorts. Never really caught on.

A rotary cutter will "get by" in grass hay, but not such a hot set-up in alfalfa or clover.

 

[LAWALLSTRACTOR]

My tractor gets rocked pretty good and it's more than big enough for the baler. Or for any other haying implement there is. It's nearly 100 hp and is pretty heavy. Even more so with the tires loaded like they are.
I thought that bouncing back and forth was just a fact of life when baling no matter what you are driving.

As I remember baling when I was a kid, the baler always rocked the tractor. (Just a fact of life) It never bothered anything. I can see, if to light a duty compact had prolonged use on a baler, it could have some ill effects on the drive train.

 

[Rara Avis]

With all this talk of bailing.. I may actually try my hand at it this year. I've helped out before.. but never personally owned any of the specific hay equipment.. Guy down the road is selling an old but good looking IH square bailer.

Now I just need to find a good sickle or disc mower and rake!

soundguy

Well, if you want to get away from all your heat...
You can come up and hay with me...
Free training and everything...

 

[Soundguy]

Soundguy, you've got a big batwing don't you? I've seen guys rake up the remaining of clipping and bale that up just cause it was there. I've heard of people who do it on purpose to save buying a mower but it wastes a lot of hay.

i actually knew a guy that had an older stationary bailer.. he fed it bahia grass clippings he raked up after drying. AFAIK.. he cut ti with a plain old rotary cutter. Short fiber for sure.. but he made a few bales for his animals.. etc.

soundguy

 

[pitt_md]

When I was first old enough to help bail hay my dad had an old dull-red POS bailer that had its own engine on it. You had to start this thing with a crank that would sometimes get stuck and not pop off like it should. It had a fly wheel that needed two men and a boy to take off to replace the brass sheer pins that it would eat at a constant rate. The knotter on this thing would humble the best of mechanics. To my knowledge there was only one grumpy old man that could keep one of these things running in the entire state of MI. To make it around the field more than once without something going wrong was a true blessing from God.

I'll pay to have my fields bailed into large squares that I can pick up and stack with the tractor.

 

[zzvyb6]

You will be gratified to know that today there are men and women who have graduate degrees (even some on multiple subjects) in Baler Mechanics. They got them from the School of Hard Knoxville, the Redneck Yacht Club and the University of Chicago's School of Relativity. Since Horsemanship is driving up the economic viability of prismatic organic food additives and raw materials, worker skills in welding, fabricating, visualization, photography, eBaymanship, Website Navigation and biomechanical upgrading have become valuable skills. Bring by your old baler, we can schedule an appointment for you. We are currently booking in the 3rd week of December. There is a 25% restocking fee for cancelation. Payment in Full is expected at time of ordering. Have a nice bidet.

 

[RalphVa]

They do make small round bale balers for mounting onto the front of tractor like the Gravely. I've seen pictures of them. Think they were in Europe.

Doubt they've made any so small for compact tractors here. Now, with the high price of fuel and maybe people going back to smaller farms (small organic farms can be profitable), this may drive the manufacturers into maybe providing some smaller equipment.

Shoot! We'll probably see lots more people gravitating back to small country plots as the price of fuel goes up, to raise a lot of their own stuff. Might even see people living in small villages and having small farms outlying the villages like in many other parts of the world.

Ralph

 

[rankrank1]

For many a year, Woods sold a rotary cutter with a removable side skirt. It was intended to be used as a hay mower with the side off, and a brush cutter with the side panel on. It was essentially an early attempt at a disc mower of sorts. Never really caught on.

A rotary cutter will "get by" in grass hay, but not such a hot set-up in alfalfa or clover.

I believe King Kutter still offers the removable skirt option called "hayside" as well, although TSC usually does not have them in stock. TSC should still be able to order them. If I was looking to buy a new King Kutter, I would opt for the "hayside" option just for the added flexibility as the price was pretty much the same as the standard rotary cutter the last time I checked (roughly 4 years ago).
My old square back bush hog actually kicked the grass out rather well without shredding it. I think the whole backside being open helps get the grass out quickly before it is chopped up into little pieces. Also, I do not have suction type blades so that helps not chop the grass up as much too. The downside to the non-suction blades was that I did leave quite a bit of hay in the field where the tractor tires mashed down the tall grass in front of the bushhog. Everywhere my tractor tires mashed the tall stuff down it was not cut by the bushhog.
On the plus side, the hay did dry fast so it is a kinda like a poor man's haybine/moco substitue. I will continue to use my bushog as a viable option in the future (even once I get the sickle bar going) if quick drying time is critical for my allotted weather forecast. I have very little alfalfa mixed in my field so I can not say how it would do on it as I imagine there would be some leaf loss, but I would think that there has to be some leaf loss with a haybine/moco too. I do have some clover and did not notice excess leaf loss on it from my bushog.