The Life of a Custom Mowing contractor

[Hay Dude]

So yesterday (Saturday) we were baling the back of the Big Tuna at HIGH speed and everything was fine, here’s Zack doing some raking

And HD doing some baling.

Nice bale weights & all was well

And then it wasn’t…..
I got an alarm for knotter #6. If you didn’t know this, #1 & #6 are the worst because they are the outside edge strings and when they break it’s more serious than the “inner” strings.
Anyway, I got up top and corrected (or so I thought) the issue. On the next bale tie, it sounded the alarm again, so I knew I had a deeper issue.

Unbeknownst to me, I sheared a small dowel pin in this knotter gear. When I sheared it, I also damaged the gear. I didn’t realize the gear was damaged at the time. I replaced the pin, but still had problems. Had to call for a replacement part delivery. He got there about 5pm and we replaced the gear.
You can see the pin in the black hole in the gear next to my thumb. The gear walked upward off the shaft. Lost about 3 hours of precious sunny afternoon baling time.

Anyway, all this resulted in hours of delay. Thunderstorms were arriving at 9 PM. Finally got baler back up & running and finished about 8PM. That left very little time for stacking bales.

Now it’s about 9PM. A local patriotic park nearby is setting off fireworks you can see to the left. I am stacking bales as fast as I can.

Now the thunderstorms have arrived. Finishing stacking in the rain…..

 

[Complete Turf Care]

You are probably lucky it was only a 3 hour delay, especially on a Saturday afternoon.

Why do you need to stack the hay before a rain? Is it to protect from rain damage?

 

[Hay Dude]

You are probably lucky it was only a 3 hour delay, especially on a Saturday afternoon.

Why do you need to stack the hay before a rain? Is it to protect from rain damage?

If you leave all the bales as they were baled in the field, all the tops of the bales get rained on.
If I stack them in pods of 3 or 4 layers high, 2 of 3 or 3 of 4 stay dry.

 

[LouNY]

Small squares will also wick moisture up from the ground after a rain, don't know about the big square.

 

[Hay Dude]

True, but ground moisture is nuthin compared to the thunderstorms we’re getting. The 1 or 2 bales in the middle usually do real well.

Here’s a quad stack. Top will not do well and be sold as mushroom hay. The 2 middle bales were sold as feed for beefers. Bottom bales usually do ok, so long as you stack on a high/dry spot.

Bottom bale 12.8%

 

[Hay Dude]

The 4th bale is usually a PITA because you’re up close to 13’ high with your bale spears (total height 16’)

 

[scootr]

Hang in there - living the dream.

 

[Torvy]

We went into town for errands on Friday. Seems everyone who had hay to bale must have done it Thursday night.

 

[civilian]

So HD, when you haul stacks off the field, you must have to sort them as to where they were in the stacks as far as where you store off site or sell them. I have seen your pictures of hay loaded on your big trailer. Jon

 

[Hay Dude]

So HD, when you haul stacks off the field, you must have to sort them as to where they were in the stacks as far as where you store off site or sell them. I have seen your pictures of hay loaded on your big trailer. Jon

Yes. If I advertise feed hay and sell some, I will pull bales from the middle. The uppers, or any others that have sat too long or too high moisture go to mushroom.
Sometimes I use spray paint dots to identify what bales are feed and what is not.