Why not pull a wagon behind a baler?

[Robert_in_NY]

I see so many guys running balers and they are dropping the bales on the ground and then pull a wagon around afterwards to pick up the bales. The tractors they are using are big enough to handle a wagon so why do the extra work of fighting gravity and pick the bales off the ground? The fields here are flat also.

Even if you only had one wagon it seems like it would make sense still to at least fill one wagon behind the baler and save your helpers a little bit of work.

I personally will stay with a thrower until I build a new hay barn that will accept a NH stack wagon, then its all automated

 

[ToadHill]

When I worked on a dairy farm some 48 years ago or so, we pulled a baler with a kicker and a wagon behind that with an old Oliver 77.

 

[Wesdor]

When we baled hay we usually pulled a wagon behind the baler. Some thoughts about why people do and do not do this.

I believe you correctly identify that weight could be a problem. You can figure a bale is going to weigh at least 80 pounds. We typically put at least 100 bales on a load and if we had to go very far, even as many as 150. That means the tractor is pulling all that weight plus running the baler. So my first concern is if the tractor is big enough to handle that much weight.

Another factor to consider when pulling a wagon behind is the demand of workers. We would usually had 1 person on the rack behind the baler, then 1 person unloading to the elevator at the barn and at least 1 person in the loft.

The good part of having that setup is that you never had to stop. The bad part is that you never got to stop.

One other thing to consider is how hilly your ground is - but you say you have flat ground around you. If you have a flat field it is much easier to bale and pull a wagon.

I think being more automated is really a good answer.

 

[JoeinTX]

The reasons I can figure are:

-tractor isn't big/powerful enough to pull both the baler and increasingly heavier wagon as bales are produced.

-without a helper in/on the wagon, the bales are going to ejected into it in a haphazard manner and may become a bigger headache than a benefit.

-if the wagon gets full and you've got plenty more baling to do, what then? Leave the field, baler and all, and head for the barn to unload? Unhook trailer at which point you are leaving bales in the field thereafter that will still need to be manually hauled.

I've never seen wagons directly pulled behind square balers here but I have seen bale elevators used to help load flatbed trailers once the baling is done. And, I've done a lot square bale loading myself once the baling was done....

 

[zzvyb6]

I presume you are speaking of square bales. The methods I have been involved with are:

1: No thrower, so drop on ground. Fetch later with truck, trailer, or machinery. Bring all hay back to barn, send up elevator to mow, and/or deliver direct to client's barn.

2: Thrower, so run one or two 'Kick wagons' in a chain, Fill trailing wagon, then fill lead wagon. Bring back to barn. Team unloads from wagons; elevated to mow. Requires second tractor and operator.

3: No thrower, use NH stacker wagon to pickup and deliver and drop off at barn. 2 person team: one at base and one in mow.

The worst 'Job' for me was trying to unload the kick wagons, wooden sides are the worst, they 'give' and tighten up the randomly strewn bales. Steel wagons are bigger and more likely to form "bridges" within the random stack. Pulling bales out in the wrong order gets you dirty, hit, and sore. This usually requires 3 helpers: 2 at wagon and one in the mow. or some combination. Minumum requirement is 3-4 wagons for large acreage.

I even tried to 'stack' within a kick wagon using a helper to catch the flying bales. Works for a while until they get hit with one.

I'd say that it depends on how much acreage is done in a day in hay season.

The big operations have gone to big squares or rounds, both left in the field. This means you have cows to eat the rounds as needed.

The money crop is till the horse small squares: delivered to client's garage or loaded into my mow by the client and her kids.

Minimum paid help is zero if I do 200 a night to her place, 1 if they are full and I need to load into my barn, 2 if its not for a committed horse barn. I pay $20. per hour for a helper if they are not from a local client. A case of cigarettes (from your Reservation) is even better. (Winstons). This ensures the help will show up when called. If you pay minimum wage, they show up for a night and its too dirty, too hard, or too tough.

I'm still waiting for a machine that would take hay cut the previous day, super dry it using microwaves, and pack it into a 8' by 16' bale group ready to store. Now don't laugh, I saw a paper by a college team which built such a device. Yes it took some HP for the dryer to bash, press and microwave the hay but it worked. Hay juice and steam were the byproducts.

Until then, the worst job is to snatch them off the ground, stuff onto a wagon or truck, dump at the barn and throw them into a loft.

Sorry I rambled, It took me back in time for a few memories. Many a time on 95 degree nights I swore I'd never do it again... Can't wait for 1st cutting !

 

[Rara Avis]

The reasons I can figure are:

-tractor isn't big/powerful enough to pull both the baler and increasingly heavier wagon as bales are produced.

-without a helper in/on the wagon, the bales are going to ejected into it in a haphazard manner and may become a bigger headache than a benefit.

-if the wagon gets full and you've got plenty more baling to do, what then? Leave the field, baler and all, and head for the barn to unload? Unhook trailer at which point you are leaving bales in the field thereafter that will still need to be manually hauled.

I've never seen wagons directly pulled behind square balers here but I have seen bale elevators used to help load flatbed trailers once the baling is done. And, I've done a lot square bale loading myself once the baling was done....

Well almost every vermont haying operation hauls wagons...

70 hp is a minimum for baling with wagons...

My square baler has the ability to drop the wagon from the tractor's seat... then either I, or one of the crew, haul a new wagon into position to be hooked up to the baler

Most of us have several wagons, so that when the field is done there are either several full wagons sitting in the field waiting to be hauled to the barn...or the crew has been hauling full wagons to the barn for unloading while the baling has been continuing...

 

[JoeinTX]

"Well almost every vermont haying operation hauls wagons...

70 hp is a minimum for baling with wagons...

My square baler has the ability to drop the wagon from the tractor's seat... then either I, or one of the crew, haul a new wagon into position to be hooked up to the baler

Most of us have several wagons, so that when the field is done there are either several full wagons sitting in the field waiting to be hauled to the barn...or the crew has been hauling full wagons to the barn for unloading while the baling has been continuing..."


And thus the differences there are.....


70hp is a fine haying tractor and just about where I'd go if I were looking for one. But, we still see smaller rigs especially since they're only pulling a baler (square or small round) or small swather. You could also see 150hp rigs pulling 14' cutters and the big round/square balers.....but no trailers.

As for the ability to unhook and relatch a bale trailer in operation is just not seen around these parts. There aren't that many people involved in the baling process and I could see that time spent simply manually hauling them versus an elaborate wagon system.

From observation, somewhere between 80-90% of the bales made here are round bales. The relatively few square bales are made for ranchettes, small acreages, and seasonal use. Not like it was when I was a kid and the round bale was a novelty.

More often than not, when counting small square bales, the easy part is baling them...........then you have to haul them yourself. That's only given me heat-stroke 2 or 3 times over the years but it's what gets you the paycheck at the end since the customers aren't at all interested in doing that themselves.

 

[Robert_in_NY]

The few operations I have seen that prompted this post have tractors that are big enough, heavy enough and powerful enough to pull a flat rack behind the baler given the flat ground. Some operations I even see another guy pulling a flat rack and loading it by himself while the baler is still baling in the same field

Another guy bales some of my fields if I don't have a place for the hay, he drops all the bales on the ground and shortly after he starts a truck comes in with a flat wagon and a few guys who start picking bales off the ground and stacking them.

These operations seem very inefficient as these guys are not pushing a bales out that fast. One guy on a wagon can easily keep up with the baler. It seems a lot easier then throwing bales from the ground to the top of the stack on the wagon.

Of course they guy that bales some of my fields left a loaded hay wagon in the field last year and let it get rained on. He ended up leaving it there for a week

My operation is set up to be as efficient as possible. I have one helper that is usually there when I need her and she can run any part of my operation. If I am in a bind or on a weekend my father will help out either running the baler or shuttling wagons.

I run a NH 575 behind a 90pto hp Ford 7710-II. The baler has the model 72 thrower on it and I have 5 kicker wagons. As I am baling I usually have the wagons being shuttled to their destination. Very seldom do I have to use the fifth wagon (it is a wood wagon, the rest are nice metal racks). I try to keep everything moving while we are baling but am not hard on the help unless they start getting lazy (you know the types). I can not stand the workers who think they are better then the rest and don't have to work as hard. I have three workers who will work their butts off, a 19 year old girl (she is great at getting extra help ), her younger brother and a friend of mines one son. These three have proved their worth and get paid well. I know how hard their job is so I can't see paying them next to nothing and expecting them to work hard.

I am looking forward to hay season

 

[pengs68]

Well I am going to experiment with pulling a wagon behind our NH 310 this year.We have always dropped the bales into to a Farmhand sled accumulator. You can get about 8 bales in it it at a time. Then my brother and I load them onto a flatbed wagon driving to each pile. Last year we put in 7500 bales.
My father bought the baler at an auction 15 years ago for $3000 with a kicker. Then he sold the kicker for $1700. The hitch went with it. So I bought a whole hitch assembly on Ebay for $40 shipped and am looking for a chute and we will be in buisness.
My concern is our biggest tractor is a Ford 4600 which is only 52 HP. I dont know how big a load I will be able to pull making 50 pound bales. The old man wont budge on a new tractor or a kicker so I am trying to make the best of the situation.
I will let you know how I make out in June. (Only 5 months away!!!)

 

[chh]

Around this part of Oklahoma bale wagon's never caught on, even in the days before round bales. Of course many of the feilds aren't very smooth at all and there are a lot of hills. I learned to drive as a kid in the 60's for the haulers. Most used half ton PU's and worked by themselves or with 1 other person. No one drove, you just stuck the truck up in first and let it walk while you loaded. I was Dad's bonus to the guys as a free driver, who was going to knock free help and what 6 or 7 year old was going to complain about getting to drive? There is still a lot of horse hay done this way now. Finding help willing to buck hay on a truck or trailer is very hard. Usually there is a real discount in the pricing if you purchase the hay direct off the feild and haul it yourself.
North of me near the Kansas border and in Kansas a lot of operators use self propelled stack wagons to load and dump/stack the hay in a barn.
The labor situation converted all the ranchers around here from square bales to round bales in an amazingly short period of time in the 70's. In the late 70's and early 80's you almost couldn't give a square baler away. I saw a lot of fairly nice ones sell for under $1000(some as low as $200) at auction then.

Robert are most of the square balers in your area twine or wire? This area was almost exclusively wire balers and I have been told that this was really a regional thing and that nation wide twine balers were more popular. Just curious.

 

[Robert_in_NY]

chh, I have never seen a wire tie baler except for pictures online. Around here 2 tie balers using twine (natural is what the horse people want) are what rules the roost for small square bale operations. The small dairy farms who can't afford a round baler hire the baling done. About the only people who still do small squares are people who sell hay. But the horse market keeps us busy if you can provide a good service and quality hay.

pengs68, if your fields are flat you will be ok with a Ford 4600. I use to run a TN65 pulling my 575 with a kicker and wagon on some hilly ground and I just had to do the hilly section first and when I got about half full I stayed up on the flat section. On the flat fields it wasn't a problem as the TN was able to pull fully loaded wagons behind the baler and stop just fine. Use your head and you will be ok, then when you get a bigger tractor you will have more fun.

 

[pengs68]

Our fields are fairly flat so it would be nice to get the majority of hay picked up onto a wagon.
My five year plan is a 570 or 575 Kicker pulled by a Ford 7610 and upping our bale total from 7,500 to around 20,000. Might turn into a ten year plan.
I am jealous of your 575. Watched a neighbor bale hay last summer with one and I was sold. Its a monster that needs to be fed!!

 

[jwcinpk]

I'm looking both for a faster square baler with a wagon hitch and wagons. I too have wondered why more folks aren't using this setup. Granted an accumulator would be great but for a cheaper alternative I'm going to try the wagon route. Given my storage buildings (old chickenhouses with 6 ft sidewalls) I think this is as close to automation as I can get. The wife has agreed to do the baling or switching out wagons. I figure if I can find 2-3 more dependable folks I'll be in business.
I've seen folks doing this with MF 135's so I don't think the 6000 will have any trouble with this setup on flat ground.

 

[Robert_in_NY]

Our fields are fairly flat so it would be nice to get the majority of hay picked up onto a wagon.
My five year plan is a 570 or 575 Kicker pulled by a Ford 7610 and upping our bale total from 7,500 to around 20,000. Might turn into a ten year plan.
I am jealous of your 575. Watched a neighbor bale hay last summer with one and I was sold. Its a monster that needs to be fed!!

It was a lot of fun when I bought the 7710 and could really use the 575's capacity. I have ran the 575 behind a TN65, TL100A and 7710-II. If you put enough power on it you can have a lot of fun. I double and tripple up windrows (9' cutter) and can fill a wagon fairly quick. My one field I get around 140-160 bales on the first trip around with a double windrow.

 

[Robert_in_NY]

I'm looking both for a faster square baler with a wagon hitch and wagons. I too have wondered why more folks aren't using this setup. Granted an accumulator would be great but for a cheaper alternative I'm going to try the wagon route. Given my storage buildings (old chickenhouses with 6 ft sidewalls) I think this is as close to automation as I can get. The wife has agreed to do the baling or switching out wagons. I figure if I can find 2-3 more dependable folks I'll be in business.
I've seen folks doing this with MF 135's so I don't think the 6000 will have any trouble with this setup on flat ground.

Are you looking to go with a chute and flat wagons or a thrower and kicker wagons? The thrower is great if you are doing small fields as you can load up the wagons if labor is unavailable till later and if rain is approaching you can just tarp the wagons. I have a tarp that will cover three of my wagons if I park them side to side. I have some plastic twine that does a good job of tieing the tarp off if I need to tarp. So far I have been caught twice having to cover a load as rain approached, one time I covered a load as it was suppose to be delivered the next day and I didn't have any more room in the barns (all 5 wagons were filled for delivery, one in my barn, three in my friends warehouse and one left in the field).

One trick I found with unloading into low barns is that you can usually find conveyors that were hung in barns. If you have to unload on the end of the barn you can set the conveyor up and use the unloader to unload the bales where you are stacking and just move it down the line. If you have a 200' barn and a 100' conveyor then you eliminate half the walking and that is the hard part (draging the bales gets old quick )

 

[pengs68]

Robert, How many bales do you put up a year with your 575? I wish I was able to make a lot more bales this past season the way hay is selling here outside of Albany,NY. Hows hay moving where you live?

 

[chh]

chh, I have never seen a wire tie baler except for pictures online. Around here 2 tie balers using twine (natural is what the horse people want) are what rules the roost for small square bale operations. The small dairy farms who can't afford a round baler hire the baling done. About the only people who still do small squares are people who sell hay. But the horse market keeps us busy if you can provide a good service and quality hay.

That's funny. I didn't know that they even made twine square balers until after we had already switched to round bales. Still run onto piles of baling wire piled up in odd places. I see a lot more around at auctions now days since the price of steel has driven the price of baling wire thru the roof. Most have been brought in from other areas. Horse hay and a few die hards are about the only ones really using square bales around here now.

 

[dgl24087]

Well I am going to experiment with pulling a wagon behind our NH 310 this year.We have always dropped the bales into to a Farmhand sled accumulator. You can get about 8 bales in it it at a time. Then my brother and I load them onto a flatbed wagon driving to each pile. Last year we put in 7500 bales.
My father bought the baler at an auction 15 years ago for $3000 with a kicker. Then he sold the kicker for $1700. The hitch went with it. So I bought a whole hitch assembly on Ebay for $40 shipped and am looking for a chute and we will be in buisness.
My concern is our biggest tractor is a Ford 4600 which is only 52 HP. I dont know how big a load I will be able to pull making 50 pound bales. The old man wont budge on a new tractor or a kicker so I am trying to make the best of the situation.
I will let you know how I make out in June. (Only 5 months away!!!)

When I was a teenager, I worked for an uncle and cousin who baled with a JD 1530 (45 PTO HP), NH 269 then NH 310 baler, pulling a haywagon behind. We did this on fairly hilly ground in WV. We generally loaded 100 bales on the wagons.

 

[blueriver]

Not pulling a wagon has been a question of mine for along time, as a kid growing up in MN, My dad used a farmall M, I think they are about 35 drawbar hp. He had an International baler, I think a #27? The hack racks where JD running gear with a 8'X16' flatbed with a rear rack, good for I think around 125 bales of alfalfa. The neighbors had racks that everyone would just borrow them back and forth.

Hooked together, the M, the baler and the hay rack, one man stacking on the rack. The other tractor an H farmall was the tractor that pulled the load to the barn, to the elevator and then brought back the empty rack. This went on all day. Somtimes there was 2 or 3 loads waiting in the field. It just seemed to work good and never had to go back and pick up bales.

NOTE: Unlike today, there was always plenty of Highschool kids who looked forward to the summer work!!!

 

[Robert_in_NY]

This year was terrible as there was no rain and no second cutting on grass hay. I ended up doing 5000 this year as I didn't do a couple fields I normally do because the grass got too stemmy (canary grass). Then with the low first cut and no second cut I did not have any hay in the barn in September. Normally it is full into March as I normally do 10k bales of hay and 500-1000 of straw depending if I plant a crop and how much I bale for my friend.

I sold my hay early in the year for $2/bale to my new customers and $1.80 a bale for my regular customers. I got a great deal on fuel and bought my twine 2 years ago before the price went up. So I passed the deal along to my customers. This year I filled my tanks at $2.349 this fall (I was surprised I got that good a deal as it was 20 cents cheaper then Noco) by a local fuel supplier 3 miles down the road. Since last year was so light I should have plenty of twine for first cutting next year but will have to raise my price some anyway. I also charge 25 cents a bale to deliver and stack locally (usually make 5-10 cents a bale profit, 10 at the beginning, 5 at the end of the day).

I have had a lot of calls looking for hay so if you have any PM your number and I will refer you to them as they are getting desperate around here. I imagine around January people will really be scared here. If I didn't have a broke back I would be bringing up some hay from some of the better hay areas this last year and reselling it for a decent profit to some of these people who are price shoppers during normal years. If my normal customers needed more I would sell it at cost to them to keep them supplied.

I have some very good, loyal customers and they I do my best to take care of them. This last year I had a new customer who bought 2100 bales and already placed a order for 3k next season. My stacking service helped seal the deal with this customer as they didn't have to worry about a thing and they liked it. I am sure if I was greedy I could get more money stacking but I have never been greedy. As long as I make enough to keep me profitable I am happy and this year my baler and discbine will be paid off before I bale a single bale so then I will have a lot more money in my bank account then CNH's.

I am adding more fields each year and right now 12k is all I am set up to be able to normally handle. If I build a new barn it will be big enough to handle 15-20k and will accept a NH stack wagon to unload. This way I can do most of my haying with just one worker unless I am putting hay in customers barns in which I might park a tractor with a set of grabs on site and run the stack wagon to the site and drop in the yard. This way it is all automated unless it has to go into a loft in which case it will be half manual.

If I do get bigger I want to add a second baler with a quater turn so that depending on where the hay is going I can either use the kicker wagons or the NH stack wagon. It will give me a lot of versatility and a backup baler in case of a problem. I have found the more automated I get the more helpers I can find

And in case you are interested, I paid $7500 for my 575 3 years ago. It was used but in great condition and only the model 72 thrower had any wear.