Anybody put up any amount of acreage of hay loose?

[FarmboyBill]

I bought Lynn Millers (Haying with horses). He raves of the value in putting up hay loose. Ive done it once from start to finish. I had a heck of a time getting it off the wagon with forks onto a stack, and a heck of a time getting it out of the stack in winter to feed. Have any u done it. Whats your thoughts if you have. I was around 21 when I did it, and im 63 now, so I imagine that will have alot to do with it also. I have the equipment, Dont have the help that I can guarantee that ill have when needed, but I aint tested it yet so I dont know for sure.

[jwal10]

I put up hay off a half acre or so, 2-3 cuttings for my 3 goats. I pasture it late so it isn't very tall. The pasture is subirrigated so it grows good all summer. I cut 2 or 3 cuttings depending on what I need to fill a 12' square stall 9-10' high, packed in by walking it down. It is grass with a lot of subterannean clover so it is short stemmed hay. I cut it with a walk behind mower, windrow it with a wood peg hay rake, let it set 2 days, make small stacks to let it sweat in the field for 5-6 days and then load it on my oversized garden cart with 2 bicycle tires to haul it to the barn. Makes very good hay.

Do you have a horse mower and dump rake, or a regular tractor mower? A dump rake is better than a side delivery rake. You need the hay fork in the barn to get it off the wagon, into the hay mow to pack it in the barn. We used a hay knife to cut the hay to remove it when I was a kid, especially if it sweats in the barn....James

http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=...ed=0CDkQ9QEwBw

[michiganfarmer]

my dad is about 66. He tells us about him doing it for years when he was a kid. Mom too.

[Callieslamb]

Dh is thinking we need to learn. I'll learn right after he does.

[SFM in KY]

We did not start putting up baled hay until I was 15 or 16 ... I was 10 or 12 when we quit haying with horses ... just like it is laid out in Miller's book (which we have as well) just continued with an additional tractor. I don't know how many acres we were haying but we were putting up all the hay we needed for about 75 to 100 head of cows through a Montana winter.

My grandparents retired when I was 10 or 12 (Grandpa was in his 70s) and the draft team retired with them, we continued stacking loose hay until I was 15 or 16 but with a Ford 8N and a John Deere. Got a side delivery rake to rake with, my Dad rigged the buckrake to work with the 8N Ford ... I raked and bucked ... he mowed and then stacked, used an overshot stacker.

I can't tell you much about getting the hay out of the stack in the winter as I was in high school then and had to go away to school so wasn't home much during the winter. Got home on weekends when there was good weather, didn't when the snow was bad and just don't remember if it was terribly difficult to get hay out of the stacks or not.

[FarmboyBill]

Ive got 2 horse mowers, A MH and a McDeering, both 6ft. Ive got a JD side rake, and a Case side rake. Ive got some kind of dump rake. Ive got a NI loose hay loader. Ive got a bale loader and a 1960 Case 140 W bailer. I can see, if your pitching it from the field onto racks, ect that u might prefer a dump raked field to a side raked field. BUT, If I were doing it on my 5 thereabouts acres or less, id use the NI loader behind the rack wagon.
Im just wondering if people found a way to pitch hay off the rack easily, and out of the stack easily.

[SFM in KY]

Originally Posted by FarmBoyBill

Im just wondering if people found a way to pitch hay off the rack easily, and out of the stack easily.

All of the loose hay we handled we just used a pitchfork to take it out of the stack and load it on the hayrack and off the hayrack onto the ground feeding cows.

We put loose hay in the hayloft of the barn every year as well, but again, just someone with a pitchfork tossing it up into the loft and someone in the loft to carry it to the back of the loft.

I remember seeing a sort of 'grapple' once at a neighbor's ranch that was on a winch/pulley fastened at the top of the hayloft door. They would pick up a big 'bite' of loose hay off the rack, winch it up and swing it into the loft but I was too young to really remember how it was done. I don't remember seeing anyone handling the loose hay except someone with a pitchfork and everyone used some kind of buckrake and overshot stacker system to get it out of the field and into the stack.

[Yvonne's hubby]

Originally Posted by FarmBoyBill

I bought Lynn Millers (Haying with horses). He raves of the value in putting up hay loose. Ive done it once from start to finish. I had a heck of a time getting it off the wagon with forks onto a stack, and a heck of a time getting it out of the stack in winter to feed. Have any u done it. Whats your thoughts if you have. I was around 21 when I did it, and im 63 now, so I imagine that will have alot to do with it also. I have the equipment, Dont have the help that I can guarantee that ill have when needed, but I aint tested it yet so I dont know for sure.

square bales are wonderful things... and rolls are even better once you have traded off your youth for equipment. I helped daddy put in forty acres of alfalfa loose one year when I was about 14..... never do that again!!!! Square bales are so much easier to work with but at 63 your wont have that much energy for very many more years either. I went to rolls a couple years ago. Everything is done from the tractor seat and in my current physical condition thats about all the energy I can muster up. Unless you have some kind of iron clad contract with your help.... I wouldnt depend on them. Hay needs to be done when it needs to be done, not when the help can "maybe" get there.

[Yvonne's hubby]

[SFM in KY]

We buy our hay now, don't put up our own, our acreage is just pasture. But the big issue I hear from the smaller farmers is the cost of the machinery ... tractors, rakes, balers ... I have no idea what you would have to pay for one of the big round baling outfits ... and for 5 acres of hay, I'm not sure it would be cost-effective to invest in the machinery to do it.

Just a rough estimate, I suppose we might have had 80 to 100 acres of hay land at the MT ranch and got two cuttings, occasionally three. I have no idea of the tonnage, but it fed 80 to 100 head of beef cows from October until May. My Dad and I did it ourselves, with no help for a couple of years when we were still stacking loose hay ... he got a used baler that did small square bales after that and we did everything except the actual picking up bales and stacking with the two of us. When it was baled, we got 2 or 3 boys from town and Dad and the boys picked up and stacked, I drove the tractor and skid.

[NewGround]

Sounds like another book I need to get. I just bought a Case #5 sickle mower and I believe an IH dump rake. The Case has been cut down for tractor use but easy to set back up for a couple of mules which is future plans.

Is a dump rake really better than a side delivery? why? I saw video of a side delivery and it looked simpler...

[blufford]

Originally Posted by Yvonne's hubby

square bales are wonderful things... and rolls are even better once you have traded off your youth for equipment. I helped daddy put in forty acres of alfalfa loose one year when I was about 14..... never do that again!!!! Square bales are so much easier to work with but at 63 your wont have that much energy for very many more years either. I went to rolls a couple years ago. Everything is done from the tractor seat and in my current physical condition thats about all the energy I can muster up. Unless you have some kind of iron clad contract with your help.... I wouldnt depend on them. Hay needs to be done when it needs to be done, not when the help can "maybe" get there.

Do your pictures show the 40 acres of alfalfa? Nice photos,big pile!

[arcticow]

Bill, I have put up 5 or so acres loose several times in the last few years... if you have a front-end loader then that should take the place of a pitchfork. I have heard of folks using cattle panels in a big circle to start the stack, cut and raked with a tractor then used the loader to dump hay in the ring till it was full and built the stack with it from there up. Way easier than I did, with a scythe, hand rake, fork and a pick-up to haul it.

[SFM in KY]

Originally Posted by NewGround

Sounds like another book I need to get. I just bought a Case #5 sickle mower and I believe an IH dump rake. The Case has been cut down for tractor use but easy to set back up for a couple of mules which is future plans.

Is a dump rake really better than a side delivery? why? I saw video of a side delivery and it looked simpler...

That is by far the best book I've ever seen about working horses and horse drawn haying equipment. Detailed drawings of a lot of the old horse drawn mowers, rakes, buckrakes and stackers along with actual "how to" trouble shooting.

I used a dump rake with the horses and also one year with the 8N tractor. Personally, I think it is a more simplified 'machine' and simpler to operate, when you get to the windrow where you want to dump that load of hay, you step on the foot pedal that trips the rake, it pops up, dumps the hay and drops down to start raking again. For the tractor, my Dad fixed a rope I could pull that tripped it. I don't remember the dump rake ever breaking down.

The side delivery rake was faster, didn't require manual dumping but I do remember something breaking and having to fix it. Just don't remember what broke ...

[Yvonne's hubby]

Originally Posted by blufford

Do your pictures show the 40 acres of alfalfa? Nice photos,big pile!

Not the same stack, but it was very similar, and so was the equipment used. The photos are of my daddys uncle haying quite a few years before I was born.

[FarmboyBill]

NewGround. If your pitching the windrow onto a rack with forks, than a dump rake is better. If your picking up the hay onto the rack with a loader, than windrows made with a side rake are better. Dump rake windrows arent tied together as much as hay done with a side rake. Hay raked with a side rake tends to intertwine itself in long lines. I once in the late 50s or early 60s had to pick up some hay that had been windrowed with a side rake. Some of the forkfuls had tails 20ft long.

[motdaugrnds]

We use a DR Field & Brush Mower to cut the orchard grass, making sure 2 rows land together as we go. Then let it air dry in the sun just long enough to cure without ruining. Then we use heavy duty "leaf rakes" to roll each row into a bundle; then we use pitchfork to get it onto 8' x 8' mesh sheets, tie up the 4 corners and place each sheet on our wagon (can carry 500 lbs). Then we either pull the wagon to the barn outselves or put the harness on one of our bucks and let him pull it to the barn. Then we lift it "clumsely" into the loft. This is all hard and time consuming; but it works.

Would love to get that walk-behind bailer and have written the company; but do not believe it will stand alone or can be attached to our DR Field & Brush Mower.

[springvalley]

Bill, I have done enough to know I wouldn`t do much that way unless I had no other way to do. I have allways used a fork to get it in the barn. > Marc

[Twp.Tom]

I brush hog with my Jubilee-I cut it at a quick pace-and high. It ends up in rows,that I roll over the next day with a hand rake, Then I pull a wagon with the tractor,and fork it by hand on the wagon. I make a platform out of pallets set up on cinder blocks-with welded wire 4' fence surrounding it in the barn. Helps supplement my feeding for my small herd of Nigerians.

[texican]

Originally Posted by FarmBoyBill

I bought Lynn Millers (Haying with horses). He raves of the value in putting up hay loose.

I think raves is the right word... if not raving, as in raving mad.

Of course, he's probably getting some nice royalty checks off the book sales.

There is a reason why you don't see folks Haying with Horses... actually many many reasons... the main ones I could think of being efficiencies and scales of labor. If I had a dozen field hands or a couple dozen children, with strong backs and weak minds, cutting, raking, and hauling hay, by horse power, might be the ticket... Better yet, if civilization ceased to exist, it'd be the only game in town. Till that time, well....

With only myself, I can cut a hayfield, fluff, rake, and bale it, and haul it all to the barn, without ever over exerting myself. Someone that can't lift more than a gallon of milk can do the whole shebang. Haying with horses requires massive amounts of physical labor...