Machinery for hay?

[ThePigeonKid]

What machinery would I need to have to cut and bale hay? And where should I look to find how much a good, used one/s costs?

Thanks!

[FarmboyBill]

How many acres?
Mower, rake, bailer, rack wagon, tractor.
locate farm machinery auctions and go to them.
You can better find a good mower, rake and wagon at an auction, than you can find the good tractor. Don't buy a bailer until you have seen it bale.
The more stuff a tractor has on it, and the newer it is, The more likely it is at the auction cause some of this attachments have gone bad and are expensive to fix, This is less so with tractors made from 1960 back.
Don't buy a tractor until you have seen it started up and have listened to it. Try to see it move forward and backward. IF POSSIBLE< Try to get to drive it a bit.
Mower, $100/$400
Rake same
rack wagon, same
bailer, 1000/3000
tractor $2000 or less

[salmonslayer]

We farm 25 acres and have about 14 acres in hay and though I would love my own equipment I am able to have a neighbor do square bales for me at $1.25 a bale so it just is easier to do it that way.

Balers seem to be very finicky and require a lot of tinkering but it would be nice to be able to bale when you want to rather than rely on someone else; I am just fortunate to have a friend and neighbor who like to do square bales.

[Johnny Dolittle]

It is always preferable to store the equipment inside. If you already have shed space then you are paying taxes and upkeep costs .... but if you put up a shed you have those costs along with purchase price of machinery and maintenance costs.

You also might consider mowing and raking and let the neighbor bale.... especially if you need a tractor for other reasons anyway

[FarmboyBill]

yeah, but I found when YOU mow and/or rake, the hay may be in windrows and be days before the bailer man gets to you, with downpours in between times,

[jwal10]

How much hay do you want to make? Have you made hay before? Small squares or big rounds? You need a cutter, haybine, swather, cycle bar or discbine. You need a rake and/or tedder and a baler. Size depends on tractor horsepower or equipment dictates a big enough tractor to run cutter and baler. If your first time and you have the money get a newer cutter and baler. Older small square balers can be tempermental and costly to fix, IF you can find parts. I would suggest buying brands that you have dealerships near, that support those models, you will need help and parts at some point....James

[rambler]

Grass hay, alfalfa hay, or both?

Tractor to pull the stuff, if you have many acres 2 tractors sure is helpful as you often are doing 2 things the same day back and forth.

Cut the hay

Rake the hay

Bale the hay

Haul the hay

Shed to house the hay and the baler and tractor.

That's the process, more hay, less hay, round bales, square bales, all depends on exactly what you need.

Paul

[FarmboyBill]

What he said. Before anybody can advise you what will work, we need to know what kind of acreage your doing. What kind of hay you have, if your fields flat or hilly.

[JLMissouri]

I started with close to the bare minimum of equipment,

Ford 8N ($1500)
Ford 501 Sickle mower ($350)
5 wheel rake ($450)
Ford 530 square baler ($450)

You can get fancier, but all you need is a tractor($600-$2000), mower($250-$800), rake ($400-$900) and baler ($400-$2000). I have found that a 4x8 trailer on the back of the ATV is a great way to pickup bales when you are solo. A hay trailer only works well if you have help. Craigslist is the best site to find used equipment and everything I have except the tractor came from an ad on craigslist. You can pickup equipment at auctions as well but I consider craigslist or individual classifieds a better way, you can often test the equipment and get the whole story on it, unlike an auction.

[FarmboyBill]

No way Id buy a bailer unless I could see it bale.

[Yvonne's hubby]

Originally Posted by FarmboyBill

No way Id buy a bailer unless I could see it bale.

I have had pretty good luck with both of the square balers I have bought. Neither one would tie a knot when I bought them, but with a good cleaning, some minor adjustments I was able to bale hay for a lotta years. My old 14T finally gave up the ghost when I blew the main gearbox (forgot to check the oil) and I sold my New Holland 271 at an auction last spring for double what I had paid for it about 15 years ago. I gave my personal guarantee that it would not tie the first bale, it always missed the first one after setting for a while, but never had any trouble once it ran through one, sometimes two, cycles. I am no longer able to handle the squares and have upgraded to a 5x5 International roller. ($1,000) I pull a 7 foot NH haybine (another $1,000) with a Ferguson 35 that I paid $3,000 for, and am still using the old 5 wheel farmhand rake I picked up for $80 bucks about 25 years ago. Once in a great while I get my hay rained on, so have a tedder to stir it up with. If memory serves I paid a couple hundred for it.

[Allen W]

Don't forget a good set of tools.

[FarmboyBill]

Well Hub by. When I bought this 1950s Case 140W bailer, it worked fine. Did for several years, then it slowly quit tying. Ive fought it for around 5 seasons. No go. I guess the point im trying to make is, Some people are mechanically inclined to be able to make a bailer tick, and most of us are not.
Saying that, I STILL stand by what I said. Id say it to any new person, new to hay and haying. DONT BUY A BAILER UNTIL YOUVE SEEN IT BALE. I didn't see mine bale. it baled anyway. then it quit.
Saying that means, you may see it bale fine, and then buy it and it quit, just like mine after a few years. Then, the owner got rid of it when he knew it was starting to get troublesome, as most bailer sellers are prone to do.

[FarmboyBill]

RIGHT Allen. A GOOD set, and a FULL set

[Callieslamb]

We have a tractor, a brush hog DH cut and welded on, a rake and a baler. The tractor was $3K and another $3K to rebuild it - we planned that when we bought it. Brush hog was new, rake $600 and baler $1500. We did not see it work before we bought it. It has worked just fine for 3 years. It all depends on the kind of people you buy from. We found them on craigslist and by word of mouth. It's easier to get a baler home if you buy it locally.

If we did it again, we'd just buy a $7000 tractor. Dh's very mechanically minded and keeps his equipment in good shape (greased, oiled, sharpened, etc). We only bale 3 acres.

[FarmboyBill]

My bailer worked for around 3-5 yrs too

[sammyd]

Unless you are trying to resurrect an old junker or keep some antique running, balers should not be a problem.
I have been in front of and behind small square balers since 1970 and never worried about them at all. You kept them greased and pulled them out of the shed when you wanted to bale and they worked, 10,000 bales a year wasn't a big deal.
6 years ago I bought a baler for 700 hundred dollars from a gentleman who had been out of farming for a couple of years. He did hook it up to a tractor so I could watch it move but even if there is no tractor you should be able to roll the flywheel and make sure there are no big problems. We have used it for 1 acre to over 80 acres in a year and only ever broke one part.

Started with a $400 dollar mower and a $550 dollar tractor, we borrowed a rake and relied on a neighbor to bale.
Very first time I had 5 acres of hay get rained on twice because the neighbor couldn't make it to bale for various reasons.
So I bought the $700 dollar baler.
This year we only had 1 acre of hay to put up but it sure was nice to be able to do it when I wanted, with the weather we've had one days wait would have meant rained on hay.

[Allen W]

The square baler setting in the barn now Dad bought new, it's his third baler and I've probably put as much hay through it as he has. How much total I don't know but I can show you a hole or two wore in it. I guarantee you it takes more then a barn and grease to keep one working.

[rambler]

I would suggest John Deere and New Holland got the knotters figured out right first, and while they are priced a tad higher, that is for a reason - making bales is all about tying the bales, otherwise what do you have a baler for? A lot of balers 40-60 years old are wore out, but a lot of good ones are left out there.

You can skimp price on a rake.

Hate to go too cheap with a mower, it is the action machine that cuts the hay. Can find a sickle mower for $200-500. Something with a crimper (crisper??? darn autocorrect!) will cost more, but will get the hay to dry faster. A brush hog type of cutter typically does not cut hay properly for baling. Some few you can take one side off and it works sort of, but most of the time a brush hog type of mower shreds up the grass too much, more like lawn clippings, not full value hay.....

For the tractor you want one with live or independent pto. Yes, many millions of bales of hay have been made with a Ford 8N or a Farmall H without a live pto, but is sure is a lot more miserable doing so, if you are looking for a baling tractor get one with a live pto and enjoy life some.

Just some idle thoughts, nothing is written in stone on this, many different ways to get there. Hope the original poster comes back with an update on what he needs.

Paul

[FarmboyBill]

Sammy you say (You should be able to roll the flywheel and make sure there are no big problems). Well, can I say that, IF it don't tie, That's a BIG problem. This bailer ticks like a swiss watch. The engine runs like a new one, but it wont tie, and that's a BIG problem.

Rambler, and im just sorta kidding. I don't have live pto on anything, but I can stop anytime I want, and the bailer keeps running.