Is it possible to bale hay by hand - YES!

There were some videos that showed how to cut, turn and collect hay by hand. Then they piled it around poles set in the ground. The young woman who was doing it cruised right along with her scythe.

__________________
"Do you believe in the devil? You know, a supreme evil being dedicated to the temptation, corruption, and destruction of man?" Hobbs
"I'm not sure that man needs the help." Calvin

I'd stack it myself. Why take the extra time to bale?

Many of the Old Order Amish put up tons of hay each season, without a baler. They put it up loose.

80 years ago, all the local farmers put up hay loose. Those that harvested enough to feed a few horses and a dozen cattle, with lots left over, forked the hay from the mow into a steam powered stationary wire tie baler. Baled hay was taken 10 miles to town and loaded into box cars for shipment to big cities. Bales under 100 pounds weren't worth shipping.
Hey, look at me, I can split wood with a wedge welded to a huge C clamp and a pipe wrench. Same question: Why?

I don't think those bales are going to stack very well. They are small, look loose, and if they are on the less dry side, they will shrink as they dry fully. Damp hay can also start a barn fire.
I think you do much better to plant good pasture instead of baling the pretty but weedy field. In central TX you could pasture most of the year, with the right pasture mix. If you do decide to bale by hand, I would plant the highest quality hay for my area, to make it worth my time.
I do think when you actually are homesteading you will find that time is one of things in shortest supply. Spending all that time and effort baling hay the hard way may not be the wisest way to use those two things.

I love your project, and that you even tried it. Somewhere in our society, we have lost the ability to think outside the box, and have forgotten that a little ingenuity and some hard work can overcome many problems.

I also like your new blog. You are a very good writer. I like the descriptive details!

One thing of note in your blog, you wrote:

"We spread the hay out to dry for several hours, then began piling it up for the next stage in the process."

Please tell us that is a typo, and that you meant to write "several days" instead of "several hours."

I am sure that you already know about moisture and hay, mold, and the possibility for a barn fire.

I am guilty of backward thinking on pastures. I am very fussy about getting a good hay crop started. I demand a properly fitted field with healthy soil for my grain crops. But, when it comes to pasture, they tend to be overlooked, generally I pasture fields that aren't productive as hay fields. That is just wrong. I've seen the light!
A top notch pasture, proper ph, proper nutrients, minimum weeds and plenty of pasture grasses and clovers is where you make the most money.
Extending your pasture usage by 4 weeks in the spring and 8 weeks in the fall is a major cost savings. If I had to bale enough hay to feed for three extra months, plus supplement with oats, that is a lot of production lost. Let the livestock feed themselves as long as possible.
If your goal extends beyond the novelty of a hand baler, and your goal is to make more feed without equipment, improve their pasture.

I would think that one would have a hard time manually making a 50lb bailer no matter how it was built using normal size chamber. What do you think about a chamber that was 2ft sq, and 4ft long? Although youll fill out the 2ft, ones likely not to have enough umph to pack down 4ft, but that gives more space for the bale to be made, making, hopefully a heavier bale.
But then we come back to a 4ft chamber with the plunger on top would be as unweildly as heck..

As to my building one, Im rather busy at the moment. I have
my boys AC WD im trying to get running
My D Brown tractor that I am saving the money to repair, $1,500
building a mounted plow and cultivator on my Copar Panzer tractor
Getting ready to try to make hay somehow
Cutting wood by chain saw to limb and fell trees, using sledges of various weights, and a doz wedges, and maul to split the trees, and buzzsaw to cut them up.

Considering ive got a sq bailer, and a round bailer, And NO money to spend a hundred on any other kind of bailer, I must pass on building one.

I tend to disagree with haypoint on a number of things, and I believe he does with me too.... lol

What he points out in one of the earlier posts is that hay was being shipped, why?
Because with modern transportation along with refrigeration lot of things changed.

The Infrastructure though for the most part was the beef was out west and most agriculture crops where Midwest,with other cash crops being grown in the south.

80 years ago a lot of the country still relied on horses and horses with out pasture need Hay. So bailing was more for shipping purposes,Compact and easier to handle there fore cheaper to ship.

Its still the same reasoning for baled hay today,Most folks haying do so for income not personnel use.Other words it still needs to be transported. One reason round bales came to be, you don't need all the labor that squares take.
Its for your own use, I would not bother to do it if the modern equipment where not available.
Hay stacks where the norm for centuries.

I agree with haypoint pasture is the way to go, Grazing is beneficial to both pasture and Animal. Has many pluses for the keeper as well.
That is how the system evolved, just look back to reports of the number of Bison and Game Animals on the Plains.
Over grown Fields clog and do not produce well, but well grazed fields do.
the Animals are also not crowded and they move from area to area both contribute to their health.
Manure is not a issue either and is beneficial to the fields.
Scientists would call it a symbiotic relationship,I call it smart.

Problem is personel ownership, most people do not own enough pasture to sustain the number of animals deemed profitable. lacking the ability to rotate properly. Not able to pasture over winter, yes Bovines and many other critters can survive the winters with out Hay, if the numbers are not to high and there is grass under the snow.
And there are economic factors as well, initial cost of land,taxes,Insurance,Fencing etc. etc.

Otherwise pasturing of livestock is the best option available involving the least amount of input on the keepers side.

We only have an acre here so we make hay off about 1/2 an acre. I can not use a scythe because of a bad hand and shoulder so we use an old 1940s walk behind sickle mower that was my Grandfathers. He used it to make hay for his riding horse. We make 3 or 4 cuttings. It is irrigated meadow of grasses and subterranean clover. I take the water off 2 weeks before cutting to let the ground dry. I cut it and leave lay flat 2 days then rake it up into windrows with a wood peg hand rake for 2 more days, turn it over with the rake the morning of moving it to the barn. I pack it in a stall and walk it in tight. I have a little wagon that attaches to the mower instead of the sulky to move the hay. I do not bale it because we have the room and use the hay pile to store our squash, pumpkins, turnips, cabbage, apples, pears and other vegetables. I usually cut 1/2 at a time, a week apart, 1/4 acre is not bad, even for me. We have 3 small goats and 2-3 of the young for butcher, they also eat some hay as we keep hay out for our animals 24/7/365. We also give it to the rabbits, chickens and pigeons. I usually have a stack 8' high and 12' square. As I feed out I am able to use that space as kidding jugs. I try to use my time, money and all our assets to the best use. I have very limited resources and buildings. A place for everything and everything in its place. This method has always worked well for me. We are very subsistence homesteaders, by choice, not because we have to. We live lightly, using only what we need.

Seems the thought process always goes to making everything easy and quick. I applaud the OP for using their assets to keep their lives meaningful and simple. People today have lost that ability. And we wonder why the world has gone to Big everything. Big farming is this mentality. If people raised what they eat, eat what they raise, they would have time to live life close to the land and enjoy what they have, not a lot but what is really needed. I know it is not for everyone but why the negativity when someone IS doing it. We are able to live this lifestyle because we save money doing it, not spending money to have what the city people have. It is a way of life for us. Homesteading, not farming.

In a thread about what homesteading is. Someone said it was making money from the land, that is farming. Homesteading is LIVING from the land. I have never paid for a soil test here, I can see what is needed, I know what my soil is capable of. I know when it is overused. We that live off the land know that we always give back to the land, more than we take. Manure, compost, nutrients, fallow, moisture, covercrop, a little at a time. We build soil everyday....James

I did not read anything negative, what I read was questioning of why?

Sorry if anything I posted came across as such.

My logic dictates, there are not enough hours in the day.
So taking the time to bail by hand vs having a pile or stack is counter productive and the time could be used else where.

Obviously James, you seem to be thinking along the same lines or you would be hand bailing.

Its discussion of different Ideas that lead to improvements in everyones thought process, I did not say it but I think its great hes trying something.
Though as pointed out previously I see no benefit in the exercise.

And others have voiced what they see wrong as well, but I do not see anything negative. If anything its food for thought.

I saw a vid where a guy overseas was using 2 side mount stationary bailers. Each had a hyd cyl, and there was 2 or 3 people working them. He would pitch to one till it was full, them run in the cyl to press the bale for tying. Somebody did the tying, while he started filling the other one. By the time they had got it tied, the other one was about ready to be pressed and tied. Seemed to be making around 2 to 3 a minute.

Ive sometimes wondered about finding an old junk bailer. Cutting or removing everything off of it but the chamber with flywheel and plunger and crank. Likely have to lengthin the back side of the chamber, and open up a hole in the top to admit the hay, maybe the width of the chamber by 3ft, and building flared sides above the hole to hold the excess incomeing hay.
It would have to be run REAL slow with a belt from a tractor with a belt pulley. The blocks don't seem to be much a problem (in my mind), but one would have to play with it to figure them out. I imagine make them out of 2 bys. build the block with fairly close tolerances to the chamber so that once inserted, it couldn't fall down. It would be around 5in wide, or thick, the the demesions of the chamber.
It would have to be rigged to where it was blocked down. Maybe blocks under the wheels, and a rod through the tongue hitch to keep iot from coming forward when the belt got tight. Then youd need, for best perfermorance, around 2 pitchers, 2 tiers, and one or 2 to haul away and stack the bales.

Are you re-inventing the original stationary baler? I think that pressing 50-60 pounds of loose hay would take far more pressure than a "modern" baler. Remember flakes of hay? That is the total production of a single stroke of a baler. To create one 55 pound flake of hay would take quite a lot of pressure. If you are using a hyd. cylinder, you are back to machinery.

Bill, have you seen the tiny straw balers at farm shows. One here makes them and sells for Halloween-Christmas decorations.

I don't make bales because I have enough space, if I didn't have enough space I would make bales. Actually when I had more animals, I did, with a regular baler. I stacked all the hay outside and in the fall, sometimes during the last cutting, sometimes after. I would pitch the pile into the baler, then stack in the barn. One year I had over 100 bales....James

Haypoint, Im not understanding what your saying/asking?
James, ive seen them on U Tubes. Don't know why a guy couldn't have one made, buy it, take it home, and reproduce it to the size they wanted.
AND, yes, for the most part, im back to machinery.

Yes, I know what a stationary bailer is. I pitched to a JD one once. I thought there was more to what you were saying than that. That makes sectioned sized leafs also.

I remember parents and grandparents and us older kids baling with a stationery. They brought the hay to the baler with a hay buck pulled by a team of horses. I was just old enough to sit on a metal seat and tie the wires, probably 12 yrs old. Brother on the other side poked the wires and fed the blocks. Dad fed the baler and granddad and an uncle stacked the bales . I don't remember how many bales in a day, but it was a huge stack.
I also remember mom and grandma bring lunch to the field. Usually fried chicken and all the summer vegetables.

__________________
* I'm supposed to respect my elders, but its getting harder and harder for me to find one. .*-

I have seen those videos.
Did you see the young gal cut around a tractor? How many times did she stop and sharpen that blade? It sure reminded me of back when I was trying to hoe in black hard dirt that was full of crushed stone. Yes I grew up where at least a half acre was where back years ago they were building the roiad and had piled their crushed stone there. From age 8 to 15 I had to hoe with a file in my back pocket too. I ain't never looked that good though.

LOL LOL Rusty lol

I pitched behind a threshing machine.

As a younger guy I once was given a rather old hay baler.
If you ask me what breed it was there was some orange paint on it and no sign of a name. This was one made for the old tractors without a PTO because it originally had a four cylinder gas engine on the tongue.
It had problems with the knotting needles that had been busted and brazed back together. So being the guy I was I tore it all apart for the steel.

At least I still have my old horse drawn John Deere #2 sickle bar mower.
I also have one of those walk behind mowers and a 1968/69 Allis Chalmers B-110/B210 12HP garden tractor that has a five foot sickle bar mower that came with it. That would probably be the best one for me to use.
Now if I could only find some hay to mow,,,,,,,,,