Anyone made any hay yet?

[4course]

Must be at least 100-150 adverts on local FB page for hay for sale off the field @ £3/ bale, or less. Where the hell these folks come from, I dunno. Must be all those 20-30 acre farms that are now horsey / hobby farms.
Glad I ain't made any this year....

come xmas there will be a demand for quality as most of what ive seen from these guys will be clapped dusty kelt and they will be looking for quality to replace there own never mind what theve tried to sell or given away now

 

[Overby]

Hear, hear

 

[24/7 farming]

Done!, 300 odd baled this afternoon and now under roofs, on 4 different trailers mind, but we'll worry about sorting that another day!. Been very lucky, mowed Monday and only got one wee shower over Thursday night and turned out a cracker of a day today to get it gathered up. Not quite the same cutting edge technology as other folk but got the job done, and only missed two bales!
Donegal, NW Ireland!

 

[Pan mixer]

Got mine in the barn just before that but there hasn't been much so far.

I only have 45 acres down at present and I resisted the temptation to mow more today.

 

[Simon Chiles]

come xmas there will be a demand for quality as most of what ive seen from these guys will be clapped dusty kelt and they will be looking for quality to replace there own never mind what theve tried to sell or given away now

This^^^. I’ve seen it all before. They think hay making is easy/they’ll earn a fortune so decide to make their own. After a couple of hundred small square bales they realise it’s hard work so offer it for peanuts to anyone who’ll take it. They’ll stuff it into tiny sheds with no air circulation and find out in the winter that it’s dusty rubbish that ends up being burnt. I gave up selling hay off the field 30 years ago for this very reason.

 

[Simon Chiles]

just finished stacking /leading home in the good olde fashioned way what I reckon could well be the most profitable crop of the year here, No fancy arcusion bale packer or trailer just 4 family pairs of hands and a couple of pals plus grandkids playing in the sunshine . Fuel use negligible other than a stack of sandwiches and a pack of lager to finish !!!
708 bales off 5.55 acres of what is designated as sfp fallow not a penny spent on it ,all bales from this field sold or committed at a fiver a bale though some will be to deliver at that (cant have everything) this farming malarkey can occasionally be fulfilling

The trouble is that when you get to 40 or 50 thousand you find that your pals are quite as pally as you thought they were. Suddenly they, inconveniently, want to go up the pub, spend time at a barbecue or just relax in an evening. Even your family will start to get fed up with it and before long you start to struggle to find help.

 

[Grassman]

This^^^. I’ve seen it all before. They think hay making is easy/they’ll earn a fortune so decide to make their own. After a couple of hundred small square bales they realise it’s hard work so offer it for peanuts to anyone who’ll take it. They’ll stuff it into tiny sheds with no air circulation and find out in the winter that it’s dusty rubbish that ends up being burnt. I gave up selling hay off the field 30 years ago for this very reason.

My little baler was sold 15 years ago. I regularly wonder if I should of kept it. After 3 seconds that silly thought is gone

 

[BredRedHfd]

My little baler was sold 15 years ago. I regularly wonder if I should of kept it. After 3 seconds that silly thought is gone

Ditto

 

[glasshouse]

My little baler was sold 15 years ago. I regularly wonder if I should of kept it. After 3 seconds that silly thought is gone

New holland 286 small baler for sale

 

[Grassman]

New holland 286 small baler for sale

And you know what you can do with it

 

[ffukedfarmer]

After the rain appeared on my forecast yesterday morning the decision was taken to big bale the part of a field that was planned to bale today. 1200 small bales and 130 4 stringers in the barn and woken up to rain.

I must admit I'm looking forward to some weather induced downtime this week. I just hope it knows when to stop!

 

[Northeastfarmer]

How's your new baler going .?

Going very well thanks....makes a very solid uniformed bale

 

[Mark C]

Very good idea with the crash barriers mark

Works well. Saves the sheeting rails from getting bent

 

[Mark C]

Really good week this week, 225 acres in the barns all hay. 200 quads. The rest little ones. Best day ever Friday 3708 bales, packed and home between 1 and 9 pm. Could have baked more but ran out of fit grass! . Just the faffing around bits and second cut to do now

 

[jackstor]

Great hay day yesterday, sun and breeze Baled last 15 acres.
We’ve had 3 different attempts at making hay this year, all successful, usually it’s a fight to make even one lot!!
Don’t think I’ve ever seen so much hay made around the countryside as this year, could be cheaper using hay for bedding rather than straw

 

[Bury the Trash]

My neighbour observed that it was probably wear on the JD belts that was causing it to struggle to start the hay rolling. Might try a set but it's still a slow 1980's baler, string not net.

Don't mention the Polish baler. It's in intensive care. I might have it repaired and modified in time for straw......but it's still just a copy of a slow 1980's krone baler.

Should have bought a secondhand McHale like my neighbour's. Twice the machine of the John Deere or Sipma.

ah, big difference is ours is just net wrap, in fact I took the end of the twine arm off as short stuff used to fall back down from between and outside the belts and built up on top of it causing problems
so then by.taking a couple of pickup press bars off it seems to help pick up difficult stuff .
ours has got the longer of the 2 lengths of pick up tine as well.

Last belts we got were from
https://theconveyorshop.co.uk/epage...cd-f452ff4d40b6/Categories/Baler_Belts_online
good firm to deal with I found.

could use cheaper deep dimpled belts on just twine tie I guess. but we just use the diamond pattern ones new belts help a bit but they do struggle in real short dry stuff anyway.

we run ours on eco pto its so easy to drive and less fuel used,than a fixed chamber baler trouble is some sprockets and even the net rolls are beginning to wear now , so im not sure if it will be viable to renew them at the time.

 

[Pan mixer]

Turning the timothy for the first time, my goodness there is a lot of it.

 

[Goweresque]

The new baler hay been getting a few run outs:

After a few teething problems, now ironed out, its running pretty impressively. A considerable increase in output over the old one, at least 50% faster I'd say.

 

[DrWazzock]

ah, big difference is ours is just net wrap, in fact I took the end of the twine arm off as short stuff used to fall back down from between and outside the belts and built up on top of it causing problems
so then by.taking a couple of pickup press bars off it seems to help pick up difficult stuff .
ours has got the longer of the 2 lengths of pick up tine as well.

Last belts we got were from
https://theconveyorshop.co.uk/epage...cd-f452ff4d40b6/Categories/Baler_Belts_online
good firm to deal with I found.

could use cheaper deep dimpled belts on just twine tie I guess. but we just use the diamond pattern ones new belts help a bit but they do struggle in real short dry stuff anyway.

we run ours on eco pto its so easy to drive and less fuel used,than a fixed chamber baler trouble is some sprockets and even the net rolls are beginning to wear now , so im not sure if it will be viable to renew them at the time.

Useful info thanks. I took all the press bars off ours as it seemed to make things a lot worse. The cross hatching pattern on my belts are probably quite worn. These things creep up on you. The stringing seems to take an age and it puts too much string on the finishing end but doesn't seem to be a way to adjust that.

My good old international 445 or whatever it's called is actually faster than the JD550 as it never stops, and this year hasn't missed a bale. Last year it smashed the needles when the timing went due to failure of the bearing on the bevel gears and slippage of the gears that drive the packer and knotter but we got it all back together good and proper.

 

[Mark C]

The new baler hay been getting a few run outs:View attachment 818060
View attachment 818062
After a few teething problems, now ironed out, its running pretty impressively. A considerable increase in output over the old one, at least 50% faster I'd say.

How has the backup been? Are you far from the dealer / importer?