Hay making 2022

Two Tone

Member
Mixed Farmer
How come, when I stack new hay like that, the whole heap falls over?
I’m 62 and I’ve been doing it since I was 14. I suppose I’m used to it. Those bales might look green, but they are good and dry and happily cope with being stacked 12 high. I just criss-cross the end bales on the right so they bind in better.

It also helps having an articulated telescopes loader as you have instant side-shift by just turning the steering wheel. So can really bang them up tight together.
 
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Pan mixer

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Near Colchester
I’m 62 and I’ve been doing it since I was 14. I suppose I’m used to it. Those bales might look green, but they are good and dry and happily cope with being stacked 12 high. I just criss-cross the end bales on the right so they bind in better.
I am 61 and have been doing it since I was 13 but still get a bit of bother. Not dead dry would be my problem I reckon.
 

bobk

Member
Location
stafford
Monumental push to get the conventionally bales in today. Even had Mrs Two Tone helping. I’ve just baled the last field in Rounds to get in done. Hopefully they won’t need wrapping. But some of my customers are going to have to get used to Rounds this year.
View attachment 1044807
View attachment 1044808
Showers on and off this morning and just as I finished the round baling.
Told you the weather was going tits up
 

Two Tone

Member
Mixed Farmer
In 1972, L E Tuckwell’s of Worlingworth, Suffolk sold my father a Farmhand Flat 8 bale system. The sledge was driven by a hydraulic pump on the PTO of the baler. We had a Farmhand F11 loader and flat 8 grab on a MF 175 working at the stack yard end and a Quickie loader with another flat 8 grab on an MF165 in the field.
We were dairy and arable and baled about 15,000 hay bales (barn dried) and about 20,000 straw bales. A driver on each loader and somebody shifting trailers, would shift about 2,000 bales a day.

In the last 24 hours, with Mrs Two Tone helping me from lunch time today, I/we have shifted 2,564 bales in 6 fields to 2 stacks, using a JCB 320S, loading in the field AND stacking at the farmyard. Towing a trailer that carries 18 packs of 8 bales (144 bales) and an extra 8 on the grab, being 152 bales. Val, my Mrs , joined in using an Ifor Willian’s flat trailer, carrying 100 bales towed by the farm’s Disco 3.

The key to the whole thing is the articulated telescopic loader and using a rope, Not straps to hold the load on the trailer for speed. The trailer has an angled front rave. Starting an the back RHS, I throw the rope over the top to about half way along the LHS middle. Using a Half hitch to secure, I then throw the rope over the middle, half hitching again, then from the RHS middle to the LHS rear, half hitching again. The beauty of these knots is that they come apart quickly when taking the rope off. So I don’t need to waste time rolling up any straps.
 

Pan mixer

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Near Colchester
In 1972, L E Tuckwell’s of Worlingworth, Suffolk sold my father a Farmhand Flat 8 bale system. The sledge was driven by a hydraulic pump on the PTO of the baler. We had a Farmhand F11 loader and flat 8 grab on a MF 175 working at the stack yard end and a Quickie loader with another flat 8 grab on an MF165 in the field.
We were dairy and arable and baled about 15,000 hay bales (barn dried) and about 20,000 straw bales. A driver on each loader and somebody shifting trailers, would shift about 2,000 bales a day.

In the last 24 hours, with Mrs Two Tone helping me from lunch time today, I/we have shifted 2,564 bales in 6 fields to 2 stacks, using a JCB 320S, loading in the field AND stacking at the farmyard. Towing a trailer that carries 18 packs of 8 bales (144 bales) and an extra 8 on the grab, being 152 bales. Val, my Mrs , joined in using an Ifor Willian’s flat trailer, carrying 100 bales towed by the farm’s Disco 3.

The key to the whole thing is the articulated telescopic loader and using a rope, Not straps to hold the load on the trailer for speed. The trailer has an angled front rave. Starting an the back RHS, I throw the rope over the top to about half way along the LHS middle. Using a Half hitch to secure, I then throw the rope over the middle, half hitching again, then from the RHS middle to the LHS rear, half hitching again. The beauty of these knots is that they come apart quickly when taking the rope off. So I don’t need to waste time rolling up any straps.
I am regarded as mad by neighbours for not using straps as they are tedious to put on but strap winders do sped that up enormously.

I just do about 8 - 10,000 small bales and use 2 x 56 bale squezers to bring them home, dotting the heaps about in cattle yards and grainstore until they are sold or it rains and I stack them. I have a 56 bale grab for the front of the manitou too , that speeds up stacking..
 

Jon 3085

Member
Location
Worcester, UK
Still stack them by hand here.
6DC52A71-44D9-4E5D-BBD2-0917E87F177A.jpeg
82D583CF-144C-4126-AA64-1571FEF104B3.jpeg
 

som farmer

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
somerset
Artic JD, double Farmhand flat and artic trailers with 2000 capacity are my weapons of choice.
Long way from the Perry loader, then cube 8
even further away from a 2 prong pick.
OM borrowed a loader tractor with a perry loader, we thought it was fantastic, so did he, went and ordered one. Which duly arrived, but didn't fit our loader tractor, he threw a wobbly over that, not sure why, but we had to wait another month, till he decided he would get the 'right' bits, to fit our tractor, a DB 990, trip loader.
We had a wooden sledge, behind the baler, 1 person stacking the bales in 5's or 7's, depending what the bales were like. That was a 'lovely' job, then moved onto a more conventional one, then a cooks sledge/loader, finally a flat eight.
It just shows how far farming has modernised, in a relatively short time.
 

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Red Tractor drops launch of green farming scheme amid anger from farmers

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As reported in Independent


quote: “Red Tractor has confirmed it is dropping plans to launch its green farming assurance standard in April“

read the TFF thread here: https://thefarmingforum.co.uk/index.php?threads/gfc-was-to-go-ahead-now-not-going-ahead.405234/
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