I thought I'd seen it all, hay making Montana style.

[Dry Rot]

Yep, and stooks of Oats, around 1980 I guess.

Stooked oats near Duffown, Banffshire, Scotland with snow on the stooks. They still got it. The worst sheaves for wetness were hung on the wire fence to dry! 1980s.

 

[shumungus]

A hay cock would be a small hand made pile, designed to allow it to keep drying, like a shock/stook of corn. A hay cock could be built around a small pole, or without any support. Some places will/would hang wet hay on a rack of wood or wire also.

This side of the Irish Sea we call that a 'Ruck'

 

[Dry Rot]

Could you please educate us youngsters, as to what “cocked hay” is?

Hay is mowed and when a bit dry, raked into heaps. When it is dried a bit more, it will be cocked or trip podded, i.e. bigger heaps. A heap of hay shouldn't be too badly affected by rain, short term. Tri-podding is the sophisticated/technical method. The hay is heaped onto tripods with cross bars fixed about 1/3rd the way up and 2/3rds the way up. The aim is to encourage ventilation underneath the heap with the hay on the outside sloped to shed the rain like a thatched roof. The whole 'cock' can be picked up with a buck rake and transported to the baler to be forked though, or forked onto a cart, then to a rick, to be stacked. For feeding, sections of hay are cut off with a hay knife and forked out to feed. The stack will either be topped with a straw thatch (best) or covered with a tarpaulin. Methods vary, but that is the bones of it. It usually makes excellent hay because it can be cut green, dries slowly and evenly without bleaching.

 

[willie waver]

Naww, I found this one easier to watch.

who she? and where can i get one?

 

[Tim W]

Another bit of unusual (to me ) hay equipment ---this was in Netherlands & usually stored hay. The roof slides up and down to protect the haystored underneath

 

[Agrivator]

who she? and where can i get one?

Our local Blacksmith still stocks wooden hay rakes if you really want one. He will also supply a few spare pegs in case you are particularly ham-fisted or careless.

 

[Dry Rot]

Our local Blacksmith still stocks wooden hay rakes if you really want one. He will also supply a few spare pegs in case you are particularly ham-fisted or careless.

But not the bird that goes with them. That's a bit sexist, isn't it? Just can't get the service these days.

 

[It was already broken.]

who she? and where can i get one?

She was on here a few years ago, don't know when it was filmed, I imagine she sits on a porch wearing a headscarf and smoking a pipe by now

 

[Old Tup]

Picture somewhere of Dad on a Grey Fergie with what was referred to as a Hay Sweep fitted to the front.
Very similar to the Montana version without the Mad Max bit.
Hay was typically made into Kyles..(small piles about three feet high) meant to protect it from the weather????
Thrown out and then swept up with the sweep…Lister loose crop elevator stationed at the stack ..
Other method was to make what was called Pikes (about 8ft high , 4ft or so at the base) Hay bogie was then used to pick up complete Pike…similar to a Beaver tailed vehicle carrier…rope around the Pike pulled the bogie underneath until it passed the point of balance. Back home and then the reverse of before.
Another version was a Hay pole….twenty foot long pole with right angle arm that could be pulled up the pole to suit the height of the stack, Similar item to the ones used to lift large masonry grabbed a lump of hay …..horse pulled the rope to raise the load, allowing it to swing around onto the stack…
Ahhhh
The good old days….

 

[2wheels]

A hay cock would be a small hand made pile, designed to allow it to keep drying, like a shock/stook of corn. A hay cock could be built around a small pole, or without any support. Some places will/would hang wet hay on a rack of wood or wire also.

it eas called coling hay in my young day. father had a hay sweep mounted on the front of a davy broon vak1. the heap off the sweep was forked into the cole( cock ) then left to dry . when dry the coles were either pulled with a rope round them from the tractor or pushed with the sweep to the edge of the field and forked up to make a stack. hard work for us young uns but not as hard as the small bales which came after. no elevator, all hand forked.

 

[2wheels]

This side of the Irish Sea we call that a 'Ruck'

a ruck was the name for a stack over here. god, i'm getting old.