No sweat haying

[A-z farmer]

This is our 15th season using a Kuhn's hay accumulator for small square bales .It is only my son and I and it has saved us a lot of labor .We only use it on straw and second cutting hay for the horse stables. We bale everything else with a round and big square balers or use a Anderson bale wrapper for baleage.The lack of good dependable labor has moved us more and more to labor saving devices.


 

 

[WDH]

That is slick!

[sawguy21]

I have swung enough bales to appreciate that! I would like to see it work.

[moodnacreek]

So would I.         It's nice to see that there are a few old haymakers in this forum.

[chevytaHOE5674]

Trying to make an accumulator and grapple system pencil out but I'm not sure our local poverty market can handle the kind of volume of little bales it takes to make it viable. I make a thousand round bales a year and a couple thousand little squares and don't have too much trouble moving them. But don't think I can move much more volume. So for now I guess I'll stick with my kicker baler and make a wagon or two at a time.

Have enough shed space to back a few wagons in before unloading. Then last week when it was 44 degrees I unloaded them without sweating at all. :D

[Southside]

Have about 300 acres to get done second cut once it stops raining.  We needed it for sure and the timing to grow the grass was perfect, now if I can just get enough to dry it....  Have Johnson grass that has shot up a foot this past week.   

[Tom King]

I've never seen that kind.  I have seen the ones that pick the bales up out of the field, and stack them in large cubes.

I bought some wheat straw out of the field from a fairly local farmer.  He kept some, and after I got a trailer full, he burned the rest of it.  He said by the time he hired labor to pick it up, store it, and sell it a little at the time, it wasn't worth the effort, and expense.

Southside, have you found anything that will kill Johnson grass?

We have about 4 miles of state road frontage.  It's nice of them to keep the shoulders cut, but they have spread Johnson grass all over the country, and I've been fighting it on our place for years.

[Patrick NC]

Every year in late June I use my vacation time to go help my dad on his little place in the north country of upstate New York. He has 38 acres that we square bale. We usually get between 2600 and 3000 bales depending on the year. He bales with a Farmall super m and a John DEere 14t baler. He's been doing it that way with the same equipment since 1968. ( when I was a kid we had a small dairy farm and there was a lot more acreage that we did.) I've spent a lot of time stacking hay on the wagon behind that old baler and in the hay lot of the barn. This year I was unable to make the trip due to the virus and it's travel restrictions, so he bush hogged all of it. Hopefully next year all of this mess will be straightened out and we can do it again. I think he does it mostly for the chance to get all of his kids together at the home place once a year. Normally he gives the hay away to whoever wants it throughout the winter. 

[Southside]

Kill it? Heck no, that stuff is my summer salvation. We get hot and dry here for 6 weeks every summer. Johnson and Crab grass are the only forage that will keep growing. Add a little water and they will give me two grazings during that period. 

Glyphosate will kill it, but what will take it's place in your ditches? 

[moodnacreek]

Patrick NC, I like your post and envy you. I would give anything to go back and hay with my grandfather again. You will never regret working in the fields with your father.  By the way, I mow a few fields in the town of black brook [ where I camp] in Clinton co.  If you don't mind me asking , what town is your fathers place?

[Nebraska]

@Patrick NC ...If it's quality those bales will bring 4-5.00$ a piece around here, of course it mostly goes a pickup load at a time and you better get cash. I have a 14t as well, it needs a slip clutch rebuilt, so it was retired now I make rounds. Glad your father is still making hay.  

[Tom King]

Kill it? Heck no, that stuff is my summer salvation. We get hot and dry here for 6 weeks every summer. Johnson and Crab grass are the only forage that will keep growing. Add a little water and they will give me two grazings during that period.

Glyphosate will kill it, but what will take it's place in your ditches?

I expect we get the same weather conditions here.  We're right below the Southern border of Brunswick county.  I didn't know that cows would eat it.  Our horses won't.  
Either Bermuda, that was already there, or Crabgrass would take over the shoulders.
I've tried Glyphosate, as well as 2,4,D, and Arsenal, but it only knocks it back for that season.  I guess it's birds that are spreading it on our trails, so I've been trying to kill it before it multiplies any more, and keep it outside the borders.

I used to help my friend get up hay, when we were teenagers.  With that trailer load of wheat straw I was talking about, I was the one on the trailer, that stacked the 165 bales, on my 70th Birthday in 90+ degree heat.  I always try to do a good days work on my Birthday.  Fortunately, he had a nice, big shade tree to tie it down under.

[farmfromkansas]

I have never seen a Kuhn accumulator, but have seen Farmhand and a few Holscher and the Holscher is a 10 bale on edge like that.  Looks in the picture that you are stretching a bale between the baler and the accumulator?   About that 14T JD baler, my dad had one of those when I was small, about 60 years ago.  Would not that baler be obsolete?  JD is not good about keeping parts for old hay equipment.  Had a 3830 swather from the 90's they dropped parts on.  Value of that equipment is not great when you can't get repairs.  I bale with a 468 round baler, know I should get a new baler, but don't know if I am going to be able to keep this up and don't want to have to sell a nearly new baler. That no sweat baling is great until something screws up.  Night before last I was baling alfalfa, moisture was perfect, just enough to make the leaves soft, and it came a few drops of rain, and I hit a weedy spot and plugged the baler.  Once I got it cleared, the rest of the field went fine, but what a PITA to clear the baler when the pickup is full of pig weeds.

[Patrick NC]

Patrick NC, I like your post and envy you. I would give anything to go back and hay with my grandfather again. You will never regret working in the fields with your father.  By the way, I mow a few fields in the town of black brook [ where I camp] in Clinton co.  If you don't mind me asking , what town is your fathers place?

He is in Churubusco. Also Clinton county. Right on the Canadian border. If you go back behind his barn through 2 fields and about 500 feet into the woods, you are standing on the line. 

[Patrick NC]

@Patrick NC ...If it's quality those bales will bring 4-5.00$ a piece around here, of course it mostly goes a pickup load at a time and you better get cash. I have a 14t as well, it needs a slip clutch rebuilt, so it was retired now I make rounds. Glad your father is still making hay.  

He could get at least $3 a bale for it around there, but he hasn't sold any in years. There used to be a lot of dairy farms around and he always sold it right out of the field. Nowadays most of the farms are gone and the ones that are left are either giant corporate farms or small timers that are struggling to get by. He says he would rather give it to a small farmer that's struggling to make it than sell it. 

[Southside]

Tom, we are in a weird little area. When I say dry, I mean not a drop for 6-8 weeks. The thunder storms will pass around this area and follow the river bottoms 15 miles east or 20 miles north and hammer those areas. 

I jokingly call it the Dinwiddie desert, but folks will comment how much browner things will be in this 5 mile x 5 mile area. 

Luckily I have surface water to pull from for irrigation. My horses will eat Johnson grass, maybe they realized they would get awful skinny otherwise.  :D

[GAB]

On July 7,1958 my dad took possession of a brand new JD 14T hay baler.
On my first day baling hay with it, I did not clutch when I should of.
Now that baler had 4 shear bolts and lucky me I got all 4 in very rapid succession.
I was only 10 but I remember my dad telling me about clutching and letting the 
baler eat it slowly rather than choke it.
GAB

[Sedgehammer]

Southside, have you found anything that will kill Johnson grass?

MSMA will kill it. I've killed a bunch this year already. Make sure it's 90°+ for a reliable kill.

[Tom King]

We're in a weird little micro-climate spot too.  I tried making hay a few decades ago, but we're on the lee side, during the main prevailing SW wind, of a good sized body of water, and there is a heavy dew almost every night. Even during a dry spell, we'll usually get enough dew to keep the Bermuda happy.  I could never get hay to dry as good as I would like it, so I gave up, and have been buying it since.

Thanks for the tip on the MSMA.  Going to order some now.

[moodnacreek]

Patrick NC, I like your post and envy you. I would give anything to go back and hay with my grandfather again. You will never regret working in the fields with your father.  By the way, I mow a few fields in the town of black brook [ where I camp] in Clinton co.  If you don't mind me asking , what town is your fathers place?

He is in Churubusco. Also Clinton county. Right on the Canadian border. If you go back behind his barn through 2 fields and about 500 feet into the woods, you are standing on the line.

Thanks for the reply. That's where the gun and guitar store is. I go up Danamora mt. all the time, out plank rd. to visit freinds on 11. [Alder Bend] Camp is near Union falls pond. Small world .

[Patrick NC]

Patrick NC, I like your post and envy you. I would give anything to go back and hay with my grandfather again. You will never regret working in the fields with your father.  By the way, I mow a few fields in the town of black brook [ where I camp] in Clinton co.  If you don't mind me asking , what town is your fathers place?

He is in Churubusco. Also Clinton county. Right on the Canadian border. If you go back behind his barn through 2 fields and about 500 feet into the woods, you are standing on the line.

Thanks for the reply. That's where the gun and guitar store is. I go up Danamora mt. all the time, out plank rd. to visit freinds on 11. [Alder Bend] Camp is near Union falls pond. Small world .

That store is the closest store to them. They are about 4 miles north of there. That's where you go to get the 4 Gs. Guns, Guitars, Gas, and Groceries. 
My grandfather lived on Dannemora Mountain. On rt374 on the Chazy Lake side. 

[brianJ]

There is a Danamora   spelled Dannemora in New York close to the Canadian border as well.    Real small town but may have heard of it.

[btulloh]

Patrick NC, I like your post and envy you. I would give anything to go back and hay with my grandfather again. You will never regret working in the fields with your father.  By the way, I mow a few fields in the town of black brook [ where I camp] in Clinton co.  If you don't mind me asking , what town is your fathers place?

He is in Churubusco. Also Clinton county. Right on the Canadian border. If you go back behind his barn through 2 fields and about 500 feet into the woods, you are standing on the line.

Thanks for the reply. That's where the gun and guitar store is. I go up Danamora mt. all the time, out plank rd. to visit freinds on 11. [Alder Bend] Camp is near Union falls pond. Small world .

That store is the closest store to them. They are about 4 miles north of there. That's where you go to get the 4 Gs. Guns, Guitars, Gas, and Groceries.
My grandfather lived on Dannemora Mountain. On rt374 on the Chazy Lake side.

The for Gs. That's my kind of department store. They should expand regionally at least. 

[low_48]

When I got old enough to lift a bale, we were paid 1 cent a bale. No need for that fancy equipment. My Dad had a New Holland with a Wisconsin 2 cylinder engine on it. We didn't even have a tractor with power take off then. Pulled it with an International M. We got more power latter with a Super M. My Dad was the happiest man in the neighborhood when he got a power take off on a 560 and pulled a new baler. I can still hear him cussing trying to start that Wisconsin when it was hot. Some days it got started in the morning and shut off when the sun got low.

Your way of handling bales is much better!

[A-z farmer]

The accumulator was invented by Kenny Kuhn's a farmer from Ohio.I do not know how to share a video of it in action but their Webb site has them.
I saw them in farm show magazine and ordered one years ago directly from them and it was delivered with the grabber for 11.000 dollars.It does not use any hydraulic or electric but uses the energy from the baler plunger and is all mechanical.We have put over 150 thousand bales through it and have spent nothing on it except grease and waxing .
Patrick nc very nice story of you helping your dad every year .It reminds me of helping my grandfather bale hay in the 1960s.My grandfather loved baling hay but he was better at driving horses than a tractor.My dad would always want me to ride the wagon and stack so my grandfather did not have to get off the tractor.It was an Oliver baler with a belted thrower with hydraulics swing .He would always point the thrower at me and when he would knock me over with a bale he would start laughing .
I told my dad he was trying to kill me and he told me to move faster and pay attention because my grandfather was not .Good times when I look back.