Making hay the way we used to do it

Fixer · Jan 17, 2009

F 12 Farmall with flathead ford v8 engine. Case three man baler. Doing it the hard way

John G. Hasler · Jan 17, 2009

I still make square bales with an old New Holland 68 with no thrower. It's getting hard to hire kids to stack, though. I was sucker enough to buy an IH baler but I now know better than to try to use it.

Larry NE IL · Jan 17, 2009

Those bales don't look like 40 pounders to Me!!!
I'd guess more like 90 pounds. :>)

Dave H (MI) · Jan 17, 2009

I gots news for you Bernie, we still do that every summer. Swap the tractor for an MTA and the baler for a JD 225T. The wagon looks too fancy to be one of mine. We fill three wagons until they are groaning from the load and then sell the rest off the field. Over a hundred bales to a wagon and no sharp turns.

RayP(MI) · Jan 17, 2009

Picture taken a year ago here looks a lot like that, substitute a JD B and a NH 268. That's the way we do it!

Fixer · Jan 17, 2009

That old baler always made good bales. Don't know if you are familiar with them or not but that is a case three man baler. I was on the other side of the baler pushing the pins or blocks if you like. My brother was on the side behind the pickup tieing the wires. Made alot of hay that way. We had a dairy farm and we baled hay all over the country to get enough hay for the milk cows. Bernie Steffen

agpilot · Jan 17, 2009

Bernie: nice picture... That looks like a 1950 Ford convertable in the background? Rare. Yea, the good old days on a hot humid Summer day. Nothing that a real cold beer couldn't help. ag

Mr. Bob · Jan 17, 2009

This is how we used to do it, but substitute an AC D17 or Massey Ferguson 65 and a New Holland 67 baler. We usually put on about 110-120 bales a load.
mr. bob

LA in Wi. · Jan 17, 2009

Larry NE IL noticed what he thought were real heavy bales (or long ones). For you younguns, the Case wire tie 3-man baler only baled large bales compared to today"s balers.
When I first saw a self-tie baler I laughed at the small bales it made...and now the bales from all balers are that size so nostly only us old geezers remember those large bales. Looks to me today that 80 bales might equal about 50 of those Case bales.
I can"t make it out in the picture, but most Case balers (in Iowa) were powered by a V4 Wisconsin engine; it started easy first thing in the morning, but you better leave it run all day because it won"t restart after it"s hot. I did the tieing job on the right side of the baler, got a whopping 1/2 cent a bale on custom operation in the early 1950s and thought I was rich by late August. Hitting a hornet nest in the windrow was fun....3 guys plus the one on the wagon and the driver running around like a Chinese fire drill! And the dog thought we were having fun!

charles todd · Jan 18, 2009

I have pulled our NH 278 behind the F504 many times putting up over 1800 bales w/o a thrower or "bale wagon"... We picked them up in the field and used an bale conveyor to move them into the loft. I always wondered why a loft? The 2nd floor of a barn sucks!

Charles

Don in Texas · Jan 18, 2009

Reminds me of loading heavy bales of peanut hay in east Texas. Baler was set behind a stationary thresher with all the dust. The peanuts were fed to the thresher by two men and the peanuts from the thresher were sacked, sewed, and stacked by one man and the baling was a three man job,feeding hay to baler, pushing wires, tying wires, and stacking bales. Boy, was it HOT work!!

Making hay the way we used to do it

Fixer

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John G. Hasler

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Larry NE IL

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Dave H (MI)

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RayP(MI)

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Fixer

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agpilot

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Mr. Bob

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LA in Wi.

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charles todd

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Don in Texas

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