Hay, Case Nutty

Just wondering how you made so many small bales in a year. When I was a kid, I helped all of the neighbors bale hay. The best we could get up in a mow was a bit over 2000 bales in a day. How did you do it back in the day. ( I am a Case man too)

there was a full crew running when I was covering 2500 acres of hay,, baler ran 12 plus hours a day,, seems like 3500-4000 bales a day,, cutting 50-65 acres a day,, took what seemed like all summer,, later when I stopped custom haying I was only running 1200-1400 acres and then was using two self-propelled NH balers,, they shot out bales pretty fast,, I was in the field at 5am and shut down by 9pm,, I ran several things at different times of the day,, swather, rake, balewagon, and did the repairs also,, we have a pretty dry climate so I would guess we get a good amount of baling hours you maybe don't see,, I was also running over 1000 acres of farm ground then also,, 1/2 in crop half in summer fallow,, lots of seat time,, lol,, I am much happier now the way I do things,, I am the only one,, and put in even longer days during farm season than before but I enjoy being able to do it this way.
cnt

That is only about 14-16 loads per afternoon. We did that often in July around here on our family farm with me driving a Case LA pulling a Case 140 baler and one uncle stacking wagons, while the other uncle and a farm hand hauled and mowed it all away.
Loren

Be nice to start that early. Were lucky to start at noon. The best day I ever had was 1600 bales of grass hay. It was my senior year and we had graduation practice then the whole class had a picnic at a local fun park, I went home. My buddy and his little brother skipped school and we baled 1600 that day, bummed wagons from all the neighbors to get it all put up.

I always admired you folks who stacked it on a wagon then had to off load and restack in barns,, seemed like a whole lot of extra work to me where we can stack it outside here,, had to miserable HOT and Humid for you guys,, I was trying to think what my best day was stacking with the bale wagon seems like with the 1034 I had I had some 38 loads a day,, but that was stacking at the Farm and not when I was delivering to ranches north and south of my place I used to sell a couple hundred tons a year too,, the last wagon I had was a 1047 NH self-propelled,, it had the governor removed long before I got it,, and the speedo did not work,, I thought I was getting 45-55 at best on the road,, then a neighbor was behind me and followed me in where I was stacking at his neighbors place one day,, said I was 65 mph lol These days I use my 1948 DC and Duncan loader to load my gooseneck when I sell straw bales to the local Coop, works great for me and I actually Enjoy handling the bales alone this way,, I also throw then off tot he Coop hands and they stack them
cnt

Stacking outside would sure save a bunch of work, but if you did that here it would float off. I can still remember as a young buck in the top of a barn stacking hay, unbelievably HOT! Had to build a pyramid to get to the top of the stack.

(quoted from post at 12:39:58 12/07/19) Stacking outside would sure save a bunch of work, but if you did that here it would float off. I can still remember as a young buck in the top of a barn stacking hay, unbelievably HOT! Had to build a pyramid to get to the top of the stack.

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And the bad part was the air wasn't moving in the mow.
I was mowing for my farther in law and got a auto fan and welded it to a pulley on a electric motor. Work real good until one fan blade broke off.

We would stack the 2nd and 3rd cuttings outside after the in side storage was full but we fed the outside bales out by spring. The first couple tiers were not good quality but by the time those tiers were fed off it was winter and we we did not have to worry about much rain on the rest of the hay. Sometimes in the right fall morning the stack would be steaming if we had a rainy summer. It was fed to fat cattle so dad got away with it. The bred cows got the inside hay. Later dad built a hay roof to stack the outside bales under.

A 1200 bale day of baling was huge for us and that included unloading 4 loads from the previous evening in the morning before the dew dried off. We did not push hard. Our crew included two WW1 vets, one born in 1893 and the other born in 1895. The rest were in their 40 s and 50 s except for me. I was a teenager and most of the crew could out work me. I started out driving the baler and graduated to the rack when I was old enough. Today I am embarrassed to say if I stack one 100 bale load myself I am done for the rest of the day. Those WW1 vets were as old or older than I am now and they could work all day.

While we still have to unload wagons, the addition of the pan kicker really reduced the labor, heat and dust that goes with stacking on a wagon. To help eliminate unloading wagons on the heat of the day, we designed our new barn with wide and high enough doorways so we could pull our wagons into the barn, out of the heat and weather for unloading later when cooler - even another day. This has been a real blessing. I can fit 5 kicker wagons down the center of the barn (drive through) and if I?m good, 8 into it with plenty of room/space to unload. The goal was to be able to do 1,000 bales of hay by myself in a day and get them the off the field, out of the weather and in the barn for unloading later. I don?t mind unloading the wagons at a leisure pace early in the morning or late evening, I enjoy the exercise, especially with my iTunes library of bluegrass music is blaring in the background. It was the fire drill with our old shelters to get hay unloaded that was painful. When I retire and have more time, I may switch to an accumulator grapple system, but for now the kicker/wagons is really nice and the new barn, way past due.

Bill

Interesting how it's done in different areas I have always meant to ask,, what do those bales weight that you are using a thrower on? we always shot for a 80lb average on bales when using a bale wagon,,
cnt