First time baling

Im a little embarrassed to share my story but here goes.

Late last month for the first time I gave baling a go. I checked all my equipment (Ill get back to that), the weather, and lined up some willing help (and some not so willing help) and set out to make some hay. The hay was looking pretty nice and I was all kinds of nervous, about equipment running well, the weatherman being wrong and my lack of experience. Mind you I was only planning on baling 5 acres but it seemed like a big deal.

Day one: mowing went really well. The IH 990 mower did well, I was quite surprised at how fast it would mow. I tried several gears and decided 4th gear on the 4000 SU suited me quite well.



Day two: I tedded the field and made sure the baler was ready. Evening came and so did a 5 minute light rain. The farm always has a breeze so I wasnt too worried.

Day three : I tedded hay (fluffed) again to be sure it was dry. Then I raked the hay which I learned takes a little more art than I thought. Then the fun part, baling.



Remember earlier when I said I checked all my equipment? This is where I am embarrassed. I consider myself a good wrench, I am a chief engineer on a MSC ship, but I just didnt know what I didnt know. Handsome Devi and perhaps others warmed me to make sure the needle safety latch worked. Well I thought it worked and I greased the fittings....you all know where this is going. I was 15 bales in when I over fed the baler, the needles didnt retract completely and bam. I knew what happened when I heard it.

Kindly my neighbor baled me out, literally, with his JD 328 and we finished with 410 bales on the ground. He didnt want any money but I gave him $300 ($.75 a bale) just in case I do something stupid again.



My baler is back together and tested thanks to some costly needles and a needle yoke. I also freeded up the needle safety latch, boy was that a pain. I read the manual so many times now I can time the baler and adjust the knotters by memory.



All the hay is out of the barn and sold to a horse farm. I cleared enough money to pay for fuel and am excited for second cutting. Like my wife tells my boys, if your gonna be dumb you better be tough.

Thanks for reading

Sounds like you still have a positive attitude.LOL Even us farmers who have been doing it all our lives have bad days and break downs. A 990 is a good mower and NH makes a good baler as well. Paying the neighbor was good as you might need help again sometime. So for a first timer it could have been much worse. Tom

You did great.

That's probably the one thing that should be checked daily. I sold a baler about a month back. I hooked it to the tractor and tripped the knotter and the block was not working. I figured it had froze up. Upon inspection I found a piece of wood lodged in it.

Dad ran the same baler for a couple decades. I was along a young kid, a chain broke, the one that drives the knotters shaft.

Guess dad just wasn’t thinking, was too young to know anything....

He fixed up the chain and took off baling.

First bale, wham and the needles were broke off.

Timing, what timing? Oops.

We had a welder back then he had jigs to lay the needles in and weld them together straight. I guess we (or you) weren’t the first ones to get that wrong one way or
another.

Paul

These needles are 355$ each broke all four

Sure am glad I never did anything like that. When I finally scrapped my old IHC 45 I had a complete set of knotters and needles to go with it. Not
good old baler, but I put up a lot of hay with it anyway. Had a smile on my face when I cashed the scrapyard check.

You did good for your first time. Most of us have had similar things happen. Balers will break down
right when you need them, kinda seems like they have a mind of their own. Good luck with second
cutting. Read your manual and know how many strokes per minute it should be and adjust your speed
accordingly when you come to a big pile of hay stop or slow way down and watch the pickup if the hay
looks like it's trying to go under slow down and let the pick up pull it up kinda looks like an
elevator with the hay raising up to the baler. You'll get the hang of it and remember speed is good
on race tracks not in hay fields sometimes. keith

First thing my wife always asks when I tell her my woe's.--did anyone get hurt? No. Well then fix it up and get going.

OH ya aint it fun, our 2000's use a 2 part needle. Just the cast tip is $1800 each thru NH NOS and it takes 5 of em... the last time we had to go looking for em, i bought a whole parts baler cheaper then needle tips. Its not the first time or the last time any of us have or will break a needle..

i was raking hay Tall Kid was driving tractor on baler I saw him stop I went to where he was and asked why did you stop ? He said hay isn't
going in the baler I had him backup as he had huge pile of hay in front of pickup. It wasn't picking hay what is going on here?
Out of 20 teeth on pickup 12 were broke!
Got that fixed I hope rain and heat hold off so I can get hay baled.
As a kid I had idea guy or girl driving baler tractor had it easy little did I know if you someone flat rack you had not only them to watch
also windrow and hope the person that raked the hay knew what they were doing.

Dad did custom baling and I started riding a twine box on a IH baler at 10 years old. Dad started working in a factory when I was 15 and I did the custom baling. I was in
my 60's when I loaned my baler out to my Grandson. He had been baling somewhere and brought ib ack when I had hay ready to bale. I was a bout three feet into the windrow
when the baler tripped and sheared off both meddles. He neglected he had broken a chain and repaired it just before bringing it back and didn't know it effected the
timing. Just put my first cutting of 36 bales off a 2 acre patch in the barn at 82 without help. First cutting last year was 140 bales. Helpful neighbor with show
horses that beds with wood chips spread them heavy on the two acres that killed most to the hay. What grass was there was tall and looked like it would yield more. The
neighbor died the day after I cut the hay. I just reseeded it for future growth. 2.5 acre back patch I am feeding green so baling is done for this year.

No reason to be embarrassed, good thing is you didn't get discouraged.

Nothing caught fire
Nothing completely destroyed
You can still count as high as you could before with your fingers
The job got done

At the start of each season as I get my equipment ready I pick a small patch close to the shop and tools and give everything a test run.

End of the season before I put away all the tools that I took along for the machine I was using I take a marker and somewhere on an inside panel I write down a list of all the tools it needs for adjustments and common field repairs.

After a few years the list grows and the number of trips back to the shop become less and less.

I remember welding a broken NH needle many years ago. Miraculously it held together. Not because the knotter block wasn't working but I can't recall why it broke.
You do have to develop an ear for how your baler works. You get so you know when you are pushing it to the limit and about to break a shear pin. Tractor sounds, how hard it is rocking the hitch. Little things like that. Eventually you learn when to "ride the clutch" or gear down. Good luck next time.

I was about 11 when I started riding the twine box on a International baler. I had to pull both strings to make sure they tied. If not I had to tie them quick before all the slack was gone. I learned to tie a square knot riding in that dust. I don't miss them days.

That was the reason. Square knots!