Haying Techniques with Draft Animals

What would Carl Do? No, not Carl Russel; Carl my neighbor who makes over 100 acres a year of good small square bales. With horses I can’t always do exactly what he does, and I do try to minimize the number of trips over the field, but you can learn a lot from your neighbors. I can look across the hill and see if he is mowing.

Learn to be flexible. One year tedding may be the most important thing in the world. While your neighbors are all tedding twice you are luck to do it once. The next year you may go for weeks with out tedding a row of hay. Soil moisture is a BIG factor. In a wet year you not only have to dodge the rain drops, but the continues attack of the soil moisture as well, crops dry slower and take more effort.

Don’t try and do to much at one time. 5 or 6 acres is enough for me. if it gets rained on I can use it for bedding hay, and better luck next week. On the other hand if the weather really looks prime I will try to mow two days in a row. I like to mow after 11 most day unless it is going to be really hot out. This lets the grasses sugar acumulate, and lets the plants dry before cutting. On day two I can tedd in the morning and mow hay in the afternoon. Day three is the toughy. Hopefully one person is tedding the second days mowed while someone else is raking the first mowed. Than we work together to bale hay in the afternoon. Next day finish raking and baling.

For farming with horses I really hate to rake the same hay on two different days. I just want to rake it, then if it needs more drying leave it. Come back the next day and bale it with out raking again. Many tractor farmers would never do that. It works fine as long as the soil conditions are dry enough and the hay has in fact dried.

Good luck, I will get all the equipment out this week a check the tires, lube and oil! Donn

Feel free to ask specific questions, but it is such a slowly learned craft with a bit a black magic thrown in, it is hard to tell.

I am one who says “gotta ted hay”. I never had to cover 20 acres, but I always had a hard time laying down a second crop before the first was picked up. IF there was a stretch of trustworthy weather, I would mow between tedding on day 2, especially in that type of weather I might have been able to drop a tedding. Tough to get that kind of weather in June in Vermont, so I usually had a pretty heavy crop in late June-early July, but I was feeding horses mostly.

One thing I have found, is that hay that is mowed with a sickle bar and not with a conditioner will retain its leaves and green-ness better, even after being baled, which really helps palatability and feed value.

I would mow late in the day, or at least after noon, so the grass is at it’s richest. In really hot weather, I liked to mow in the evening, and in rainy weather that was going to break the next, I would mow in the rain.

Always tedded starting by 10-11 am on day 2, and then again by 3-4pm. I would check it 10-11am day three, depending on soil moisture, crop density, and sun angle, or humidity, I would either windrow it, or ted once more, then rake by afternoon.

I never baled, but would make stacks from the windrows, which I did all by hand, without the horses in the field, then when I picked up, I just had to move horses from stack to stack. Also that way evening dew, or even rain would not affect the hay too much. Windrowing hay is better than leaving it flat in the rain, but I found that in stacks it was even better. I know that won’t apply to you using a baler.

Carl

It’s very different here in the west. There are times when I can bale within 2 days of mowing, occasionally even a day and a half. Even when it gets rained on we just roll it over if it’s been raked, give it enough time to dry, then bale it up.
Around here you see a few tedders, but not many. Mostly they are used to spread windrows back out after a rain, then put them back together.
There are still quite a few places putting hay up loose around here. Some of them are big outfits. One place runs 1,000 mother cows plus yearlings. They cover lot’s of ground in a haying season (with tractors). The father still runs the farmhand stacker and makes beautiful stacks with it and they keep well.
When we put ours up loose it was a lot more labor intensive. Had to have a few more hands to get it done than I do now with a swather/mower and baler etc. The hay did keep much better though. But it was a pain in the rear to feed 250 cows plus sheep an other livestock with a pitchfork.
I’ve been rumbling to the wife that if I get down to 100 cows that I’ll go dig the buck rakes and stacker out of the brush again. I believe she thinks I’m bluffing.
I still put a team on a side delivery rake every year though. They can rake enough hay in a day to make it worthwhile. Also put up a few thousand bales by hand which we use teams and wagons (and my son’s football buddies) to get hay to the stack.
No matter what I still like to drive a team more than a tractor.

One last thing. With a swather we would cut the outside pass (first one in the field) counterclockwise and then the rest clockwise. That way when you’re baling the bale pickup can run in the windrow and not put you and the tractor in the fencerow. Then all subsequent passes are clockwise so the tractor is running in the already baled ground and the windrow being baled is toward the center. With straight mowed hay it probably doesn’t make a difference except which direction your rake rolls the hay – not into the fence!

Happy haying – achoo:)

Lots of great stuff in this thread. From hand made to haybine. I mentioned earlier about watching the neighbors. There are some potential pitfalls to watching a farmer with a couple tractors and several wagons. Some one mentioned earlier that the hay can change quickly on the right day (this is very true). Tractor farmers love this, they will run out at four or five, or even six and decide to bale a few wagon loads and stick them in the shed. I definitely don’t have that luxury. If I want to bale I prefer to rake in the morning come out from a long lunch, check the hay, and start hooking up again one pm. if possible, four at the latest. I just need to adjust my planing in the days prior. When I think I will bale effects when I will tedd and rake. Carl, yes Carl Russell, mentioned tedding twice in one day. This will make hay dry fast (remember that is the goal) but I seldom feel I can afford the effort. Each of us factors in all our own variables and has our own way of doing it. That is just one of the things that makes it interesting / challenging. A hand full of sisal twine helps start the wood stove each winter morning. Donn

Carl;

In fact you can’t put a dollar value on those experiences, can you?