Bringing loose hay to a baler at the barn.

[gwpoky]

Still mulling over “efficient” ways of haying with horses in the world we current find our selves in ie (getting up about 65 tons of hay with horses that is currently custom square baled.) We also get about 45 tons of round bales custom bale, but I don’t foresee that changing in the foreseeable future. Does anyone here bring loose hay to the barn and bale it at the barn? I thought this might be better than pulling the baler and wagon with four. Any input would be great.

I hope spring is finding you all well.

[Ronnie Tucker]

no. if you built big stacks in the field and baled out of the stack maybe.the baler in the field would be best. ronnie tucker

[Silvio Simard]

in your area rain is abondant.for dry hay naturaly in the past ,some.. little hay barn are built in thefields.hay is stored loose and finish to dry in the same wayof wood in a wood ched the hay is move for cows in the winter loose or baled in the little hay barns.in your modern times i think that loose hay is the best way. many sytems exist for manipulate and drying the hay in europe .i have neibors native of swiss.they have imported this systems in quebec is a very efficient way.but for me the old way,hay loader,romantic way. that is the best. excuse for my english.

[gwpoky]

Currently we hay about 28 acres with a neighbor (who bales with a tractor) he cuts and we rake with the horses then bale with the tractor. We run another 15 or so acres with just horses and put the hay up loose, but we have had some problems with that in our wet wet area. I would like to have most in bale form if I can. We do not own a tractor and I really don’t want to buy one again. So I thought baling at the barn might be a good compromise as time goes on, but I not sure. Currently I am paying my neighbor to do the baling, which is a huge expense I would love to be able to do all but the round baling ourselves, we only round bale 3/4 of one crop a year, not worth owning the equipment for that little bit. I like the stack and then bale idea, which I may do at the barn the problem is the 28 acre piece is very difficult to get to in the winter as it is way up on a hill where our farm is in the valley. If this was a 100% our own land I may do it a little different but we rent part of the 28 acres from the neighbor who is doing the square baling. Crazy, I know but to move to a more sustainable future on our farm this is the way we must go. The neighbor is a great person, he still thinks we’re nuts, but non the less he is a great neighbor. Thanks again and keep the ideas coming:D

[Ronnie Tucker]

you would have to bring the baled hay to the barn or build a stack of bales there were you baled it then protect it from the weather. ronnie tucker

[Donn Hewes]

Her is my two cents. Maybe only worth a penny now a days. I think you are doing the hardest part of each job if you first make loose hay and move it, and then stack it and then bale it. I believe bales have a lot to say for themselves, and if bales are what you want I truly believe you want to bale them to a wagon. Pull it with four horses if you got em. If you already have the equipment and know how to make loose hay, and the space required to store it, loose hay has a lot to say for it’s self as well. You should be able to make good loose hay anywhere you can make good baled hay. I have forked small amounts of hay into a baler, (windrow in wet end of a field but the hay was nearly dry – picked it up on a wagon and brought it to the baler the next day) and would never do it by choice.

[goodcompanion]

I like square bales. They’re the right fit for how much hay I expect to make and how much labor I have to throw at the proposition. For me I don’t have a problem baling them with a tractor in the field. Acres of hay lying on the ground, the window’s only so many days, let’s cut to the chase and bale it. All other operations I do with horses, but not baling. The baler requires a big motor anyway, I just don’t understand how towing a noisy motorized baler behind horses is much different that towing one behind a tractor.

If we lived in a world where labor wasn’t so expensive relative to the price of food, all that hay could be put up with hired labor with hay forks and would be a good stroke of business at that.

If you had a baler with a motor on it but didn’t want to haul it in the field, I can see some merits to your idea of baling in the barn. Consider that a large haywagon loaded loose with forks is equal to maybe 60-80 bales? That’s all most teams can pull from the field anyway, depending on distance and terrain. So why not, as you say, bring the hay in loose and bale it in the barn for compact storage and handling.

Compact storage and handling is all you’d gain from the use of the baler, since you’d need to physically heave the hay about the same amount baling it in the barn and stacking versus just stacking loose and not baling.

So on the other hand, if you’ve gotten it as far as the barn loose, maybe you might just as well fork it up into the loft and store it loose? I did this with about 5 acres of hay this last season and it seemed to be the best hay I made, possibly ever. 28 acres is a lot for a small crew to cut and put up in small batches over a season but it is doable.

Personally I hay lands of about the same order of what you’re talking about, in similar climatic conditions (arrgh!). Having thought long and hard about it, running that baler is one thing I will unapologetically do with the tractor.

[Rivendell Farm]

In my area the Amish bring loose hay to the barn, but the only reason they bale it there is if they’re short of storage space, since lose hay takes up about twice as much room as baled. My own experience making loose hay years ago was that it wasn’t much, if any, more work than square bales, but it was slower, a big deal if the dark clouds are moving in and lightning is flashing in the west. We used a hay loader to load the wagons. A person armed with a hay fork stood on top of the load to rearrange the hay as it came up. Back at the barn we had a track and hay car above the loft so with ropes and pulleys hay could be lifted off the wagon, then moved into position for dropping on the stack. We used slings and each one contained about one quarter of the wagon load. The hay did need some rearranging as it was dropped into the mow. The resulting hay was generally better quality than our baled hay. One big drawback to loose hay, though, is that it is not easy to get to the animals you want to feed, unless they’re in the barn near the hay. Square bales do make nice, handy feed packages. Bob Kidwell

[Scyther]

My Dad tells of when he was a kid in Pennsylvania his Uncle and Aunt sold a lot of hay from their farm. They had a stationary baler set up at the barn. The hay was brought in loose and baled at the mow door. I take it this was done to make it easier to handle for re-sale and to be able to get more into the mow. This would have been in the 1930’s and 40’s. I don’t know how efficient this would be if you don’t need to move the hay off the farm. The engine used was a stationary one that was also used for the threshing machine which was set up on the other side of the engine next to the baler. I mention this just to show that historically this was done. Good luck with what ever method you decide to use.

[J-L]

I don’t know if there really is a good answer to your question. After thinking about it, it seems to me that baling in the field and then hauling is still the best option if you need to have it baled.
I grew up putting our hay up loose and it did have it’s advantages. The hay kept well in our outdoor stacks (my dad made really nice hay stacks). Feeding it was a pain. I think loading bales is easier than pitching loads on in my opinion.
A hayloader with a team would be the best option to get it there. IF you had room it may not be a bad idea to just store it loose in your loft or barn.

Hard to think of haying with this snow storm raging here. 4″ on the ground and snowing like crazy. We’re about ready to cry uncle.

[Barw]

Just make small 4×4 round bales in the field with motorized forecart and 4 horses.
Pick the bales later with horses when convinent.

[Jay]

We’ve put up our hay loose for the last 30 years- I agree with several of Bob, JL & Scyther’s observations. One exception- in my experience loose hay – if packed in the mow the same way you have to on the wagon, takes not too much more room than bales that aren’t super tight. We feed from the mow to animals right in the barn. If I was going to move any quantity anywhere, I’d be baling. Jay

[gwpoky]

Thank you all for your ongoing input, I see many of have thought allot about this as have I. We currently have four drafts but no tractor and I am reluctant to buy a tractor again as I would have to sell one of my teams to do so. If I where not renting land from and putting up hay with my neighbor I think I would go to pretty much all loose hay except for what we have custom round baled. Although rounds are convenient I am usually disappointed in the feed quality, but at this point in time I am limited by labor. Thanks again for all your input we will keep on think’n:confused:

[sean518]

I’ve also been thinking about ways to make hay efficiently and neatly using my team of horses in the future. I really do like the convenience and ease of feeding small square bales.

Does anyone have a ground driven baler that they use? It seems like a lot of the information I can find says that it would require at least four horses to pull just the baler, and another two to four if you want to pull a wagon behind them as well. But then I found this video that has only two horses pulling a ground driven baler with a small wagon behind it as well:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fUliVHKyETc

Now, the wagon doesn’t seem to have any hay on it in the video, so who knows. But even if I could pull a small ground driven baler with horses and let the bales drop, then come back and pick them up in small loads, I’d think that might be the way to go.

[mitchmaine]

Hey George, my dad put up loose hay when I was a kid. And in the winter, when he had a sense of how much hay we had he’d sell some and someone showed up with a motorized baler like the one in seans video, and four men would pitch hay down from off the scaffold, hopefully like it went up. Half a wagon at a time. And two would pitch it into the baler hoping not to plug it up. And another would be loading a truck. They were wire bales and heavy, and even in February, it was a long dirty job. My pennies worth would be either take it in loose or bale it in the field.
There was also a time inbetween when we hired our baling out for a fifth the hay. At the time it seemed like highway robbery since we cut, kicked and raked it. But now we have our own baler and buy twine and parts and maintain it and the tractor that weaseled its way onto the farm alongside the baler, I might be apt to say hiring out the baling was a good trade.
Then there is the tractor…… once you buy it, it owns you, that’s all I’ll say.
mitch

[Author]

Posts