Grimm Tedder VS Rotary Kuhn Style

[Donn Hewes]

Hi all, I am a little surprised with the bad rap the grimm tedder is getting.   I have been using one for years, and with certain limits I find it very effective.  Mine lifts heavy amounts of first cutting as high or high than the PTO tedder.  I haven’t seen any better drying with the PTO tedder in first cutting hay.  There are some draw backs to a grimm that have had me working toward the PTO  for some while.  First I want to be able to tedd twice as fast (14′ rotary).  With a lot of acres of second cutting, I don’t want to be all day to tedd it.  Second, as someone mentioned the Grimm won’t do much with a rained on windrow.

For me a PTO tedder wouldn’t be worth getting a tractor out.   i think for 4 acres of hay i would certainly look at a grimm in good condition.  They are easy to use, dependable, and easy to maintain.  I won’t get rid of mine, in fact if the PTO tedder ever does run (it is the home made PTO cart that is the hold up), I am sure I will do some side by side comparisons.

[near horse]

Here we see a lot of used rotary tedders with the gear boxes torn up — when hay in the windrow gets soaked guys go at it in high tractor gear (like 6-10 mph).  Not so good with heavy wet hay.

[Ed Thayer]

Great observations Don, do you find it difficult to turn wet windrows as well? I have found some Grimm tedders locally for a few hundred dollars, much less than the pto styles.

 

Ed

 

[Does’ Leap]

Hey Donn:

I will gave the Grimm another look based on your endorsement.  One of the big drawbacks of the Grimm is that it does nothing to disperse the swath left by the grass board.  Unfortunately we need to dry hay to the least common denominator and that swathed hay has been problematic for me.  I think I might try dispersing with the pto tedder right after mowing and then give the Grimm a go.  Regarding the tedding time with a Grimm, I bought a mower from an older fellow who linked two Grimms together (he also raked with two rakes).  These were nice flat fields in Addison County, Vermont.  Sounds like a great system in the right conditions.

I am eager to hear/read about your farm hack project with the pto cart.  I have been perusing the Farm Hack site and enjoying the various inovations farmers have developed.  Turning off your fencer with a text message?!  Wow.

Cheers.

George

P.S.  I copied the url of this picture from Picasa and it elongated.  Any idea how to correct this?

 

 

 

[Donn Hewes]

Because I mow with the seven foot bars, if I am not careful the grimm will miss a little piece.  I recently learned to steer so I wasn’t missing on the grass board side (I hate to admit it took me a few years!).  With the grimm hitting that pile of hay in a sweat spot it has handled it fine.  In light second cutting, grimm also gets bad marks for missing a little hay, (not turned over).  Last year I found that by ensuring my steering was hitting the swathed grass; the grimm did a better job with the second cutting.  Making it dry evenly.  I like the “long view” , The kids will think you have created new avatars from the land of giants.

The best way to deal with wet (rain) is to not make them.  Easier said than done some times!  Given the side delivery type rakes I use, plus the fact that being horse powered there is a big advantage in only raking once; I discount all drying in the windrow.  I wait until the hay is dry, then I rake and bale.  At least that is the plan.  That greatly reduces the number of rained on windrows.  With very light rain and dry soils you can roll the windrow over the next day after it is dry on top (with a rake), let it dry a little more; and then bale.  if the ground is already saturated or it rains more than a day, you won’t make good hay no matter what tedder you have.  You can rake that up and bale it for bedding with any rake or tedder.  I wouldn’t buy a tedder just for that.

I am hoping to use a PTO tedder myself you need to take anything I say with a grain of salt.  A grain of salt is pretty funny since we are talking about Hay!

[Carl Russell]

It’s interesting, as I would much rather have hay get rained on in the windrow, then spread out. I have found much less bleaching that way. If the windrows aren’t too big my Nicholson will fluff them up pretty well.

Another management problem with these GD tedders is that the tires flatten hay that has just been fluffed, so I tend to overlap the pass, which is another reason why I will criss-cross too.

What I meant about drying in the windrow is that unless your land is perfectly flat these tedders will invariably leave patches on the ground which only seem to come up with the rake. Otherwise I don’t rake green hay to dry in the windrow, but the green patches will definitely dry in the windrow.

If I have 2 day almost dry hay that is going to be rained on, I will rake it into windrows just to protect it, then tedd and rake it when the weather changes.

I paid $150 for two Nicholsons 25 years ago, and have had virtually no breakdowns, and while it may not be perfect, it works as good today as it did when I first started using it. I think the big difference between Grimm and Nicholson is that the Nicholson has 4 bars.

Carl

[Donn Hewes]

My Grimm has four bars.  There are also climatic and soil differences that explain slightly different methods and preferences.   For me raking up hay before the rain really depends on a lot of factors.  How dry is the hay now?  How dry is the ground (I mean soil moisture over the last few weeks).  What is the predicted weather for the next couple days (a chance of rain tonight and then more good weather, or did they change it to 60% chance of rain every day).  Lots of factors.  My problem is at 6 or 8 acres it is a lot of work for a gamble, I need to be pretty sure of making the hay.  Like I said bedding I can make with a lot less effort.  I like the fact that we all have slightly different ideas about how we like to make hay; I know after ten years of making hay all summer I am still  getting better and learning all the time.

[Does’ Leap]

Like Donn, I rake hay when it is ready to bale.  I like the idea of raking hay before it is totally dry as I think that would help preserve the color, but I have never had much luck with doing this.  My side delivery rake tends to rope the hay a bit and I get minimal drying in the windrow.  One of my hay heroes rakes when hay is a tad on the green side and then flips it before baling (like Carl).  I think those rotary hay rakes would do well in this situation.  Does anyone else rake twice?

George

[Eli]

I always rake alfalfa when it is a little damp so I done loose leaves. I would only rake grass hay if I was going to bale it and I  prefered a rotary rake. When I was dairy farming I had a 15 foot diskbine a rotary rake and a wheel rake to double windrows we would make hundreds of big square and or round bales. This year I plan to use a 7 foot mower and a ground drive side rake but I will still round bale. I look forward to learning to make hay with horses.    Eli

P.S. do I need to buy a tedder I always used a rotary rake to but I no longer have one.

[Jay]

I put up about 20 acres of mixed grass hay (on dry soils) have for about 30 years and used mostly a New Idea rake – tedder, though I also have a Grimm –  the NI throws the hay to the side somewhat which I really like, particularly when opening a field, or when coming  to the next section that I haven’t cut yet.  I like being able to set the angle of the teeth in both tedding and raking.   One does have to be careful not to drag the NI over to big a hump.   I generally wait till the hay is just about ready before raking.   We put most of ours up loose at home and bale when we are down the road.    Jay

[near horse]

I think Carl has it right.  If you’re leaving mowed hay in the field with impending rain, you have exposed more surface area of the hay to rain/leaching of nutrients.  Putting it in a windrow is comparable to stacking hay (on a much smaller scale) that helps to shed some of the rainfall..  It does require spreading the windrow back out to dry which is another step and can wreak havoc on things like alfalfa.

[Ed Thayer]

Thanks to all who posted in this thread, I purchased a Kuhn GF4 10′ rotary tedder today and plan to use it with the tractor. I hope to rake and bale with the horses this summer.

This hay stuff is all new to me and I have so much anxiety over it for some reason. I am a very capable person, however this hay business seems somewhat like black magic to me with all the different equipment, techniques and methods.

I have invested a fair amount of money into this venture and hope it all works out.

Ed

 

[Donn Hewes]

Another way to get hay rained on is to have it getting rained on the day it is mowed.  This is a risky trick, but it can work in years where the hay windows are short, but the rains are light and the soils are still relatively dry.  This is really my preference for getting hay rained on if there seems to be no way to make hay with out getting rained on, which some years just seems to be the case.  It would be interesting to know how folks get their weather forecasts.  I am checking the NOAA weather 18 times a day it seems, and my Amish neighbors obviously only get second hand weather forecasts from anyone that passes by.   Some times my detailed forecast is a huge benefit.  Other times they do better with no forecast at all.  For me there is a trick to having all the forecasts and then knowing how much to gamble!

[Carl Russell]

There are also climatic and soil differences that explain slightly different methods and preferences.   For me raking up hay before the rain really depends on a lot of factors.  How dry is the hay now?  How dry is the ground (I mean soil moisture over the last few weeks).  What is the predicted weather for the next couple days (a chance of rain tonight and then more good weather, or did they change it to 60% chance of rain every day).  Lots of factors.  My problem is at 6 or 8 acres it is a lot of work for a gamble, I need to be pretty sure of making the hay.  Like I said bedding I can make with a lot less effort.  I like the fact that we all have slightly different ideas about how we like to make hay; I know after ten years of making hay all summer I am still  getting better and learning all the time.

It is a bad joke, but I can pretty accurately predict when it will rain during hay season….. generally about 2 days after I lay it down….

I don’t have a lot of hay land, but many of the methods I adhere to are modified to my scale based on many years of working with neighborhood farmers. I used to work for an old guy who never laid down more than 500 bales. He used to say, “you make hay in the field, not in the barn”. So he cut pieces that he could manage easily by himself, or with a small crew, often cutting a new section the evening, before he baled the next day what had been cut the day before. He taught me about windrowing hay that would get rained on, and mowing in the rain, and drying with the rake.

In his mind, the point was to make the best hay he could, not necessarily the most he could, given the conditions. Even if there was a guaranteed week-long dry spell, he would only mow 500 bales worth every day.

Personally, I would rather see grass getting long in the tooth standing, than I would to see it turn black in the rain, but I’m not trying to get high quality goat’s milk either. I mean, I know no one wants to see hay get ruined in the rain. It’s just that some grass managers see their hay getting ruined when allowed to get too mature, which for dairying can be true, so cutting must be within a certain window, and that changes weather-related strategies for sure.

Carl

 

[near horse]

With regard to when rain has the greatest negative impact on your hay crop, it is certainly right before baling or after it has been cured.  If you think of freshly mowed hay as having water in it you’re trying to “remove” via drying, there will be less flushing/leaching of nutrients  from rainwater.  So Donn’s method makes sense (but that sayig doesn’t sound so good “make hay while the rain falls”.

Carl – we used to argue with the forage agronomist at the university regarding just what you mention – rained on vs older unrained on hay.  He used to say that letting it get old only guaranteed a loss in quality vs gambling on a rain related loss.  I argued that the losses assocaited with getting rain AND having to tedd, redry, rake are much greater than those from hay a little more mature.  Not to mention palatability.

[Author]

Posts