Haying Techniques with Draft Animals

[Donn Hewes]

the haybine only involves the guards. The knives I use are made for a sickle bar mower. As such the guards are not intended to be sharpened. The haybine guard may be able to be touched up with a grinder how ever, as there is no separate ledger plate to take off. The knives vary as to whether they are meant to be sharpened. I use a mix of different knife sections on different mowers. A top serrated knife is no way sharpenable, but is wicked sharp and has been for a long time. Bottom serrated are sharpen able, but still stay sharp a long time. Some folks have good luck with the non serrated. I personally think brand new knifes are made of good steel and worth the money. I would expect your knife to stay sharp a long time. Those knifes were designed for a motorized machine that runs much faster and gets less attention than you will give it. They are expected to mow many acres with out any trouble.

Those of us stuck in the rain would still like to see more pictures, George, Neal?

[Carl Russell]

Glad to hear about the haying success. Nice going.

My thoughts on the plugging run to bar tilt angle, and on my mower there is an adjustable plate under the shoe to raise the inner end of the cutter bar. This tends to be important if your plugging is due to thatch from old dead growth. Also I have found in these old fields that you can hit patches of some grass species that just love to plug mowers.

I agree about the loose hay, you can see it sweat out the moisture, and the hay remains in good quality. Just remember to lay it out in layers when you stack it in the barn so that you can remove it easily without having to tear the pile apart.

Anyway, keep up the good work, Carl

[Donn Hewes]

Something Neal said made me think of another small aspect of plugging. He mentioned running the inner shoe on top of the swathe. It occurred to me that in mowing an acre at a time you are returning to the same spot pretty quick. It is amazing what five more minutes will do to set the swathe down a little. Just look at the difference between the one you just mowed and the swathe from three laps prior. Not a big point but larger fields will be slightly easier for this reason. So many subtleties.

I am still sitting here throwing the weather radio around.

[Carl Russell]

Just had a fleeting thought about what I said about loose hay.

You still have to make hay in the field not in the barn. Hay stored loose will retain a higher moisture content, but you definitely don’t want to put green or wet hay into the barn.

Carl

[ngcmcn]

Don, George, and Carl;

Two weeks ago we demoed a IHC Green crop Loader at the MOFGA fair grounds here in Unity, Me. on grass scythed down not more then 3-4 hrs before. I’d say about an acre or so. heavy Timothy and clover. The Green crop loader is a nine bar hayloader so to speak, as oppposed to a six bar hay loader. Around here with all the old canneries they’d harvest peas and beans on the vine with the loaders and hall them wagon load a few miles to the corn shops as they were called. The scythed grass picked up ok, and it was fun to bury Russell Libby the executive director who was trying to get it all stacked well, which he did as i found out later trying to unload some of it. Paul Birdsall of HorsePower Farm in Penobscot Me. had restored the loader and it worked well. The horses took it all in stride. We fed out quite a bit, and composted some of the grass. One fellow was standing looking at the loader in wonderment trying to figure out, “Why?” any body would want to use such a device? Of course i reminded him that balers had only been around since about 1950 and that the loader was some wheres between the pitch fork and the baler on the technological curve. Loose hay is good stuff. Its kind’ve ironic that modern dairy farmers put sick cows on good dry long stem grass.

Carl made a good point about the sole plate adjustment on the inner and outer shoes of the cutter bar. It makes a diference.

George, you shouldn’t have to sharpen your knife for a while unless you’re mowing roadsides or anthills or chopping off deer antleer shed like i did last week. Actually decapitated a fawn a few years ago. That wasn’t fun. Hit one and looked for another and as soon as i started off again another one jumps and runs. Nicked his ear.

Don, hope you get some good weather. It would be good to meet you guys in October if your around to Tunbridge.

Neal
Maine

[Does’ Leap]

Neal:

Is that type of loader used for making silage? Were the peas and beans then dried and threshed after being “loaded”? Got a picture?

George

[ngcmcn]

George, I’ll look for a pic.

Neal

[Plowboy]

We have both a John Deere and a New Idea green crop loaders. To the amazement of many of my Dads modern farmer neighbors we use them to pickup half dry hay or “green Feed” for his dairy cows. What they don’t know as they laugh at the backward farmer that messes with horses is that there is a lot of milk in that half dry Alfalfa. It works well once you get the hang of loading it so you can unload it. They work pretty good but loading green feed takes a good team if you put on a big load. After a while the teams get the hang of following the windrow. He green feeds a 5 acre meadow 4 times a season feeding 45 cows and some youngstock. The IH 9 bar is the best from what the Amish say then New Idea and David Bradley. The John Deere is the least favorite which is how we bought a restored one for $150. It works ok but trails the wagon differently than the others and like their Corn binders pulls a little stiff compared to others. Our Amish friends put up loose hay and there Alfalfa has all it’s leaves when its in the mow. If you have the time and space loose hay is a wonderfull thing.

[CharlyBonifaz]

But you knew all this.

ooops, no; being a greenhorn as fas as mowing is concerned I sure cherish the tricks!

[Donn Hewes]

Forecast for rain today! So what do I do? I mowed about five acres yesterday with the hopes that I could dry it and bale it by Wed., before it rains again. I will let you know how it works. Donn

PS. Connie’s first day on the haybine – She is open faced and she did great. I let her get a good look at it from about fifty feet while it was running early in the day. Once they were hooked and I engaged it she acted up for about 20 seconds and then went to work. A very good horse.

[Does’ Leap]

Donn:

Nice pictures. Good luck with the weather.

___________________________________________________________

Joel:

Thanks for your post. When I finish the end of a cut swath, I lift the bar, stop my horses, and gee them over. Before I hit my uncut grass, I lower the bar and start cutting. I lift the bar so as nut to re-cut the already mowed grass. What is the disadvantage of lifting your cutter completely (by this I mean I push the foot lever all the way)? How do others complete their swath and start anew?

George

[Does’ Leap]

Joel:

Got it. I actually started doing that by default. In other words, I didn’t stop the horses, just gee’d them over. I’ll try it without the lift next time. Rooster tails (a new term for me – perfect description) are a drag all around.

George

[Donn Hewes]

Hi All, Joel’s description of a good corner pretty well says it all. In one of his early posts he mentioned just a hint of pressure on the foot lift as you turn. Like riding the clutch, this helps the bar slide backward. I hate to stop at the end of the row but I will if I mess up the timing of the turn and am about to go to far. The horses get used to the rhythm of it and start to want to turn to early. You just hold them to the left a little as the corner approaches, then they will come right over with the command if your timing is good.

Another corner that I use a lot is if I am mowing large rectangles, I stop mowing across the end when it is about 60′ to 80′ (or more)feet wide. I just lift the bar as we roll of the end of the cutting into the mowed end, make a nice semi circle with the bar above the cut grass, and drop it as we enter the standing grass. For a mower with a lift that works well, and nice and high, this is a fast and easy way to finish the field. This is a standard haybine method because it is almost impossible to make a corner with out a little rooster tail, but it works equally well with a mowing machine.

baling today. Rain forecast for tonight!

[Donn Hewes]

There is nothing like baling hay, putting it in the barn and then watching it start to rain! I know it is more luck than anything else but it still feels good. The hay was just barely dry enough to bale. Fortunately the barn starts out empty so we can make a single layer of bales over the whole floor. Made about three hundred bales yesterday. Not a great yield from that field, but nice early hay. Now we are getting some much needed rain. I can fix a vacuum pump, and do some more pasture clipping. Here are a few pictures.

[OldKat]

@Donn Hewes 9604 wrote:

There is nothing like baling hay, putting it in the barn and then watching it start to rain! I know it is more luck than anything else but it still feels good. The hay was just barely dry enough to bale. Fortunately the barn starts out empty so we can make a single layer of bales over the whole floor. Made about three hundred bales yesterday. Not a great yield from that field, but nice early hay. Now we are getting some much needed rain. I can fix a vacuum pump, and do some more pasture clipping. Here are a few pictures.

Sounds like you have found the groove that you need to be in. I know getting hay baled, or anything else done for that matter, is tough when you get the amount of rain that parts of the N.E. & New england have been getting. We went through that in 2007. Practically no hay was made until about September, because it just would not quit raining.

Then it did quit and has really not started back since. Not sure which is more aggravating. I guess if it was easy, everybody would do it though wouldn’t they? Hang in there guys (and gals) it WILL change at some point.

[Author]

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