Mowing bad Hay.

[Donn Hewes]

Yesterday was a tough mowing day. I knew it would be. We have given the ground a few days to dry out. But we are also trying to make hay on eight acres that have been passed over all summer because it is wet ground. We still had to circle around a couple spots.

I wanted to touch on how my two mowers responded to this challenge. This is mid august first cutting, lots of regrowth coming up through the drying grasses. Vines and weeds starting to spread through the mix. On one side we where spread several loads of compost this spring in hopes of improving this stand of hay, it was really thick. Lots of thick red clover and other crops there. I wish I had a picture as words fail to truly describe how bad it is.

We use two seven foot cutter bars. We have a number seven with 5″ swamp wheels on it. These wheels are a little wider than some mowers, the standard wheel is 4″ or 4 1/2″ and the swamp wheel was about an inch wider. These wheels show what I would call a moderate amount of wear. The lug is lower at the outside edge by about half its original height. The other mower is a number nine with after market Steels wheels that replace the original rubber tires. Many Amish convert the rubber tires this way. these wheels are about 7″ wide and have lugs made from 1/2″ rebar.

Both mowers work really well until you get into the worst mowing conditions like now. Today the the number seven with swamp wheels is skidding at any hesitation. Recognizing when a mowers wheels are the cause of plugging can be tricky as the skid and the plug happen at the same instant. Plugging once every 2,000 feet (each trip around) is a great way to rest your horses. Plugging every fifty feet, or five times in a 1,000 side is enough to make you loose your mind. and even if you can stay calm, it takes about twice as long to mow an acre as it should.

Today I adjusted the haybine guards by heating them and raising the top piece opening them a little. I added a third stub guard to this mower as it was only using two; and I sharpened the knife and guards a little. I was guessing these things might add up to a 10% improvement, but it probably wasn’t that much. We almost finished the 8 acres of mowing today. I worked on fixing a flat tire and let interns do the most of the mowing. Great place to learn!

This winter I plan to teach my self to weld new lugs onto these wheels. I am currently able to do an ugly job and make it stick, but I think with a new welder and some practice I will be able sell this service to a lot of mowers!

[Carl Russell]

Donn, my little New Idea no. 10 was plugging wicked the other night too. The first swath I got about thirty feet before the first clog, and it went on from there for about 2acres. I was mowing thick rowen, some 18″ tall, and it just would not fall over. I just watched it stand on the cutter bar… Sometimes the clump would pass, other times it started a clog.

I did find every loose nut and made all kinds of field adjustments but it was hot, and it was very hard to adopt a working attitude, but eventually that is all I could do, as I just had to get it mowed. Now tedding it, between cloudy days and dewey nights, I can see all the tufts and strips that I missed, and man does that bug me.

Mowing can be one of the most enjoyable and artistic endeavors on the farm, or it can be a very frustrating and coarse job.

Anyway the hay is drying, and I’ll get some late season grazing this fall, and I will make some mower upgrades this winter too.

Carl

[mitchmaine]

my fields look like we went around ripping the grass out by hand. very frustrating.
I was thinking today, while stuffing the hay in the loft, how hard it was to watch beautiful hay going by waiting for weather. but then it also occurred to me, that when we are all putting beautiful sweet smelling hay into the barns, and have record cuttings, so do the neighbors and that is great too, but hay has no value cause everyone is swimming in it. only in years like this when hay is scarce and not there is no pride in what you are baling that hay goes through the roof in the spring. weird, huh?

[wally b]

Hi Don

I really like the underserrated fine tooth sections for these conditions and I will put on entirely new sections for real heavy lodged grasses because, in my experience, I cannot get the sections as sharp as when new.

Hope this helps

Wally

[Billy Foster]

I finally got around to reading this tread.
I thought I was the only one. The last field I cut, which I would not have cut if hay was not so scarce, looked like, as Earl said, I pulled it out by hand. It was so thick that the understory was almost white. I finally just let the hoses go as fast as they wanted since it seemed to be the only way I could prevent a plug every 30 feet. As Donn said, “very frustrating”. Not the best hay but I was excited to put it in the barn. Years like this make me think about our fore fathers and what some winters must have been like.
This event prompted me to put new sections and guards on the mower, thanks Donn for the advice on the haybine gaurds, they work like a dream.

[Donn Hewes]

Hi Billy, I am constantly thinking about the horse farmers of 100 years ago. Most had no vet (besides them selves), few spare horses if one was sick or died. No one to call and buy feed from if your crop didn’t come in as you hoped. I also think they incorporated resilience in their systems as an obvious way of protecting themselves.

Keeping livestock that might be smaller or lower producing with worse forage would have been an asset, not a weakness. Making hay in July would have been time and weather efficient. Therefore develop the stock that thrive on that hay. I think about these kinds of things all the time. I know how easy it is for me to run to town if I break something, or use my welder to fix it.

I also realize that often they were born into families and communities that innately understood animals as part of the fabric of their lives. I certainly wasn’t raised in that tradition. Sorry I got so carried away, but it is something I think about while I am out there going around and around! Glad the haybine guards worked. I had acustomer show up today looking for a knife I was supposed to sharpen. Only last week I took all the knife sections off and sold it to someone that wanted to build a new knife. Now one of my mowers will get a new knife come spring! Donn

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