End Product
Last time we talked about getting the hay equipment ready, today we get down to the actual haymaking so to speak.
Let’s Cut shall We?
Cutting the hay is really like mowing a large lawn, except you don’t mulch up the grass clippings, you just cut it close to the ground and let it fall over. You do this operation with a disk cutter, some people use a sickle bar mower, either one makes one cut at the bottom of the tall grass and allows it to fall over for the curing process. The disk cutter uses several disks that interlock parallel to the ground and rotate to cut the grass , working like a meat slicer. The sickle bar also runs parallel with the ground but has blades like a hedge trimmer that move back and forth over a fixed bar.
After the whole field is cut, the grass is left to cure out on the field, until it reaches the proper moisture content. This operation can go one to three days and helps to prevent moldy hay.
Hay drying in the sun
Now Comes The Rake, Then The Baler.
The rake is a contraption that looks like a torture device from the middle ages, it has several wheel full of skinny, metal fingers that when pulled behind a tractor and deployed correctly rake all the now cured hay into a windrow.
Raking a windrow
The tractor pulls the rake around the pasture to make essentially one long windrow that spirals around the pasture, allowing for the baler to follow the row non stop.
So far if everything has gone right, like sunshine thru the whole process, wind that doesn’t blow the rows out of your field, etc, the we bring out the baler.
Round Baler
This is a large machine, it stands around ten feet tall, and it is complex too. You have to grease, oil, tighten belts, adjust rollers, oh the list goes on and on… Naw its not really that bad, as long as you stay on top of it. But let it go and your bales look like a bomb exploded inside one.
Anyway, the baler hooks on the back of the tractor and by way of hydraulic controls starts the inner workings, the driver lines up on the row and the fingers in the front of the baler begin to take the hay into the roller.
Round Baler in Action
The roller inside winds the hay it has taken in around a spool until it gets the right amount for the bale size selected, our were set to 4 x 5 , when the bale reaches the right size the driver stops the tractor and allows the baler to complete the roll and wrap it , either with twine or bale wrap, we used the twine. When the bale is rolled and wrapped , teh baler splits openand out pops a lovely bale of hay.
The nest part is the cleanup and storing the hay, they are usually stacked end to end with as much overhead cover as possible.
Pasture after hay is cut and baled
The finished Product
So there you have it, that’s the way we do it around here, Tell us how you do it where your from?
