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New Member
 
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| We have a small farm, but do have a couple of acres that can be put to hay. They have a nice crop of weeds comming in right now, so better hay, then weeds. We don't have any equipment to harvest it, though. Do any of you have a similar problem and how do you harvest your hay?
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Senior Member
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Average Member
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HA HA HA HA HA HA
I'm a vintage farmer HA HA HA!
TARRRR----NATION.. I dun Diddn't know I had antiques 
This is funny becouse everyone I know has equipment cerca 1970. Sure you get a this or a that new... or new to you. BUT the only people I know who get brand new equipment are broke in two years.
The tractors are 1970's the other tractors are 1950's... the Bailer and the DiskBine are the only two things made after the Carter left office
I thought I was going to see some artical with a guy use'n a horse drawn gizmo or a bunch of folks with hand tools.
WE do 319 ares every year with old Iron like that. Lots to be said for old stuff. I know our equipment inside and out, I can tell you every detail about them and they are paid for.
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Senior Member
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| Well, all of our equipment is vintage too. It's newer than what we had in MN, though. There, we did everything with a 1947 John Deere tractor and it did the jobs very well indeed. It couldn't bucket snow, so John rigged a snow plow for it and pushed snow with it for almost 22 years. We gave it to a friend when we left and he's still using it on a daily basis all winter long. Here, John has an old Case diesel named Charlene. I don't know when Charlene was built--I'll have to ask him. She smells nasty (I hate the smell of diesel) and looks bad (I really want to paint her...) but works hard. Whereas the JD (appropriately named Johnny Popper) was used mainly for snow removal and Charlene for bush hogging, both got/get plenty of other uses such as barn cleaning and so forth. New stuff has its place but we can't afford it and since John knows how to fix tractors, the older stuff works fine for our needs. Sue
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| Good article, Sue! Thank you. I am going to show it to my husband when he gets home. I think our next step is to get one of those old tractors. We have a brush cutter already and a lot of hay potential around out buildings also. Our neighbor in Washington State used to hay with a scythe. She was amazing. She was from an island in the South Pacific. She told me it didn't have any stores and she was used to growing her own food and having livestock. I should have asked her how to use her scythe before we moved. These days, though scythes are hard to come by. I asked for one at the hardware store and they pointed me towards a weed eater.
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Average Member
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| Like I said, no on e can afford new Iron... But the flip side, is one needs some common sense to have old Iron. Folks who don't have the ability to finx stuff on there own could end up in a world of hurt pay'n mechanics all the time. And if you think your car costs you an arm and a leg, imagine your car parts cost twice as much and your car never sees a paved road. I would also never get new new because of all the computers and "stuff" in them. Once things have big computers, you can't just break them down and fix them on your own. You need a mechanic with a computer system. Just like our cars today. Your at the mercy of your mechanic.
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Starting Member
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| Therein lies the problem...many of us are not mechanically inclined, so while a nice Ford 8N can be had for under $2k, the key is how much upkeep will be needed on it as opposed to a newer model...coupled with what equipment is needed (finishing mower, baler) and compatability with the PTO. Plus, I am embarrassed to say, I've never driven a tractor with gears and a clutch... So things will be interesting once I get home...
Jon Alvarez
Alvy's Acres
Website: www.JonAlvarez.com
Email: Jon@JonAlvarez.com
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Average Member
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well a mechanic in our area is going to start you at $40 per hour for ether the small or the high end tractor. Very little can be done in 1 hour.
tractors are simple. I'm going to presume that most of you won't spend enough time on them to "shift on the go" like one would a truck.
If you spend enough time on them, you can shift them without the clutch.
(you can also do this in a tractor trailer if you drive for a living)
So basically what you need to do is start out small and go from that point with an older tractor, OR get an automatic and a good teacher....if I were going to get one, I'd get it now. low low prices....but you are close to me and that means tractors are not as cheap here as i other parts of the world.
Tell you what, if you don't know mechanical stuff....probably you should not try bailing hay. I mean, it's a collection of a lot of little things. I've been at it all my life and I still have a few days were I wonder
"what's going on here???"
but now that I think on it, if I didn't know a lot from time in the field, I'd probably never get anything done.
and there is a reason why this job kills so many people.
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| John baled hay for three years (in Minnesota) before saying, "We can BUY hay easier and cheaper than this!" Granted, all of our equipment was well used and though he's very good at fixing things, parts are pricey even from the tractor graveyard, and he was always fixing something on the baling equipment. And to be honest, stacking hay on the wagon and then in the loft on a hot summer day is NOT something I will ever miss. :o) Sue
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well I do and I don't miss it.
here you were sent to the hay mow, farm family or no... you did it. It was like a right of passage.
back in the day, we'd play more hay.
One can make any job fun if you add a game to it. So we would get "on the wagon" or "get in the mow" like picking teams for kickball. I Loved and still love to be " on the wagon".
The fresh load of Hay was hauled in beside the barn and 2 men on the wagon and 4 in the mow... someone would yell out in the haymow and the boys on the wagon would yell back "her she goes!" plugging in the elevator.
Now you start slow and once the guys in mow got stuff in place, they would start the game with "more hay".. .a taunt.. like, Bring it on...
So the taunts would start.. the wagon team would throw hay on that elevator as fast as they could. They had strategy and tactics. Who did what, how you threw the bail on.. how to get the most bails off in the shortest time. Just so you could overwhelm the men stacking hay in the barn. The men in the barn kept taunting, showing you that they could keep up with whatever you had. Sometimes you would just make them stop yelling, and stack the number of bails..and Sometimes the hay would just pile and pile on them in the mow until they yelled
"Uncle..shut her down.. stop stop!" and you knew that they had so many bails coming off that elevator that they were in a mountain of hay.
But if you didn't bury them, it was like loosing any other game. 
This is a blood sport. You didn't get off the wagon to get a drink or a band aid. I unloaded countless bails with blood flowing freely from my nose due to the heat of the work.. sweat filling my eyes and so many splinters of grass in my arms and under my fingernails it was unreal. Sometimes a friend would pass by and with out showing the men in the mow, he'd jump on the wagon and help unload, then vanish. Helping you win...
Oh how wonderful... the yelling, the hooting.. people could hear it all over the place. The radio blasting, the gallons of water and soda.. the big meals we packed down... and we unloaded 3-4 heaping loads of hay an hour day after day for the whole summer.
it would carry over to other farms. Classmates and friends who worked other farms would meet at the hang out's and county fairs and taunt..bust chops saying,
"we'll come show you how it's done"...as if it were a gang confrontation or a high school football game. But all in good fun and the spirit of youth.
I remember summers working next door and after getting home, I'd lay down in the mudroom, work boots still on and pass out like a drunk. Now and ten you'd find strength to go out.. see friends and show the girls your big arms and your tan. But you always had the bragging rights at the end of the summer. Who was king of the mountain.
And then the farmers with daughters got way more work. I don't know a boy my age who did not spent at least a week in a hay mow trying to impress a girl..... for no pay.
yea I don't want to do it any more like that. I'd rather have a son who comes home with a pocket full of money ($4 a load in 1994) and to tired to spend it. I'll take my place in the pecking order on the baler.
But like many things, I look back on that and think, oh to be that young again. I don't truly want to work that hard every day all day, I don't know if I could. but oh to have the whole of those summers back in there entirety.
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