Home Forums Miscellaneous Topics Rural Living Makin' Hay, again.

I killed a bunch of em with Nitrates once.

Became sort of an expert after that.

We'll take samples and have them sent in for testing. Always good to see what the relative feed value is anyway.


Never been an issue before but you never know.


If we do end up with anything remotely dangerous we'll make sure and ration it out along with alfalfa. Which is pretty much how we feed hay barley anyway.


What I like to do is feed a hay barley bale first and get all the cows lined out on it. They generally love the stuff and the first bale disappears within 10-15 minutes. When they've about got it slicked up I'll feed the rest of the bales which will be alfalfa or dryland grass hay.


Last winter was a bad one and we really tried to keep the cows full and happy.

We lost two cows, one I'm sure bloated and I'm thinking the other might have as well. Hay barley that had gone to seed was the culprit....

Two big ol' pigs that must have licked up too much grain.

It's been a real wet spring around here. So it seems like we're still playing catch up. We made a bunch of silage bales, but only 250-300 dry bales.










Bought an inline wrapper this spring, helps keep us moving if we're not getting the drying days we need.

Beautiful place Ben!

Thanks, that farms a few miles from our place, we've been renting it for probably 20 years. We take the first cutting off, then rotate the cows through the hayfields the rest of the summer.





Howed you fix the baler? Have you tried a few different brands of netwrap?

That really is an awesome place.



Ben, I've been wondering how you've been doing. Looks like you are doing just fine!


Glad to hear your report.

Good to hear from you again Ben, I almost plumb forgot about you.

Sort of looks like some country around here, Ben.

We had a wet spring too, but the crops are doing fine.

Thanks

Looks like everyone's summers in full swing.

Ben, I fiddled with about 4 different springs and it turned out to be the spool brake spring needed to be lightened up. I had also tightened up the duckbill helper spring at the same time but think it was the brake. It got to be where I started packing a set of wrenches with me in the tractor. We shall see if it starts acting up again when the spool get low on wrap.....



The only wrap we've tried so far is Bridon, green stuff, I can't remember off hand the exact version.


Fine tuning this baler has been an education in 'mechanisms'.....

We sell quite a bit of netwrap with our supply business. So we get to hear about the different problems balers have. We carry a few different brands/varieties, to keep everyone happy. Sometimes if a baler is having trouble, switching the type of net your using can solve any trouble. The thickness of the wrap,etc can make a difference.

Nothing worse than getting on and off the tractor the whole time your trying to get hay made.

Drive a guy crazy!


Especially when you're loosing the dew and things get crunchy......


It acted up again today. Started out fine and then wouldn't cut, took me 4-5 bales to get it adjusted. And all it needed was another loosening up of the spool brake spring.

Roll is about 3/4 gone, curious to see how it behaves with a full roll.


Bridon Intrega wrap, runs about $300 for the 64" x 8,800' XL roll.



What baler do most guys run over there?

Two years ago I had the netwrap knife not reset after each bale, so 160 bales done that day with having to get out of the tractor, climb up on the baler, reset the knife, climb down and get back on the tractor. Took a lot of extra time baling that day!!

We run a Claas 240 baler and love it. Eats hay like crazy. Did laps around a NH baling in the same field with better looking bales and complete net coverage compared to his ugly, misshapen bales with half coverage...

We bought pallets of John Deere net wrap for several years.

Switched to Bridon White in the smaller roll. I think its 7000 feet or so.

Really liked that. Now I cant find it.

Going to try Vermeer net next.



Not using much net wrap this year........

We are south west of you Ben. The hay here all got out of control due to the rain.

It looked like raked wind rows laying there waiting to be raked.
But it is pretty poor.

Really, if the weather had been a little better, the second crop should have been ready by the time many got the first cut