[AT] Tractor talk, Baling hay

Cecil Bearden crbearden at copper.net
Fri Nov 27 05:13:23 PST 2009


We have almost finished Baling Hay around here.  I never have baled so 
late in the year in my 50 year of farming.  We had a cold front pass 
through and it dried things out a bit, so we did not have to work in the 
window of 1 to 5 pm for dry times.  The dew in the mornings had been 
like a rain!!!  We baled 7.5 acres of Bluestem prairie hay yesterday 
with a IH440 baler, and got 235 bales off of it.  The bales weighed 
about 45lbs.  No one seems to gripe about the light bales, So I am not 
squeezing down the baler.  At $4 a bale we might just break even this 
year.  We have about 500 bales of bermuda on the ground also.  I bought 
a NH 1330 Bale wagon to get it out of the field, as soon as it gets 
light I am going to see how many problems it has!!  The tractor I wanted 
to pull it with decided to have a flat last week, and yesterday after 
airing up the tire, the batteries went belly up...

The bale wagon is set up with controls you reach behind and operate.  I 
do not know how that is going to work with a cab tractor, but will find 
out...

We have used the Belarus 825 baling, and the 8345 raking and mowing hay. 
  There is a problem with the Belarus tractor transmission design.  It 
has a gap in ground speed at pto drive speed.  Both tractors use the 
same transmission, as do most all of the Belarus line.  There is a gap 
in the speed from 4.2 to 6.9 mph.  This caused us to drop our mowing 
production  from a little over 4 acres per hour to 3 acres per hour.  It 
appears that this added 2 days of mowing to our production.  We need to 
be able to travel about 5.25 mph for optimum use..  Raking causes the 
same problems.  Baling is not as critical, it is slow on the Bermuda as 
it was light, and we used the new 10 wheel v rake that has some 
issues...  On the bluestem it was ok as the rows had some heavy spots 
that would plug the baler if you went too fast.  My new hired hand 
learned how to go slow and steady after digging out the baler pickup 3 
times....

It looks like I am going to go and get my JX85 Case/IH that I was going 
to sell.  If I put new belts on it and keep the radiator blown out each 
day, it may be able to run the disc mower without overheating.  It was 
better baling as it had 5 speeds in the 3 to 5 mph range.  Years ago, I 
had some factory literature on the Allis Chalmers tractors and they made 
a lot of noise about the fact that their tractors had more gears in the 
3 to 5 mph range.  It sure makes sense now!!!  Allis also had a 
conservative HP estimate so you had a little cushion when running with 
an Air conditioned cab.
The wind here is so bad that you have to wait to rake after about 4pm 
which means you will be working until 11pm.  I just bought 12 work 
lights from Atwoods yesterday to mount on the tractors. At 250,000 
Candlepower, maybe I won't have such a hard time finding the windrow.

Working so late at night makes those cabs really nice even though the 
heaters are not working.  When I think back of working open tractors in 
the weather, I don't remember us running in the dark this late in the 
year.  Of course it was in a different part of the state where the wind 
is not always blowing, and we did not have these late rainfalls.  The 
climate is sure different from  my youth.  The wind is just the problem 
with my location.  This is one of the areas of the highest sustained 
wind.  East of Oklahoma City it changes, and for about 50 miles west of 
here it is less.

I never baled hay on Thanksgiving day before, but at $4 a bale, who 
cares!!!  It is light out, so I guess I will see how well I can move 
bales with the new bale wagon before it rains again on Sunday..

Y'all have fun now Ya' Hear..

Cecil in OKla





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