good baling equipment

Wanting to put up my own hay next year and quite frankly I know nothing about baling hay. I have a Super MTA, H, and a B. What is a good all around set up for putting up 700-800 small squares? I have found several balers in the $1000.00 range but would like some experienced opinions as to everything else needed. We would be putting up alfalfa for our 12 sheep and grass for the horses.

> What is a good all around set up for putting up
> 700-800 small squares?

Any New Holland baler. Most John Deere balers. Few (if any) IH balers. You'll want a thrower and racks unless you have a passel of teen-age kids. Pretty much any side rake. For mowing I like my Matthews rotary scythe but it sucks up a lot of power. New Holland mowers have a good reputation but I have no experience with them. Depending on your barn you may want a conveyor.

Questions. What kind of crop are you cutting and is your baling weather typically humid or are you in the Southwest in a dry climate. Humidity or the lack of will dictate whether you need a conditioner for the hay plus a tedder. I know you asked on a Farmall (IH) board but most of the recommendations will not involve IH hay tools. I liked the IH 1190 mower-conditioner but that is over a quarter of a century ago and it has been said CNH is considering paring back parts availability for such older products. Assuming you need a mower with a conditioner system I would look at a New Holland or 12XX John Deere. As far as balers go everybody has a preference and has a strong opinion but I will say a New Holland or John Deere post 1970 with a couple exceptions. If you can find a dirt cheap NH 461 mower-conditioner and a NH 270 baler you will most likely have a couple of thousand dollars invested. I know people will have stories about how they found a mint machine stowed away in a barn for last twenty years and paid 100 dollars for it but that is far from an everyday occurance. If you need a tedder then figure another thousand dollars and a side delivery rake then several hundred more. Now we have to talk wagons and there figure another several hundred dollars each again. Where this is leading is you may have much more invested than you anticipated. It might be a good idea to find out what the rates are for custom work (for you to hire) in your area and evaluate if owning your own is the best way to go. One thing said for owning your own is when you want to go the equipment is there waiting barring breakdowns. Good luck figuring out your best option.

First choice of baler is a New Holland. Then you need a sickle bar mower or even better a haybine again New Holland. And then a good side delivery rake and again best choice is NH. So your looking at an easy $3000 for good useable stuff. Less if you can fix up and work on your self but then again if your new to it that may not be a good option BTDT and learned how to keep things going 30 plus years ago the hard way by the road of hard knocks

Let me throw in my three and a half cents worth here . So your BIG tractor is a S/MTA great , BUT you are limited on Hyd power as if and agin i said IF the hyd. system is working good the best PSI your going to have is 1250 . This is going to limit you on your options on a Haybine as you will need to find one that uses a 3x8 hyd cylinder not like the newer haybines that have two small cylinders mounted to the wheels that lift the whole machine with one of them about 16-1750 PSI is needed and that is really not enough for a fast lift . Stay away form john Deere 1209 and 1219 haybines , why do i say this because we not only have one 1219 but two and they are JUNK . As for a good baler a N H 273 would be really good and the MTA will run it just fine . A wide Ft. end would be a plus when making hay . as for a hay rake a 256 N H would be fine but we got away from the old style rake and have gone to a Khun rotary and they are nice we found that you do not need to run at full pto speed as we run ours at around 15-1600 engine rpm on a 706 and second high to third hih if the field is smooth enough to stay in the seat. Now the next BIG thing is HELP as help is the main factor in making IDIOT CUBES . Are you going to stack a wagon or are you going for a kicker and kicker wagons ?? Or are you going to drop them on the ground and pick them up ?? Are you feeding horses or cows or selling it?? If your feeding cows there is no way that i would do IDIOT CUBES . We do around 1000-1400 IDIOT CUBES just because my friend has SHEEP and they will not eat a round bale. I don't care if it is the fineset forth cutting you ever layed eyes on . They want Idiot Cubes so we make third cutting of IDIOT CUBES . I will cut it i will rake it and i will run the baler i do not finger print Idiot Cubes .

Better start with a soil test to see what kind of hay your ground will raise. Then buy stuff to make it mower,rake,baler an how are you going to pick them up sled or wagon,or trailer and how do you get them into the barn. Mite be cheaper just to hire until you can grow a good crop. You didnt say how many acres or how you are going to plant the seed as planting seed and if the soil isnt ready for Alfalfa what needs to get ready for the planting.

Looks like the M-TA is you haying tractor. If I had those tractors:

7' haybine (lack of 3 pt hitch on MTA, but need hydraulics working good) (NH)
2 rotor tedder (pull type, H or B can pull) (optional thing to buy, but I need one here for our grass hay) (Kuhn)
Side rake (H or B can pull) (256 NH is good)
Baler (M-TA with Ipto) (We've run MF, works good)

For 700-800 bales, I've done that in a day with our small gear, You could probably do that in a couple weekends if you mowed mid week. So if you break up your haying into 200 bale parcels, easy to do. Bale on ground and toss the bales on pickup truck or small trailer/wagon.

We will be mowing on the same fields that we have been getting hay off for years. No need for a soil test. Our hay guy is retiring and we will be cutting for our selves what he normally does for us. I have wagons, etc. and have been stacking the bales in the barn for 15 years now. The alfalfa comes off a field about 3 miles from my property and that is what we would be cutting for ourselves if we decide to move ahead with the idea. We generally use 20 rounds for the horses and 300 alfalfa squares for the sheep. This year alfalfa was $5.00/bale which is why we are thinking of doing it ourselves. We are basically hobby farming and well aware of the amount of work involved in doing it yourself. We enjoy the hard work and try each year to come up with more ways to be self sustaining in our hobby.

I would say a 7-9' haybine would be right sized, I pulled a 9' NH for a few years with my H and now with my 300 so you would have plenty of power. NH balers are also good but some others are as well. All of our haying equipment came from auctions and each piece(haybine, rake, baler) cost $150-200 but needed a bit of work. There are some good deals out there, it just may take time to find them.
Zach

9ft Haybine IH or NH......$2500
5bar side delivery rake, IH 16 is good ...$1500
NH 273 or 275 baler.....$2000
16 foot running gear/wagon 300-800.
Use the elevator spreader for annual P&K applications. About $50 per acre.
3.5 T/Ac is average yield.

I am doing pretty much the same thing as you are, and I am living proof that you dont HAVE to have expensive eqiupment to do it. I have a $75 sickle, a $200 crimper, a $300 rake, $ 600 baler, $300 hay rack, and a $100 elevator to put them in the hay loft. I run a SM and various Hs. No live PTO or anything. It can be done this way, and has been for decades. It will help if you are handy with repairs. Look for a NH baler. Make only dry hay. Watch those weather maps for high pressures coming in, dont listen to the weatherman, get in tune to it yourself. Around here the weather guy says chance of rain almost every day in the summer !

Vet, Here's my two cents worth, I usually agree with you on most everything you post on this forum but am going to differ with you on your "Idiot Cubes". I hand feed my 30-35 feeder calves I sell each year and the cows by hand in barn mangers small square bales. This year I put up in the barns (with younger help) over 6000 square bales of hay due to the drought the prior year and wanted the barns filled in case we get another one shortly. I went to the sale barn when my calves were sold this past May and received the highest amount of any being sold that day at that location by 15-20 cents a pound. When the sale was over I asked a couple of the buyers why mine brought the highest price and was told by two buyers it was mostly likely due to their presence in the auction ring. Instead of being frightened, nervous, kicking, running around in the ring, etc. they were very calm and well subdued. I was told it was obvious they were well cared for and had a lot of individual attention by people during their lifetime. That individual attention came from being near them twice a day feeding them those small bales. The calves become very tame and settled by me being in close proximity to them feeding them. My uncle also had calves being sold at the same time which were fed large round bales by tractor every few days with no real human contact and is a very well known and respected farmer in this area but is older then I am being 87 and is no longer able to do the square bale thing. I think that those square bales and the hand feeding of calves on the scale that I am involved in pay many dividends. I can pull in the field with a truck or other vehicle that they have seen me on and call them and you better quickly get back in the truck as they come running as they know something good is most likely going to happen.
Since we have a lot of small and hobby farmers on this forum with small cattle herds and trying to maintain their operations on a small scale I feel there are advantages to the "ole fashion way" and being close to the cattle which the small squares force you into. Granted you still have to be quite agile and willing to work to be successful with the small bales but they certainly have their place, Hal.
P.S. I agree that the New Holland hay equipment is probably the best (that's what I use along with most everyone in this area) as we have excellent 24/7 dealership support by our local NH dealership during haying season. I have a NH 256 rake, 273 baler (I upgraded to a barely used shed kept NH 311 this year) and a NH 616 disc mower.

Well said. My cattle are all tamed by me, makes so much easier to handle. The hiefers are even halter trained when young. I feed in the barn too, and store hay up in the old hayloft second story dairy barn. Cant do that with rounds.