Hay Rakes

cleddy · Dec 30, 2013

I was wondering if anyone knew anything about what we called a "kelly Ryan Rake" It had big round wheels with rake teeth, ground driven to roll the hay into windrows. Ours was pretty much home modified so have no idea of the origin and was definitly different than anyone else had.

Then along fairly recently the large V type rake that used similair big wheels and ours got modified into something like that. Unfortunatly it was not a good self contained unit and with the end of haying layed in the trees until the parts went to the scrap yard.

At its Prime our Kelly Ryan rake did as good as anyone elses did but I never knew a thing about them but always wondered.Cleddy

T in NE · Dec 30, 2013

I haven't looked into it but Kelly Ryan Mfg seems to have become Blair Mfg. I think I know the rakes you are talking about, there is one sitting in the weeds on just about every other place around here that ever put up hay.

Big heavy thing, about 4 or 5 wheels, towed off the drawbar, front wheel pivoted, rear was fixed.

JD Seller · Dec 30, 2013

Is this a picture of one like you had??? They made several types over the years but none of them really worked very well unless you have pool table flat fields.

Kelly Ryan is/was located in Blair Nebraska. They have built all kinds of farm equipment over the years. Their most successful is there silage bagger.

They built feeder wagons like Schulers, Forage boxes and otehr things.

cleddy · Dec 30, 2013

Thanks for the reply. That is pretty much exactly what we had (Exact yellow color) except ours had a homemade frame out of large angle iron w/Ford V-8 spoked rims/tires and 2 little dolly wheels on the back. I imagine ours was modifyed to float some and work in the hills because we had hills. I know on a back of a terrace it would pretty much sag down the hill and go straight.

Actually our farm was about 50 miles just south of Blair,Ne not that it was likely we got it new from there. I remember once Dad came home with extra parts and then our Rake got a couple extra Rake wheels on it. The rake wheels had big suspension springs on the back of each wheel to help them float over the ground and ours had a hydralic cylinder to lift them all for turning at the end of the row.

I could see why they ended up in the brush. When it came time for the scrappers there wasn't much I could see to do with the parts but let them go. We saved the Ford 16" spoked rims though. cleddy

Tim(nj) · Dec 30, 2013

Kelly Ryan Inc. still seems to be Kelly Ryan.
Kelly Ryan

timbernt · Dec 30, 2013

My Dad had a 5 wheel he brought down to MO from central NE in 1966. When the frame crystalized he bought a new one in 1973 that had 7 wheels. They actually worked pretty well. The solid wheels kept weeds from winding up like happens with todays wheel rakes. They were gentle on leaves and worked quite well for turning windrows. Since you had to turn and throw two rounds together to make a windrow it was a good way for a kid to learn to drive. Especially using a DC Case raking for an AC Rotobaler when your father lacked patience. A problem was the teeth tended to break as well as the hooks on the wheels that held the teeth.

WCS · Jan 1, 2014

I have a very old pto manure spreader with the name Blair Mfg on it. It's my understanding that they later became Kelly Ryan. I have a Kelly Ryan Feed-R-Wagon also, not as old, I believe.

T in NE · Jan 10, 2014

Like I said, I didn't look into it. I've seen both names on the same equipment, so i figured it went the wrong way.

Hay Rakes

cleddy

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T in NE

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JD Seller

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cleddy

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Tim(nj)

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timbernt

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WCS

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T in NE

Well-known Member

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