What kind of Hay Rake should I look for?

bja105

Member
I have never made hay on my own, and only helped my bearded friends make hay with horses and a stationary baler. I have a tractor and a 7' MC Rotary scythe to mow. I am looking for a round baler, something like a Vermeer 605.

Tell me about rakes, please. I see brand new wheel rakes not that expensive. I see old rakes, from $100-2000. What is the difference in use from a rollerbar, a side delivery, a wheel rake?

Do the new wheel rakes that rake or ted do both well, or neither?

Thanks
 
This has been discussed numerous times on here. Do
a bit of research, then ask specific questions.
 
Well this is going to sound strange but a friend of mine did this for many years. He had a 9 foot MC Rotary Scythe that he used to cut with and a MF 560 round bailer (same as a Vermeer 605C). When he cut it he had the back open wide and a day later he would come back in and run it through again but would close the back up to make a 5 foot wide swath. On average he could cut one day come in the next day and run it back through it and bale the next day.

He said when you cut it the dryer material fell first to the ground and the wetter would be thrown farther out the back and would land on top of the dryer hay. He did this for many years before he died and never had bad hay in the his dairy barn. His hay rake sat in the weeds unused. I now it sounds crazy but I have done it myself many times and it works. Try it on a small amount and see if it works for you. This was his preferred way to round bale and if he wanted square bales he would close the back up more on the MC. Just something to think about. Bandit
 
PARTS:

so important, no matter what brand you buy, if you
have to travel 50+ miles to get parts, you are up a
creek.

We always had a new holland dealer in our community,
so 90%+ of the hay equipment was new holland brand.

Most in the area now use new holland or John Deere.

I never understood how the wheel rakes worked in
small tight corner fields.

But from pictures I see it appears they work good in
large flat fields.

Not much help, ask some farmers that put up 1000's of
bales per year, they can tell you which equipment to
buy.

Their first question will be, "do you want to bale
hay or work on the equipment"

Buy what they say,
 
Side delivery...will dig out the hay in tough conditions...not so good in a field full of gopher mounds as you can bend the strippers as they can drag across the top of the mound.

Wheel...best in rough ground but will leave some behind especially if you have a "green bunch" piled up from your mowing job.

I have both.
 
almost any style of rake can be used but myself and for ease of making the correct size/shape of windrow I prefer a "V" rake, mine is a second generation rake that they at the time called a "high-capacity" unit, they have since improved them and made them a higher capacity units now, I do 250 acres plus a year so I want things as easy and as fast as I can do as I do all my own work, I know some people that use a in-line wheel rake and or roll bar models as well that are not the "V" type like I run, they do a small amount of acres and get by, I like the uniform ones my rake makes
cnt
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"so important, no matter what brand you buy, if you have to travel 50+ miles to get parts, you are up a creek."

I should have that engraved on a plaque above the barn door. :)
 
It's pretty hard to beat a rotary rake,like a Kuhn or Miller Pro. I bought a new Kuhn back in 1987. Both of my boys raked a tremendous amount of hay with that thing from the time they were big enough to steer a tractor. I always said a chimpanzee could rake lawn clippings with one of those things. I have a V type wheel rake that I use most of the time,now that I'm working alone. It rakes two in to one,so cuts the raking time in half,but I still have the rotary here. It's the only way to go if you have to turn wet hay. I used it last week for that. I use it in the fall to rake corn stalks too. They just want to roll up and wrap on the wheel rake.
 
(quoted from post at 09:57:15 09/01/14) Well this is going to sound strange but a friend of mine did this for many years. He had a 9 foot MC Rotary Scythe that he used to cut with and a MF 560 round bailer (same as a Vermeer 605C). When he cut it he had the back open wide and a day later he would come back in and run it through again but would close the back up to make a 5 foot wide swath. On average he could cut one day come in the next day and run it back through it and bale the next

That is part of why I bought the rotary scythe. I mowed some ground last week, after I lubed and sharpened the machine. As it came set up, it leaves a four foot wide windrow. Saturday, I ran over the same windrows with the rpm down, knives up, and gound speed higher, like the directions said. It sure fluffed up the windrow, and brought the wet hay to the top. It looked ready to bale!

What I don't know, will a round baler pick up a sparse windrow? I know I may need to zig zag to make an even bale, but do balers need a certain amount of hay in the windrow to start a bale? With this seven foot cutter and ground that has been mined by tenants for years, I suspect I will have some thin hay to start with. I was thinking I would need to rake two winfrows into one.


I do have some groundhog holes to deal with. Its sort of funny, since riflery in general, and groundhog hunting in particular, was my main hobby before I got into farming. I have been so busy with the gardens and livestock the last five years, I haven't killed a groundhog in quite a while.

Some more information I left out, the hay fields are about 20 acres, pretty flat for Pennsylvania. Existing crop is orchard grass, timothy, alfalfa, white clover, and red clover. Also too many weeds, but I am getting them better with mowing.

I also have 10 acres of reclaimed strip mine I plan to graze by next year. Some of it is flat enough to mow for hay, with some soil help, but it is pretty rough. That is where I made my test run wih the rotary scythe, and I need to sharpen the knives again.

Back to equipment. Do you think I will definately need to rake two windrows into one, definately not, or may sometimes yes, sometimes no?
 
I have a rollabar type rake, JD350 and though my experience
with it is limited, it IMHO does a good job.

I think new, a rollabar is more expensive than a wheel rake.

I've read that rotary rakes get high marks.

I've also been told that if you are making hay for sale to horse
folks, a rollabar rake will pickup less trash than a wheel rake
as the tines don't touch the ground. Never used a wheel rake,
so take my comments with a grain of salt.
 
Large stalks can cause problems with a wheel rake but they work good on grass hay. If rain is coming you can rake with the truck and a wheel. Drop the sides with the tractor and go. I only recommend this method as a last ditch effort to beat rain
 
Every hay cutting is different from year to year and cutting to cutting so a hay rake is really always needed even if its not used. Around here (SW Ohio) 1st cutting most of the time is a heavy windrow 2nd cutting can be thin so it needs to be double windrowed to make good bales.

As far as the hay rake goes really any rake will work, 3pt or pull type, Wheel or bar rake will do. Rough ground is hard on all of them. I was always told for heavy hay you need a bar rake ( 4 or 5 bar) and in lighter hay a wheel rake works the best so its a crap shoot what to buy. All the different types of rakes do the same job but some are better than others. I think if you can find a 4 or 5 bar rake 3pt or pull I think you will be happy with it. I have an old JD 896 9ft pull type 4 bar rake and I'm happy with it that I bought years ago cheap, And it still dose a good job.

Old Pete made the MC leave a 5 1/2 foot windrow and the baler made a 5x5 bale and it pulled it all in so he didn't do any zig zaging when baling. He never worried about how heavy it was he just changed gears on the tractor to match it to bale it. Now if its been raked you do have to zig zag when round baling. The picture is my cousin raking hay that was cut with a 7ft haybine and this is the 1st cutting about 6 weeks ago and it made a big windrow to bale. Bandit
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IH 16. A 5 bar side delivery. I've raked/baled 10,000 bales with mine and have replaced about 50 teeth over the years, and two end couplings/bearings which are available from IH.
One year we were long on help and short on equipment so one youngster raked with it behind my Samurai with the doors and roof off.One of those side x sides would probably pull it.
 
I run a Vermeer 605H. You will need a rake and possibly a tedder. I use a 10 wheel v-rake.

Here is why.

In very heavy first cut, the rake will make very large windrows. This is good, except that sometimes you can get a ball of green grass in the row that does not dry. Rake it again and it makes it worse. The tedder can help by blowing up the cutter row over the now dry area and get all of the grass evenly dry. If you don't get those green spots gone, when starting a bale, they tend to wrap around the feeder and jam the intake.

On the opposite, thin rows make it hard to start a bale. Hay does not get into the chamber evenly and the side belts can get on top of the hay instead of around it. weaving helps but does not work all of the time, IMO. It is good to double/triple and even quadruple rows to get them fuller. Also saves baling time. You can rake faster than you can bale.

My 2 cents...

John
 

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