Swather or mower conditioner

Dumb, I guess, but I don't know the difference. I think maybe a swather cuts and windrows, such as for small grains? A cutter conditioner or mower conditioner cuts and has rollers which crimp stems to speed up drying for crops such as hay??? Am I somewhat right or totally wrong? I looked at this site for ads for a swather and also on tractorhouse. Neither has any swather for sale.
Harvesting oats is a problem for me due to (sometimes) weeds and rain just at the time to combine standing oats. I'm thinking that cutting, windrowing a bit prior to dead ripe and then using a pickup attachment for a combine might be better. Agree? Where would somebody find a pickup attachment for a John Deere 55 combine? Where would someone find a swather? Thanks for advice. kelly
 
I put up grain hay some years and use a swather with a draper header as they are much more gentle with the crop, you can use a auger header and remove the conditioner in a pinch, I have extra pickup units and a decent MF draper swather here but I am afraid distance is way to far as I am in NE Wyoming, The pics are of one of my CASE units I use on my farm, a lot of these are used in North Dakota and are available in pull-type units as well, these are also called "windrowers"
cnt
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Swather is a regional name for a windrower. IF you look for windrower you should find what your looking for. As for the pickup header for a JD 55. If you have the old style header attachment then it will be hard to find. If you have the newer quick tach feeder house than it will be easier.
 
I don't think there is much difference, just different terminology. I have a JD1209 swather that throws a pretty wide windrow, but it is adjustable to make it wider or smaller. You definitely don't want to run grain through a conditioner, and generally an auger header vs a canvas belt header tends to knock out more grain also. In may area of the cuntry, central Washington state, most grain is swathed then picked up with combine with pickup attachment. Reason is it doesn't all mature and dry at the same time. That is in the irrigated areas. We have some dry land wheat farms that combine wheat standing also. I don't know where you would find a pickup attachment, guess it depends upon where you are in the country. I don't think anyone uses a 55 put here anymore, mostly much newer ones,
 
First picture is my JD swather,it has crimper rolls for hay, which can be removed to swath grain.This unit has a draper head, and is gentle on the crop. The other two photos show the pick-up on my combine. The pick-up is mounted on a dummy head .A dummy head is really just a strait cut head with the reel and guards, and knife remove. You could easy convert your head to take a pick-up. The pick-up I have is a Mellroe. And yes if the grain is cut a little early, and let the grain dry in the swath. Bruce
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Draper head is another term to look for. I cut oats a couple years with our hydro-swing Hesston 1014+2 (auger header) andwhile it worked, it knocks a fair amount of grain off.

Donovan from Wisconsin
 
Kelly
Where do you live? I know where a 20' pull type MF windrower is sitting that might be for sale. The company that built this unit for MF also built a model for JD. My neighbor that passed away recently had an older JD combine and I think he had a pickup attachment for it. I will check to see if it's for sale.
 
Thanks ya'll!!! By asking dumb questions and getting LOTS of help from folks on these forums I may learn a bit about farming yet before I die. I grew up on a farm but it was old equipment, two row, milking cows, etc. and I've been away from a farm for about 53 years now. Spent four years in college and then 38 years teaching schools and now retired for about eleven years, so I'm pretty out of date. I am over 70 now and have a tiny farm. I use horses to cut grass. I then use an antique tractor to rake and bale it for hay. I also have a small patch where I've planted oats in the fall, grazed my draft horses on that all winter, then kept the horses off it after March, and tried to combine the oats in May. It just seems that when I wait for the oats to be dry/ripe, the straws have largely broken over and the oats has also shelled somewhat, especially if there is any rain on it. I did live in northern Alberta, Canada for nearly a decade and up there because of the short growing season the farmers (as I remember it) grew wheat and rapeseed (canola) and they always swathed, windrowed and then used a pickup to combine after the crop had dried. Of course, I can't afford much equipment for 8-10 acres of oats but I've been given an old JD 55 combine and it seems to work fairly well. Just wish I could get all the oats harvested.
TX JIM, I live between New Braunfels and San Marcos. If I remember correctly, you are up in the northeast part of the state??? Again, thanks!!!! kelly
 
Nice pictures of function specific equipment. Didn't know it existed but I learned my limited farming at "Hard Knocks University" over the past 35 years. Here N. of Dallas, we mingle the terms and they all mean the same thing: A device that cuts hay (primarily), crimps the stems, and depending on how you fix the chute (flap up or down on JDs for one) will windrow the remains or scatter it. The cutter part is a sickle bar on older machines and usually a disc mower for the newer ones. I know that a drum mower can be fitted with crimpers also.

If anybody is running grain they run a combine like the JD 95 I once owned or the newer 9000 series Deeres for the larger farms (to name a couple) and come back with a rotary cutter like a bush hog and chop the stalks or sometimes just bale them having them cut by the same swather/moco. If not baled the residue used to be burned off, but the county has a burn ban (yipee) and they have to plow the stubble into the soil and you know the difference in soil quality between the two practices. I think they call it Humus improvement. Grin
 
(quoted from post at 20:36:01 05/11/15)
TX JIM, I live between New Braunfels and San Marcos. If I remember correctly, you are up in the northeast part of the state??? Again, thanks!!!! kelly

Close but I live 30 miles south of Ft Worth.
 
"Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely"........forgot origin, not mine. Hope you make a hay crop this year. Around here
it's pretty bleak. Mighty tired of rain rain rain. Looks like I'm going to get top dollar for whatever junk is left in the field when June
arrives. According to OFAlmanac, June will be hot and dry. We'll see.
 

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