Back-Up For New Holland 68

Well, I found a decent back-up baler for the trusty New Holland 68. Picked up a John Deere 348. Don't have any pics yet to post but will do so
sooner than later. We got it towed home last night and dark got the best of us.

Happy New Year everyone!

Thanks,
Bill

Congrats. However,I think very soon the 348 will be the front line machine and the 68 will become the 'backup'. Those are 348s are darn good balers and will eat a lot of hay.Happy Baleing.

One word of advise. If the baler didn't come with a manual,BUY ONE NOW. Read it before haying season.You will have a much better,more sussessful baleing experience with the book.

I agree with Delta. You'll park the 68. 348 should be heck of a baler.

You didn't buy a backup. The 68 should now be your backup. That 348 is very close an equal to a 575 NH.

Agree 100 percent with that.

In good condition?That 348 will run circles around your NH 68.Like Delta Red said get a manual and put the super tune on it.It'll bale all the hay you want!

Paul

I have 348 and if your stacking wagons... It will bury 2 men. Bale baskets or an accumulator might be your next investment.

I have a 346 pretty much the same as a 348, If I were you I'd make that NH baler the back up. After using the Deere I don't think you will want to go back to the 68. Mine has been great to me.

Thanks everyone!

Of course the 348 will be the main baler, just being fecious with the topic title - LOL....

IMHO our 68 is now a pretty good baler - with the repairs/refurb we've done. But we've moved well beyond "instead of bush hogging these fields, less bale the hay" deal. We're going to have some pretty good quality "calling card" hay this summer and beyond, with more and more acrage brought back into hay production as we continue to clear, take back and refresh our old fields. I have no doubt the 68 will do the job, but in 2016, it will be 58 years old and with that some risk. We're selling into the horse market and a day can make the difference between horse hay and goat, or worse, mulch hay. This hay making odyssey we're on, as I've said before, is not just to give my kids the "hay making" experience, but show them how to turn a wrench, figure out how to fix what's broken, but IMHO, two very important things. 1) It only takes a little more effort to turn out top quality anything, in our case horse quality hay and 2) learn to appreciate the nicer equipment by working up from the older stuff, i.e. sickle mower to haybine, wait an extra day to tedder the hay, bale on the wagon vs ground. As we go along, even that level of equipment will get improved upon.

The 348 is a step towards making better hay, minimizing the risk with one baler only and having capacity headroom if we ever up our hp.

Hope everyone has a great 2016!

Bill

Yep - already have both an operators and service manual.

Ha ha - I showed this post to my boys. They're doing a great job and were MUCH better at stacking on the wagon at the end of last year than when we started. It only took a couple of episodes of part of the wagon load falling off the side to 1) orderly stack and 2) realize that even though a tight bale is heavier, the density of a "brick" bale really does help it stack like a brick.

But one of the boys commented, an accumulator sounds like a good idea.....

Bill

The 348 is a high production baler. You have to rake larger windrows,it doesn't like small stringy windrows. My 348 will drop a bale every 6-7 feet when baling a windrow out of a combine with a 30' head. You will bury your wagon stackers if you run at full capacity.

MSM is right. Ours doesn't do all that well in the later cuttings. We cut with a 9'2" discbine and sometimes raking them together isn't quite enough. That's when the 24T comes out or your 68.

Just make some shed space for that 68, and use it once and a while, so when you find you need to use it, its ready to go. They all break, and with horse hay you can not afford time to fix it with the short windows we have in VA.

We have a cheaper accumulator/grapple. Ten at a time. But takes a good loader operator.