Thinking of square bailing

Never bailed or owned a bailer, picked up many though, got but 18 acres that I bush hog each year, decent fescue, lespadeza, thought about buying a used square bailer, rake, sickle etc, pull with wd 45, DC case, JD B, ford 2000, I have many choices, my question is, the more I read about square Bailers the more confused I am, are they hard to use ,understand, etc, where can I find out about them, and what's a generally good trouble small modle, help I'm new, lol, Dusty

For a starter, you bail WATER, and bale HAY. They aren't bad to use, but you night want to get with someone who knows what they
are doing, and is willing to teach you the basics. After workng with one for a bit, you may decide against idiot cubes......

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When I started out I had a mentor just down the road. I feel like baling hay was in my DNA from birth. Just something that I have to do. There is a lot to learn. Get yourself a copy of the New Holland Haymakers handbook. Maybe you can find one on eBay. Then whatever you do be sure to get an MF baler That will relieve you of a lot of what you need to learn because the MF knotters, are way more simple and a lot fewer moving parts than JD or NH.

When looking for a baler look for one in this order; good knotters, good needle timing, sharp cut off knife, all the pickup teeth, greased as recommended and been kept in side. I keep mine inside unless I'm
using it. Even at night. I have had very few problems with the knotter. I would choose a heavy tractor with live power for running the baler.

It ain't rocket science, but read/study old forum posts, ask a lot of questions, be prepared for frustration knuckle busting and you'll do OK.

I would recommend a haybine, New Holland or Hesston 1110/20 vs a sickle. Get a tedder, New Holland rollabar rake and either a New Holland
or John Deere baler. When you see one for sale, do a search here and post about the good/bad of it.

Good luck
Bill

Farming and baling hay was in my DNA also, but the wanting to handle small squares the rest of my life was evicted from my mind by my body!

I agree with the notion of seeing if you could find a local person to be a mentor. They could advise you as to the grasses and/or legumes that can be grown on your soil and be readily sold in your area. Sure people can advise you on boards such as this one but there are times that is not enough. Things that guys swear by may not work for you as in Southern guys depending on location and type of crop may not need a conditioner to get their hay to dry down whereas in many Northern locations such as where I live a mower-conditioner is a must. If your soil can push out the tonnage like many soils around here do you may find yourself a little underpowered for some field operations. I would not want anything less than 50 PTO HP on a 9 foot cutterbar-type mower-conditioner as first cutting can run very heavy. Time can be critical if the rain is chasing the hay baler and while you could putt along with a 30 PTO HP tractor a larger tractor can make the baler get down the windrow faster allowing more acres to be done in an afternoon. Do you need the largest and latest? Most likely not but do not paint yourself into a corner by going bare minimum.

What do you plan on doing with the hay?

I love baling hay. Started riding the twine box on an IH baler when I was 9 years old tying any knots that would pull apart. Got a penny a bale. Dad did custom baling and at 10 I drove the tractor when Dad loaded bales on the wagons. He watched the chamber and he have me stop and would tie any missed knot. At 15 Dad went to work in a factory and I took over the custom baling thru high school. Now at 79 I still bale a few bales each year. I just over the last two weeks dropped 160 bales on the ground. Grand and Great Grand sons picked them up.
I never thought there was all that much to know about running a baler. Except a bath sure feels good at the end of a day baling hay or straw. When something breaks you fix it which can be about anything on the baler. If your not good at fixing things it might be a challenge.

Around here you would not find any support of any kind for an MF baler, no body would know anything about it or anything about parts. Stick to New Holland or Deere with New Holland running 3 to 1 in what is out there.

The same issue exists here with Hesston or anything else that is not JD or NH. Within 15 minutes you can be at a JD or NH dealership where the ride will be almost 4 times as long to the nearest AGCO dealer as the one dealership in Canandaigua has closed. I know some people enjoy reviving a Ford baler but I would stick to either JD or NH on that. The old NH haybines make use of wide piston 8" cylinders so old low pressure hydraulic systems can raise them.

Amen about Hesston. I'm over in the center part of the state, just a couple hours east of you. I have a Hesston PT1070 haybine, that I got for 750 bucks. Cheap eh?

But...thank God that I work in Syracuse; because the nearest dealer is an hour away from home, in Cazenovia...a few minutes from Syracuse.

On top of that, even the dealers don't have some parts any more. And...the PT1070 is a rare seven footer that even scrap yards don't have many of.

I keep fixing it; because I got it cheap, and it's a nice haybine when it's working...but I fear that one day something is going to break and I'm gonna be screwed. Almost had that happen with the reel...but I managed to home-brew a fix with a torch and a welder.

To the subject at hand...I have an old New Holland 276 square baler. Got it for 1250, used. Parts are still available, and it's been a pretty good small farm baler for about three years now.

Find a good used one and keep it greased and have a bucket of shear bolts and a manual for it, and you will just bale and bale, no issues.

Buy one out of shape or knotters messed up and it will be a cause of much frustration and cussing.

New Holland 69 through 271 are good old lower volume machines that work well. They are getting older and older, harder to find a 'good
condition' one but they have many common parts and can be fixed up nice.

JD 14T and 24T are the old good JD balers, locally not quite as popular as NH but good, 14T is getting old...

Any newer model of NH or JD will have more features, faster baling, and good rep.

Other older model balers are kinda questionable. They didn't get the knoters figured out as well, and parts can be hard to find, mechanics to fix
it up nice are harder to find, etc. you can get a good one, but you can more easily find a lemon in these other brands of old balers......

As others mention the new machines like Heston are great, but you will pay good bucks and might need a bigger tractor for something fairly
new and high capacity.


For a tractor you will be happy with any tractor of 35 hp and a live or independent pto, having more gears (slower options) is great.

You can get by with 25hp and standard pto, and a 4 speed, but boy it's a whole lot less fun....... A whole lot.....

Paul

It must be English class again might check you spelling and sweep your own doorstep first.
I have known a lot of rich farmers who made a lot of your so called Idiot cubes. PWSDS.

I agree get a New Holland or a John Deere Baler I have baled with a Massey Ferguson 12 and a 120 the 120 is a simple baler to work on and makes a good tight bale when its right but the availability of parts for them is getting scarce and when you do find parts for them its going to hurt your pocket book

Sonny, I AM a Farmer and have made thousands of idiot cubes over the years. I have had a round baler for the past thirty years and have not looked back to square bales or those days. I put up around 1500 round bales a year and still bale about a thousand or so small squares for neighbors, but, at 69, I refuse to handle them. The only thing I am going to sweep from my front door is stupid comments.....

Get started your the one who was stupid to start with.

That's a good one

Tippiecal collige perfissers. Doan got enuf pitchers fer me an two meny 50 cent werds.......

Made and carted around 3000 square bales every year for about 30 years with a series of MF tractors (135, 550 multipower, 675) and

a 1958 NH 78 Hayliner! Had the baler knotters set up professionally when I first bought it (around 1973), and never had to
touch it
again except to feed it grease and twine (oh, and replaced the hardwood plunger sliders one time). Stopped the square
bales when my
workforce (the kids) left home, and got this guy with the 'Deere to make 4x4 round bales. Easier, but not half
the satisfaction!

Here's the guy with the 'Deere

(quoted from post at 08:51:51 07/06/17) Sonny, I AM a Farmer and have made thousands of idiot cubes over the years. I have had a round baler for the past thirty years and have not looked back to square bales or those days. I put up around 1500 round bales a year and still bale about a thousand or so small squares for neighbors, but, at 69, I refuse to handle them. The only thing I am going to sweep from my front door is stupid comments.....

Click to expand...

The only idiotic thing is to assume that one solution fits all. Full disclosure: I make small squares. However, I have nothing against round bales. If your farm has the setup for them:

-A good place to store them.
-A good place to feed them.
-Tractors and/or skid steer loaders equipped with bale spears and large enough to handle them safely.

For my operation, I have perfectly good hay loft. I can stack small squares in there higher and with a better packing factor than large squares.

My largest tractor is a Ford 3000; which can't be guaranteed to get through the snow depth that we sometimes have to go get a round bale from the storage lot in the winter.

My farm is next to a main road, what I call the "Walker Road International Speedway". I can't leave my cattle outside to feed round bales in the winter; as the snow could top the fences at times, risking the lives of our cattle and drivers, should they get out.

My hay loft has perfectly good hay holes to drop square bales down and my stable has feed lanes in front of the cows designed for small squares.

Our daughters are grown up, but they come back to the farm a few days every summer to help put the hay away.

So...for me...when it's twenty below outside and the snow is too deep to drive a tractor; I go up into my dry and secure hayloft without having to start a tractor and drop a few small squares down the holes.

I feed half a day's ration and pile the other half on the foundation wall in front of the cows, to be fed during night chores.

When I do this, I don't feel very much like an idiot as I drive to work past round bales all turned brown in our neighbor's fields with huge tractor ruts leading to them....or when I'm watching his cattle with their ribs showing trying to chisel some feed off of a frozen cube of baleage that he dumped into the feed lot.

Signed...an actual college professor...and farmer.

Beautiful!

Well that's it everyone's situation is different and so their operation is different,for me living farther South than you with no other help big round bales work the best for me.I can
feed them out in the fields in the Winter so there is no manure to spread in the Spring.Climate has a huge effect on how farming is done everywhere as you pointed out.