When I was a tean I worked for several area farmers in the summer putting up square bales. I figured once I had my own equip. and hay I would get to be the guy running the baler. Well, here I am almost 60 and I mention having hay to bale, not asking for help, and I get volunteers to run the tractor so I can stack the hay. I guess I'd rather do it alone.
 
Let me know where you could ever find volunteers to stack hay for free. $20 per hour would be appropriate for that job today. If you have hay on the ground and bad weather approaching, that would be a bargain, about 10 cents a bale? I know none of us got anywhere close to that when we were kids, but we were working for family, or exchanged labor back then.
 
I can relate to your feelings!!!
I help a lot of my friends in welding, or repairs on tractors or anything mech.nature and if you ask them for help in woodwork or plumbing or electrical I get the feeling I owe them forever???
I still help my friends but I will hire jobs I need done that Im not good at.
I think its just facts of life,SORRY
 
First farm I worked on, I never ran the baler. Only the experts could do it.

Second farm, just me and the owner, he seemed more than happy to let me do the baling while he saw to the milk business. I never got tired of baling straw, I loved it. Even if I stacked my own wagons.

Of course, that was back when doing manual labor didn't seem to be beneath so many people.
 
Some 25 or so years ago, I was paying kids $7 an hour to help with hay. But they rarely came back for another day. I solved the problem by getting a round baler, and haven't looked back!
 
In the early to mid 60s I hauled hay for a dollar an hour plus dinner at noon. Always a big meal, roast or chicken, etc. Never a sandwich. Straw was a breeze after hay bales. We worked for three or four farmers. It was hard, and the mow when full was hot and dusty, but I slept well at night and always showed up for work.

Larry
 
When Dad Said be at the field for say 8 and you were late. Well the bailer went to work at 8 and bailed on the ground. if you were there to hook the wagon up well the work was better. I was late only 1 time. We pile on the wagon from the bailer "OR" pick the damm things from the ground them to the wagon then to the Mow. Education was learned
 
There just aren't that many kids around. All the farmers around here are old, and their kids are gone, and so are the neighbor's.
 
Maybe RayP will jump in,but we were talking about that at the steam show the other day. In all honesty,he said kids these days don't have the upper body strength to handle bales.
 
Around here kids can make $10 hr at a store in the Mall never break a sweat and stay in air conditioning they'd be downright stupid to go to haul hay for that or less even.My cousin and myself used to get get up hay for another older farmer in our area he paid us 20 cents a bale to get hay up and stack it in the barn and that was in the late 60's early 70's.I'd want $1 bale to do it now.I'd probably still gross about the same amount of $$$ at the end of the day(LOL)Can't sling them bales like I did 40-50 years ago.
 
I feel for you. If you want it done right you have to do it yourself. I've found the best help is girls Hire a tough girl and the boys don't want to be shown up. Good luck!
 
Well now, you saw my two girls at Oakley. They are good for 4-500 bales a day picked up off the ground and stacked on wagons. NOT a lot by standards of yesteryear, but they do it without complaining and have for many years. Sorry to brag, but they make my life a lot easier and I am proud of them.

As to others? My girls have brought friends over who wanted to give it a try and my experience is that they are good for about 20 bales before they are head first in the cooler and then parked in the shade. I'm still on the hook for dinner too. They never ask to do it twice.
 
That"s about the size of it... Son finally got thru college, got a job and moved his family to a new home some distance away. Now I have the wife driving the tractor and me stacking wagon. Unloading - throw about ten to twenty bales on the conveyor, climb up and stack in the mow. Yeah, the kids my wife wanted me to employ weren"t up to the task.
 
I am not to excited to throw bales after having a shoulder rebuilt winter before last. It is finally not aching all the time.
 

I always enjoyed stacking bales until maybe when I turned 65. I couldn't wait to be old enough as a kid. After a day of working road construction in my later teens I would go to where I knew that the farmer that I worked for would be baling. Later on I would stop along the road sides and help strangers.
 
I haven't baled any hay in year. Actually don't mind baling by myself. It's kind of fun seeing how many bales I can get out of the chute on the wagon before I have to go back and stack. I'm almost never in a hurry, only have one load or so to do. Makes all the difference.
 
I'm 64 yrs old. Have an accumulation system to put my squares up. Can get 700 to 900 bales in the barn in a good day. Hardly ever touch a bale. Like most of you, as a teen handled them by hand every summer to make spending money.
 
All during the 1980s we made 30-40K of small square bales each year. Filled all the hay storage I could find. My wife drove the tractor and I loaded the wagons. We had ten wagons. I could get 2500 bales on the wagons in a good afternoon. Then the next morning there was two older men that where "slow", they made spending money helping around farms. They where not good at stacking or anything like that but they could load the elevator and then throw the bales back to me to stack. I actually enjoyed being out in the hay field loading bales. My wife would laugh at me dancing a jig on the wagon.

By the time my middle sons where old enough to really be much help in hay I had stopped baling a lot. We would do maybe 5000 of hay and 1000 of straw. Then by the early 1990s I switched just about everything over to round bales. We might bale a wagon load a year for some sick livestock or small calf feed an that was it.

We baled small square bales last year for the Grand Daughters horses. They loaded all the bales themselves. They loaded the elevator and drug the bales to me to stack. This year they did all of the work. I just ran the baler and they did the rest. They are a little older and I made the bales weight maybe 40 lbs. They will put up maybe 1500 total. They are real proud of their "hay". When they go to horse rides they make sure and tell anyone that cares about how they baled the hay they brought along.

Learning that hard work does not "kill" you and that breaking a sweat is something kids benefit from learning. They will know later in life that sometimes you have to work hard for a little while to get things you might like. In my Grand Daughters case it is feed for their horses.
 
When Dad raised hay, there was a young kid from a rich family, who helped baling hay. He would stack hay just for the workout. Good deal for Dad. Stan
 
Gas was .35 a gal, a ten year old car was 100.00 and doing hay for 3.50 an hour was a summer gold mine.
 
I have to admit I don't know the difference between hay and straw,eveything that get's tyed up with string or wire is hay around here. Howevr I do know the difference between hay and "peanut"hay. That stuff was like handling baled barb wire.
 
That sounds like the early 1970's, the first gas crisis hit after the 1973 Arab-Israel war. What would those $3.50 1973 dollars be in today's money?
 
kind of hard to play with the cell phone and stack hay bales at the same time! I did lots of haying when I was a young lad.I worked on Grandpa's farm and when there wasnt much happening there I would go and help out a couple of elderly neighbors. I didnt make tons of cash but I learned "sticktoitiveness" and I also grew some muscels. I was a runt till about 8th grade and before that I was kind of a target for the bullies ,after I built up some mass (and punched one of them) I was left alone. I dont think the kids sitting on the couch playing video games will ever learn much from their summertime like I did
 
[ The last farmer I worked for,just a few months before I finished school and went into the military,paid $5.00 a day.He hired a baler and an operater.The farmer and two or three kids at most loaded the wagon and stacked in the mow.Each of us kids took turns driveing the tractor.The only time he drove during harvest was combineing oats.











quote="kickinbull"](reply to post at 12:45:15 08/27/14) [/quote]
 
I am amused by how much hand stacking flat racks there are still used out there. Bale throwers or kickers have been around for 40 years and at least eliminate some labor. Very few small squares in this area and here they use stack wagons for those. Large square and rounds are the norm.
 
I am afraid to hire anyone to bale hay. No way I would ever hire anyone under the table to bale hay. These days, it would only take a slip on a wagon and a twisted ankle to land a huge lawsuit and then have the irs fine you for not having them as legal employees. Mentality is not what it used to be.

with the new tools out there for hay gathering, there is no sense in hiring anyone, anyhow.


I hate baling hay, mainly because of allergies, but I end up doing it every year, anyhow.
 

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