Compact balers

Hey guy's! I guess I forgot my username and such for this forum. Alot of you helped me out with a JD 1020 injector pump issue and I thank you all greatly for that, had it rebuilt after a flexring failure and it's running good as new now.

New question for you guy's. In FL the state is really cracking down on farms claiming agriculter status for tax reasons. We have horses but apparently new rules are requiring more. I want to start baling hay on my farm and possibly a few others. We're not talking alot of acreage here. I have a JD 990 with about 35 PTO horsepower I'd like to find a small compact baler for. I see the NH 65 is very popular and reliable. I'm in the market for one and was wandering what they usually go for. I've seen a few guy's online claiming they've paid $200 for one in working condition. I'd like to have one that looks rough but is mechanically good. Are they getting hard to find. I have a few tractor yards in my area I need to go check out. What do you guy's think I should do?

-Kelly

I've had a 65 for about 10 yrs. Think I paid a little over 300. Very good baler. I bale about 10,000 bales a year.

Any baler is gonna work the heck outta that small JD tractor. It has 35 pto hp which is bare minimum for even the smallest baler, but the tractor is too lightweight to keep the force of momentum from pushing the tractor. Get a larger tractor, something about 50+ hp for even a small square baler and it will work it ok without tearing up the tractor. Better to have more tractor than needed to have a edge of safety and workability.

hay
Granted 35 hp on a newer tractor compared to older tractors is similar to calling a Shetland pony a horse. But for small acreage without pulling a hay rack a 35 hp tractor should handle a sq baler in flat land Florida. Several years ago I pulled a JD 214 baler with a JD BO with no problems and the BO doesn't have LPTO.

I use a 25 HP Farmall H w/ a small McCormick 46 square baler. It does it but gotta be good with the clutch w/o live pto. I used a Case 230 square baler for awhile but seemed like it was a bit much for the tractor. The McCormick 46 baler matches up alot better, both were made in the same time era. I recommend gettin a baler of the same make as your tractor if possible.

(quoted from post at 05:30:16 10/07/09) I recommend gettin a baler of the same make as your tractor if possible.

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Is that a personal preference or with hard reasoning? Not troubleshooting you, but keep fighting with myself over how pretty an International baler would be with my International tractor.

As for HP requirements, some of the balers I've been looking at have a minimum required of 40 but there are videos of them being ran with 16 and 17 HP tractors (flat/dry conditions of course).

Dave

I wish I had the money to buy a new tractor. I use it for mostly mowing and spreading fertilizer now. The changes in agriculture requirements are somewhat requiring me to bale hay at my place now. I don"t mind running slow with a baler to keep it from bogging down. Would a NH 65 still be too big? I"ve heard of guy"s using even smaller tractors than mine. We"re only talking about baling 10 acres twice a year or so...

What if you sold the tractor and bought an older one that would handle the load and a baler. May even have some bucks left over?? Just a thought.


Dave

I won"t argue that a larger tractor would be better, but if you"re on
flat ground, you can get by with a smaller one... I just baled 10
acres of grass/alfalfa with my 8N and NH 68.

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any of the older models and brands would work well.
JD 14 and 24T, NH anything, we pulled a 68 behind an International 444 which isn't much bigger.
Personally I stay away from anything IH or Ford but those would work as well.
Drop the bales on the ground and pick them up later if the pulling gets tough.

You are mistaken in a 46 IHC baler matching the time era of a Farmall H.The Farmall H was first made in 1939 up to 1952? when it bacame the SH to 1954. The 46 baler did not come out untill the very late 50,s. The 45 was the one built when the H was.

Do you still have the JD 1020, it was a lot more tractor than the other one you mention and would be the one to put on a baler and without geting to the high capacity balers of the late 1980's and up you would have no problem handling a baler even with a wagon.

Kelly,

Stick with a small name brand baler. There are enough of them around that parts are still available. We ran a Ford 250 baler for 24 years with a '52 Ford 8N. It was a well matched pair, but heavy windrows were a real challenge. Also the 8N had issues holding the baler back on some of our steep hayfields. But typical with orphan balers we had to buy a second parts baler to keep it going. The old NH balers are more compact than the JDs, which were designed for the large JD Row Crop tractors. What a diffference our JD 2010RC makes with live pto!!!

Your tractor will easily handle a NH65 assuming you are on flat ground. I bale with a Kubota L285 (similar in physical size and hp to a JD 850 or JD 870). I only have 26.45 max PTO hp at WOT, but more like 23 hp at 540 PTO speed where I run the baler. Furthermore, I do not have live PTO either and I do not have an issue with that either - I simply plan ahead and rake smartly.

While I do not pull a wagon behind the trailer (I simply drop on the ground), I do think I could actually handle pulling a small wagon if I had one limiting this to flat ground of course. The other benefit to using my tractor is that I burn so little fuel that it is almost unbelievable and the majority of my fuel usage occurs running the bushog (my poor man's hay conditioner). The raking and baling are much easier on the tractor than the bushhogging.

FWIW - A NH65 or a Ford 520 are the two absolute smallest balers that you can buy relatively cheaply from the common manufacturers. Alternatively, there are also the the AgroStar or MicroStar balers that are like $15K but they have units that will even work with lawnmower size tractors.

The NH = easy parts, the Ford could be a nightmare regarding parts. If you find a NH 65 in good shape for $200 snag it as it is worth more than that as scrap metal. I only paid $200 for mine, but it was in rough shape when I bought it. Most people that have them will want at leat $1K for a decent one and I have seen them priced as high as $3k.

If you search my name I have a few threads with pics of my junk in action - LOL.

About ten years ago I had a new MF 1240 compact util. tractor. And out of ignorance I bought NH 68 Hayliner, fixed it up, and baled hay pulling a 100 bale cap. rack. Had to use 4WD on the hill, though. Otherwise, everything worked slick----no lack of power because of the right gear ratios.

I"ve baled with a new holand 68 behind a C Allis Chalmers once. We had a small piece about 5 acres already down and had a probmlem with the WD. Just unhooked the rack and finshed with the C(20 hp).It worked Ok but wouldn"t want to do n a regular basis. Holding the Baler back is not a problem on flat ground.