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Bill, I am attaching a post I made about this time last year. Both rakes have advantages and both have drawbacks. I own both and use both and I will give you my opinions. It depends alot on what kind of hay you are cutting and what market you are baling for. First the wheel rakes. Wheel rakes will rake anything that is on the ground. If you are raking grass hay for cows that is a good thing. If you are raking Alfalfa for horse quality hay for sale that is a bad thing. It gathers alot of trash and old dead growth that makes the hay look bad and puts old decomposed stems and other trash in the hay risking appearance and quality. If you are raking a slick hay like straw that has been mowed with a sicklebar, the wheel rakes have a propensity to comb the crop instead of raking and that gets very frustrating as you will leave alot of hay on the ground. The wheel rakes will not rake a tight windrow and if the crop is thick it will "boil" and leave more large clumps than a Rolabar will. If you rake alfalfa with the dew on to save leaf loss it will scratch dirt and it will stick to the crop and make it dirty and dusty once baled. If you are raking grass hay in the middle of the day then the dirt is not an issue. If you are baling for personal use for cows then the old plant material will not matter as much as for horses. Now for Rolabars. My perspective will be based on a NH Rolabar rake. Rolabars are not created equal. The NH rakes are heavier and do better at raking heavy crops but they are more expensive. A comparable V wheel rake capable of raking 20 ft will cost around $3000-$4000 new and $2000 used. The single Rolabar from NH will cost $4000 for 8 Ft. and a dual hitch setup will cost $10000 new. The Rolabar will build a fluffy windrow or roll a rope depending on how it is set up. They rake above the ground and do not engage dirt in the raking process. Now if the hay has taken a rain or is flat on the ground it will leave more hay in the field than the wheel rake. It works great taking a swath from the MoCo and flipping it for better drying but not as well as a tedder but that is another discussion. Using a V-Rake to do that is next to impossible but a single 4 or 5 wheel rake will do it. Me and the gentleman that I do hay with are looking at switching over to Rolabars for his straw operation (15000 - 20000 bales a year) because the rolabars work better in thick heavy straw. For my Alfalfa I will use the Rolabar exclusively because it is for sale to a very finicky customer set that does not like to see any of the winter frozen stems in the bales of hay they are buying and if they see dust when they open a bale of alfalfa they will bring the hay back and there is no convincing them that the dust was dirt because that is not a good thing either. When I want to clean a field good after baling the first cutting the wheel rake comes out and is used because it leaves nothing. If I have to own only one then it will be the rolabar but if you are baling grass hay for your own cows then the wheel rake will do you fine for less money. Remember the NH Rolabar (the Gold standard Caddie of rakes) has not changed designs since the mid 50's and they still hold a significant market share. A 40+ year old rake that will bring more at auction than a new 4 wheel rake sells for new must have something going for it. Sorry about the long post but these are the observations I have made and you asked for information
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