The best way to cut downed hay

Anything with a sickle can not mow in adverse conditions with a drum mower, disc mower or flail mower. Sicklebar and or haybines have their place for in alfalfa but still do not have near the capacity of drum mowers, disc mowers & discbines.

Bill

With haybines, if you are lucky? enough to have it all lodged the same way come in against the direction the wind layed it over.

Yep, It's time consuming.

1. Slow down
2. pitch the cutter bar angle sharply forward
3. SLOW DOWN, SLOW WAY DOWN. 4. Use NEW sharp blades (I change blades every other day)in timothy (about every 50 acres)
5. They make a suction blade but I havent needed them
6. Oh, and slow down :-)
I cut 10 acres of timothy that June 20 of 2003 which had had 50 mph straight line winds with 2" of rain, cut in 3rd gear on a 7610 Ford with an 8 speed. Cut it clean as a whistle. A boy that was helping me cut 6 more acres in another field the next day, he cut in 6th gear with the same tractor and same cutter bar angle. He left about 1/2 the hay in the field. I told him to slow down but he thought he knew more about it than I did. He still works for me and Im still chewing is a-- about it.