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Aside from loving my wife more than our equipment we have the whole menagerie of haying implements around here. What I don�t see mentioned is field conditions. We have some hilly well drained ground. We�ve some low water holding fields (might have made rice paddies) that just never quite dry out enough. And of course some fields that drain, lay or slope just right, haying is a delight, with weather�s cooperation of course. Have found semi-wet condition�s easier to deal with when I have a dry place to turn the hay too for a wee bit more drying spell for same day bailing. For this I�ll use a coveted old AC pto driven hay rake (two speed forward plus a tedder reverse) behind a fast idling WD45 in third gear using the very left end, just outside the left driver, to just up that windrow onto the drier ground between those same soggy under-sided windrows. Those fields well drained have used the inverter with good success to bring the wet bottom side up to dry. Exceptionally easy on alfalfa hay leaves. The preferred implement of choice for all second and third cutting alfalfa. Haven�t had much luck with the tedder feature on that old AC hay rake. Just as soon use either the previously mentioned implements as described. Almost last, when its only grass, we�ve a sorryly worn out five beater IH hay rake I�m a-feared to take apart, so I just keep pouring the lube in the gear-box as needed. Now, lastly our covering 600 acres, we use a hay-conditioner windrowing almost every thing. Las time I broadcast the cutting was six and seven years ago when I would have sworn we were harvesting kelp. Between WD45 and a 951Ford raking fuel most likely comes to less than forty gallons gas. So, there's my slants on raking hay.
Fernan
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