Fourth Hay time today!!!!

A very good neighbor had some fourth crop hay to bale today. He had some tractor trouble last week with his JD 4020 PS, it had the PTO quit shutting off. It needs some internal work as the PS has been acting up for some time. So he is using my JD 4040 tractor today on his JD 327 square baler. His son-in-law is round baling what he is not small squaring.

JD 4040: I am the second owner and it has only 4700 hours. Nice clean open station tractor.



Friend's JD 327 baler and 30 thrower. His Father , one brother and him all bought this baler together new. He now is the only owner. It has baled over 150,000 bales of hay. He has a written record of each year and what type and amount of bales. I have rebuilt the knotters twice and just rebuilt the thrower. The baler is in pretty good condition for the work it has done. I was just fine tuning the thrower and knotters this afternoon.



Here is the windrow of hay. Real nice orchard grass and alfalfa hay. Real fine grass. Great for small calves.



Small square bale. Great quality hay. The hay is bright green but my Phone does not take as good of pictures as my camera. I might slip over and get some better pictures tomorrow.



Good job on the round bales too. Nice tight square even bales. Weight right in at 1890 lbs. of 14% moisture hay. So they are TIGHT!!! LOL



Thought you fellows would like to see some hay making. He is only small square baling his tow thrower racks full. About 250-300 bales. The rest will be round bales.

Great pictures,a good day and you cant beat good neighbors.

Great pics and info JD. Thanks for sharing

Did you compute the GDD left? I wonder if you will make it? Or is this the last year for that stand?

There is plenty of days left for this stand to be ready for winter. Plus his fertility is off the charts as he has enough bedding manure to cover the entire farm every year. This hay field will have manure on it by Thursday when they are calling for rain. His organic matter is tremendous. You should see the worms in his ground. His whole farm is on contour strips and is in a rotation of corn, soybeans, oats and alfalfa. He does a good job.

Those 4040's were some good machines. Sure doesn't have many hours on it. Looks like some good hay also. Thanks for the pics

That's some fine looking hay! Big windrows too! Always like to see the elders still going at it. Hope I can do the same if I live long enough.

Nice pics!

Bill

Nice looking stuff - looks like he has a rotary rake as well - nice fluffy windrows

I hated fluffy widrows, wanted nice tight ones.

Think you will have a hard time getting that tractor back. LOL !

How did you get it to dry?

Enjoyed seeing the photos, looks like really nice green hay. I've noticed that too, its difficult to capture the true color of hay, not sure how a photographer would do it, but you can still tell its a rich green color. Bet that field had a nice aroma to it when cut.

Yea, if we get that tiny rain Thursday morning and the forcast remains good for the rest of the week, I might cut a couple acres of alfalfa. Very
few. I know it is hard on alfalfa this time of year, but it is a sand hill, not great stuff anyhow.

It would be nice to bale just once this year without rain on the hay! All in all a great weather year, corn and beans look great, but man the 1/10
of an inch rain every 2.5 days sure was hard to make dry hay! Barn is full of junk and the round bales outside are 'better than snowballs' quality
from this year......

Nice pics. I have a NH 270 that dad bought with just a few years on it, it's done 2-6,000 bales a year for over half a century. Dad and now I
aren't the best at mainteninece either, if truth be told..... It would deserve a little TLC, rebuilding this winter.

Paul

Nice looking tractor and great pictures.

David: Mowed it last Thursday-Friday and tedded it Saturday morning with the dew on. Then left it be until yesterday morning. As soon as the dew dried off he raked it with my 12 wheel rake. The hay was bone dry when we where baling.