Finally Finished 1st Cutting Hay

Destroked 450 · Jul 7, 2018

Rolled up the last 20 acres of 1st cutting hay today
Made 135 4x5 bales

Today I timed my 2012 NH BR7070, it took 16 seconds to put 13 wraps of twin on the bale, 10 seconds to open the gate, dump the bale and close the gate.
I played around with the 4 different gears I bale in, the hay averaged 6.75 bales per acre.
In the slowest gear I use for rough ground it took 1 1/2 minutes to fill the bale chamber, in the fastest gear I use it only took 45 seconds
Over all today I was making a bale every minute 15 to minute 25 seconds

Monday we'll mow 2nd cutting hay

Philip d · Jul 7, 2018

That's a great cut of hay!

VicS · Jul 7, 2018

Sounds fast to put string on. We have a 4x5
Gehl. It has a electric arm with two
strings. With moderate string takes almost
as long to tie as to make the bale.
Yesterday was really hot here. SE Il. Baled
and put up just 260 sm sq. My 11 year old
grandson and I. Will take all day to
recover.

morgan in ar · Jul 7, 2018

Wish I had some second cut coming.....it's getting
pretty crispy here.

David G · Jul 7, 2018

What size were bales, 6.75 per acre on 1800 pound bales would be a crop.

Bruce from Can. · Jul 8, 2018

I still have something like 75 acres of first cut hay
yet to cut. I don?t need any of it, and will try to sell it
all to beef cow/ calf farmers. I make the bales
48?x50? , that way everyone can handle them. If I
make bales 4x5 some can?t feed them because their
tractor is too small, or the wagon isn?t built big
enough., everyone has a sob story, lol.
My baler doesn?t have a string option, net only.
And it comes on automatically. Monitor sounds a
warning for me to stop, them by the time I get
stopped, it is wrapping the bale, takes around 3
seconds. Total time to stop wrap, eject, close
chamber and continue forward motion 12-15
seconds. The first baler I had from the time I
stopped, put on the string, ejected the bale closed
the hatch and started forward again, 2 minuets. And
compared to small square bales, it was lightning
fast.

Tx Jim · Jul 8, 2018

(quoted from post at 22:56:53 07/07/18) What size were bales, 6.75 per acre on 1800 pound bales would be a crop.

I'll bet 800-900#s for OP's rd bales is closer than 1800#s but 6.75(4x5) bales per acre is still a lot better than what hay will average where I live.

Destroked 450 · Jul 8, 2018

David G, Tx Jim is right, bales are 4x5, my fescue, orchard grass, white clover mix makes 750-850 lb bales with the pressure setting I have on the baler.
I can roll them tighter to make up to 1000 lb bales but the cows have trouble eating them unless their unrolled so I leave them a little loose.
I sell very little hay, twine wrapped bales loose enough for the cows to eat works good for our small 70 head beef cow operation.

This field belongs to a neighbor and has a similar grass mix like I have. This is the first time I've traded for this field, it has a few small water ways on one side but overall it's a decent field for our area. We're talking about a long term deal which would work good for me, it's only a couple miles away and has a hay barn that will hold over 350 of my bales, this would put all of my hay in dry storage, no more tarping hay stacks outside.

Destroked 450 · Jul 8, 2018

Bruce this baler has auto wrap, it sounds a signal for me to stop when the twine arms drop and sounds it again once it's finished for me to dump the bale.
My old NH 640 also had auto wrap, I timed it once in a field making 4 bales pre acre, the field was slightly rough so I wasn't in my fastest baling gear and was making a bale in just under 2 1/2 minutes. Thinner hay requires more travel time.
I'm guessing the old baler turned a little slower because putting on the same 13 wraps of twine and dumping the bale took around 10 seconds longer than now, tale gate on this baler may be a little faster, same tractor.

Lots of folk here use net as well, I tried it once but it was one of those winters we had a lot of freezing rain, cutting net off of a frozen bales just wasn't for me, I'd rather spent a little more time wrapping twine and not have to mess with removing net in the winter.

I need to put up a few hundred small squares in the feed barn for weaning calves and some horse hay for a neighbor, plan to do that later this fall when it's cooler.

Finally Finished 1st Cutting Hay

Destroked 450

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Philip d

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VicS

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morgan in ar

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David G

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Bruce from Can.

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Tx Jim

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Destroked 450

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Destroked 450

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