Baler Video

Bill VA · Dec 19, 2018

This is a series of videos we took baling hay in 2018. First year with the #42 Ejector (pan kicker), so a few bales went over the sides and back... 2018 was a most difficult haying season with all the rain we had and in the video you will see ragged cut grass that was from lodging. We used a John Deere 5055d tractor, JD 348 baler and JD 42 pan kicker - or ejector as Deere calls it. The hay is timothy.

I appreciate everyone's advice over the years and wish all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Bill
Baling Hay...

JMOR · Dec 19, 2018

(quoted from post at 03:18:11 12/19/18) This is a series of videos we took baling hay in 2018. First year with the #42 Ejector (pan kicker), so a few bales went over the sides and back... 2018 was a most difficult haying season with all the rain we had and in the video you will see ragged cut grass that was from lodging. We used a John Deere 5055d tractor, JD 348 baler and JD 42 pan kicker - or ejector as Deere calls it. The hay is timothy.

I appreciate everyone's advice over the years and wish all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Bill
Baling Hay...

lick!

caterpillar guy · Dec 19, 2018

So do you adjust the kicker with each bale to get them to throw to different parts of the load as you go?

Bruce from Can. · Dec 19, 2018

I always enjoyed filling the wagons, not so much unloading them. Your rig looks mighty slick !
If I could offer one word of advice that will make your wagons last longer., they look like new, and I am sure they are still nice and tight. As time goes by, the constant wobbling going across fields, combine with the weight of the hay leaning on the sides of the rack will make the racks loose and wobbly, and the tops will spread wide under the weight of the load. This happens to all wooden bale thrower wagons with time.What I did to strengthen my wagons was make some simple right angle triangle braces, six feet up the side, and two feet out on to the wagon floor and bolted in place. These style of braces don?t interfere with the bales as the fill the wagon the way stretching a chain across the wagon to keep it from spreading will do. My wagons unloaded from the side, so I put one brace each side of the opening, and one each side at the front. I used the wagons for over 20 years, and sold them, and they are still go out every season. I sure like your bale thrower, if I was doing it again, I?d have one like you have.

Gary(VA) · Dec 19, 2018

Looks good Bill. Nice full windrows. Where in VA are you located? I'm just north of Roanoke.

Philip d · Dec 19, 2018

What a nice setup! I like that bale kicker too,we used to have a MF 124 with the dual belt thrower,seemed every load had at least 2 bales a string broke while being ejected and the flakes would fling everywhere lol.

Part Time Pete · Dec 19, 2018

Nice outfit Bill...I've always used NH baler with the belt throwers. They work well but I think the ejector style is gentler on the bale - it basically throws it up in the air and you drive under it
Cat guy - the kicker tilts to change the direction of the bale
Pete

Charlie M · Dec 19, 2018

Anybody I ever knew that knew bale throwers liked the JD pan thrower.

showcrop · Dec 19, 2018

You are getting some good full loads there. I know how tricky it can be to get it rounded up over the sides without them skipping over and off the back. I hand stack 15 bales in the front because the thrower can never get many there.

JD Farmer · Dec 19, 2018

Thanks for sharing that, Bill. I learned something from your video. My NH BC5060 is a pos compared to that Deere baler. Mine would NOT have made that consistent of bale size as yours does. I have to be very careful to not over feed it or my bales will get long and pushed to hard the sisal twine won't hold. Using 9000 as the 7200 seems to be too big a lumps in it at times.
The only thing I don't like is the back end of your baler seems to be awful close to the ground. I would have issues with that in most of my fields. Not to mention the steep ground I have to run on.

Bill VA · Dec 19, 2018

?So do you adjust the kicker with each bale to get them to throw to different parts of the load as you go??

No we find a spot and let the baler fill it. I can control distance and tilt the kicker to slice the bale like a golf ball into the wagon. If you look at some of the turns, you will see the kicker tilted from one side or another.

Bill VA · Dec 19, 2018

?I hand stack 15 bales in the front because the thrower can never get many there.?

I?m sort of studying the trajectory of the bale off the kicker. We roped off the front higher as we went along. The pan kicker will drop a bale right in front
of the wagon or pretty close such that it rolls/tumbles to the front. I?m going to take the front as high as the kick throw arch will go to maximize the load.
The ability to control the bale location is pretty amazing. It is such a gentle drop into the wagon, you can really pack the wagon with bales. Hardest part
is seeing after the wagon is full - laying more bales on top towards the back.

Bill VA · Dec 19, 2018

I have switched to 9600/210 plastic twine. Almost half the cost of sisal; we no longer have broken bales. I went from 9000 to 7200 sisal and the twine quality was terrible. Really like the plastic. In the video, you will see a couple bales explode apart off the kicker. That wasn?t broken string, but one side of the twine bale emptied.

JD Farmer · Dec 19, 2018

Yes I noticed the bales in the video, guessed you had a problem right there. I tried the plastic, couldn't buy local the stuff I wanted, so went back to the sisal. And since I feed some of the small squares to my freezer beef, I don't like the little short cut off pieces all over the place. If I was selling it all wouldn't matter to me.

LSaunders · Dec 19, 2018

JD Farmer- Your comment on the back end being low set is accurate. The only thing I ever liked on the NH baler was the higher wagon hitch. I've been running JD balers for almost 50 years, first a 336, and my current 346. On each of them the wagon tow bar broke and was rewelded 3 or 4 times, being beefed up each time. Eventually they end up being almost indestructible. So far. Knock on wood. They do tend to drag at sharp changes of incline. The killer for them was crossing a narrow gully with steep sides. Sometimes that tow bar would take weight off the left baler tire. I don't know if they have beefed up that hitch on the newer balers. The old ones, for most of their length, were a U-shaped piece of steel. By the time I got done with them, they were tubular, and weighed about twice as much from the reinforcement. If anyone has all flat meadows, there's no issue with the hitch.

LSaunders · Dec 19, 2018

Ditto. I got sick of having broken bale problems, and the baler guy would only say, "It's the twine, you've got bad twine." I switched to plastic and life got a LOT better.

MSS3020 · Dec 19, 2018

Bill, NICE!!!! love air those bales get..

If you go to youtube and type in Img_0474.mov you will see my operation.. sorry dont know how to get a clik on yet..

Scott

Hay hay hay · Dec 19, 2018

Very nice video, thanks for sharing. You have really upgraded your equipment since you started posting on YT mag a few years ago. Everyone of us that makes horse Hay Uses a little different system. Kickers on balers And kicker wagons Are very rare in my area. I have never seen one on a baler that went through an auction, And I have seen hundreds of baler's auctioned off. Do you hand stack out of the wagon, Or do you leave it in the wagon and sell directly? Also I have never seen a kicker on a baler or a kicker wagon On Local Craigslist. It is very interesting how much Farming practices And brands Are regionalized.

What kind of a Hay storage shed did you end up building?

Hay hay hay · Dec 19, 2018

Also, I see you have a hay preservative sprayer on your baler. How often do you use it? Why? Does it damage the baler (corrosion)?
Your assessment would be interesting. Thanks

Bill VA · Dec 19, 2018

"Do you hand stack out of the wagon, Or do you leave it in the wagon and sell directly?"

Yes - we hand stack off the wagon.

"Also I have never seen a kicker on a baler or a kicker wagon On Local Craigslist. It is very interesting how much Farming practices And brands Are regionalized."

I'm pretty sure I'm the only one with a kicker wagon in my neck of the woods.

"What kind of a Hay storage shed did you end up building?"

The guy who was going to build for us backed out at the last minute last Spring and we used our old barn and some dome shelters we have. Probably going to put up a couple of 30'x41' certified carports in 2019.

Bill VA · Dec 19, 2018

"I see you have a hay preservative sprayer on your baler. How often do you use it? Why? Does it damage the baler (corrosion)?"

Yes - we use buffered propionic acid as a hay preservative. It is rare that we use it as it adds to our cost for making a bale of hay. The acid is buffered to a PH near water and has not rusted our baler in any way that I can tell. We use it if rain threatens our hay, if we encounter higher humidity (we have a baler mounted moisture meter) such as in a shady area on the edge of our fields along a tree line, if we are pushing to the end of the day and dew is coming-on and increasing the moisture in our bales. We have clipped our fields in the fall and with the shorter days and cold/heavy dew nights, struggled to get our hay down below 18% moisture, we will use it. The stuff works great, but once you start baling 18% moisture and higher, the bales get really heavy and so between that and the cost - we try not to use it unless absolutely necessary. If you look at our youtube channel, I've got a video describing the acid applicator in detail.

BTW - some customers (horse) won't buy treated hay. They also won't buy washed/bleached and/or dusty hay. We will always use preservative to maintain quality hay as these customers aren't buying regardless. If we maintain the hay quality, there is always another customer and that quality keeps the price up.

Northvale PA · Dec 20, 2018

Bill, here is a photo of my wagon configuration. Without sounding like an advertisement, this is a Gap Hill Farm, PA wagon rack, mounted on JD gears. The end gate is 2? wide. The horizontal drop in bar is about 2? above that and we tie a rope about 18? above that. The kicker will arc the bales just over the rope and bales never come out thru the gap. I can put 150 bales on a 16?, easy. A little arranging up there and 15 more bales can get on till I reach the end of a row. For yours I would use 2 ropes. 3/4? nylon. These are 25 years old now.

Bill VA · Dec 20, 2018

Thanks for the pic. That baler looks to be in good shape.

Great idea on the ropes. One thing I've thought about is using eye bolts to hold the rope to the frame such that a knot is not involved when untying the rope when unloading the wagon. Simply unbolt the eye bolt from the front or side openings and it doesn't matter how tight the rope is (with the weight of the bales on them), once the nut is off the eye bolt, it would simply pull out of the frame releasing the rope across the opening.

Thanks again,
Bill

Bill VA · Dec 20, 2018

The biggest thing we found when using plastic twine - from a non-broken bale stand point was simply down time improvement. If the sisal breaks and you have to re-thread the knotter, we were not putting bales out. My John Deere 348 with it's 93 stroke per minute cycle can spit out 5 or 6 bales a minute if you are in a good stretch and have the right windrow. 10 minutes can be 50 or 60 bales. Multiply that times several twine breaks in an afternoon and you've lost a lot of productivity - especially if dark/dew or rain is coming.

Northvale PA · Dec 20, 2018

i have 2 JD 336 balers which stay outside. I have rubber roofing tarps that cover them.

Northvale PA · Dec 20, 2018

i have 2 JD 336 balers which stay outside. I have rubber roofing tarps that cover them. Here is a photo of the same baler about a week earlier when the axle cracked. I just pulled the axle off baler number 2 and had this one running around an hour later.

Baler Video

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