Small square balers

In recent days there have been some posts about baling with small square balers. I know that JD and New Holland still make small square balers. Does any other companies still make small square balers?
Also, does any one know when Oliver, IH, Case, CaseIH, Allis, MF, Ford, MM stopped building small square balers? Any information would be appreciated.

AGCO builds a lot of in-line small square balers at their plant in Hesston, KS. Freeman also still produces small sq. balers but I'm not sure how many.

Case IH and New Holland are the same. Maschio an Italian manufacturer is making them too.

The late 60s early 70s brought the end of full line equipment manufacturing for companies like Case, Oliver ,AC, Ford and I think MF might have hung on till late 70s early 80s. IH branded balers built by New Idea after they quit building their own. I think eventually NI vanished into the AGCO umbrella, along with Heston.

CaseIH is still in the game, bring check or credit card!
CaseIH SB541

The Hesston inline design is what AGCO is now calling a Massey Ferguson. It has been branded by AGCO in the past as a New Idea and a Challenger (do they still offer that? I haven't kept up.) It also appeared as a CaseIH before the Case-New Holland merger. Current CaseIH balers are New Hollands. JI Case quit in 1970?. Allis-Chalmers quit in 1975. Massey Ferguson sold a baler into the 90s before AGCO took them over . . . the last ones were built by Gehl, who also tried selling them under their own name. Ford had a baler built for them (by New Idea?) until the early 80s. 1986 they took over New Holland and of course kept that design. Oliver and MM balers were clones of one another during White ownership. White dropped hay and forage in 1975. Hesston acquired the Oliver 720 side pull baler and built it for a few years before going to the inlines.

AFAIK,JD,AGCO,CIH(Fiat) are the only mfgrs of small square bakers in North America.

The Cih balwrs shown appear to be NewHolland in CIH'clothes'.My older (92) CIH 8530 is acctually an AGCO(Hesston)4570inline.

(quoted from post at 10:37:43 10/07/21) Massey Ferguson sold a baler into the 90s before AGCO took them over . . . the last ones were built by Gehl, who also tried selling them under their own name.

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Are you sure MF didn't build them For Gehl? I have 2 Gehls here and they have "made in Canada" serial number tags on them. I don't think Gehl had facilities in Canada.

Were the New Ideas made by IH? I know NI sold IH forage harvesters and mower conditioners and IH sold NI round balers. Tom

What brand were those high capacity balers used out west that have their own engine and were often pulled in the fields by pickup trucks? Are they still made?

(quoted from post at 09:59:37 10/07/21) The Cih balwrs shown appear to be NewHolland in CIH'clothes'.My older (92) CIH 8530 is acctually an AGCO(Hesston)4570inline.

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Yup, IH has a sordid history with balers.

IH built their own balers up until the early 1980's.

Toward the end of IH, they made an agreement with New Idea, and I'm not sure if they made balers for New Idea or if New Idea made balers for IH, but they were the same (425, 435, 445 models).

CaseIH sold the New Idea balers until 1987. We had one of the very last 435's made, with Case International logos.

From around 1987 until the New Holland merger, they sold Hesston inline balers painted CaseIH red.

After the contract with Hesston ran out the CaseIH balers were made by New Holland.

It was the Hesston case ih contract that stopped the Hesston
case ih relationship it was the anti trust laws cnh fiat couldnt
sell the Hesston baler Thats also why they dropped the
McCormick tractor line and you could buy a McCormick again
because fiat had to drop it and they also had to drop the
genisis line and thats when versatile picked that up and thats
how you could buy a versatile row crop tractor

Photos below of our tractor club baling barley straw last week, we had about 50 acres of grain and most of it was combined and almost 1000 bales which we sell. We put about two acres through the binder and the sheaves will be used next summer in our threshing bee at our annual pull.

Freeman and Hesston and new holland had big engine driven balers in modern times . That way you could bale with a smaller tractor or truck

It could be. One source I remember said MF owned the tooling and Gehl built it for them, but then it wouldn't say made in Canada . . .

I have a CaseIH 8520 inline. I bought it used over 20 years ago. Still works great. Not sure what years they were made.

Buhler bought the versatile and genesis lines.

Freeman

where is this club??

Thank you.

Thanks.

Yip and now the Russians own the whole mess

THE most important thing is the raking of the hay you just do not need huge windrows keep them small so you do not have a bale with 8 slices smaller the slice the better the bale

CaseIH had more than just a contract with
AGCO for hay tools - they owned half of
the Hesston, KS facility and were actually
the managing partner in the joint venture,
Hay & Forage Industries. This JV was
first set up between CaseIH and Fiat when
they owned Hesston prior to AGCO being
formed.

Hi Rusty ..... I read your posts all the time and enjoy them. Our club's website link is below, we're just east of Edmonton a few miles in Strathcona County and are finishing up our 16th year of operation. We operate out of the old historic Bremner farmsite (some info there under the history menu item) and also lease 50 acres of land a few miles east of there. Lots of fun ....
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Thanks for the info.

Oliver sold their hay baler line to Hesston. The Oliver 720 became the first Hesston square baler, the 4500.

I would be interested in seeing more pics of your stooker.

Hi Willy ..... any photos I have would just be distance photos, sounds like you might want something closer up with some more detail, maybe some measurements too. Perhaps you are thinking of building one yourself? If you email me ..... [email protected] ...... than I'll have your email too and this week I will go out and take some close up photos and measurements. IF that's what you want. Then I can email them to you directly. Sound good?

Here's one for sale in this area in the link below, not that it'll do you much good. This is much like the ones we have, ten square bales. Four on the bottom row, then 3, then 2, then one on top. Ours drags and does not have wheels. Once the ten bales are in place, you trip the back of the platform and it tilts, the bottom 4 of the ten bales grip the ground and stay behind and stacked intact. Then we have a stook loader frame to pick them up and store them in a long row, we use a skid steer while some use a loader for the moving (but somewhat slower). This seller in this ad says his tilt platform is stuck, looks like he uses a hand lever to trip the platform, ours uses a foot pedal. The handrail is a good safety feature for guys that are over 75 .... ha! Just the edges of the four bottom bales touche the ground, plus the spaces at the bottom allow the loader frame to slip under easily. Oops, one binder photo snuck in there.









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Sounds good. I once missed a chance at a 6 bale one at a consignment auction. It caught me by surprise. At one time i pulled a small trailer behind the baler, stopped, then stacked them.

I took some photos Willy, we have two of these sleds. Both are built on what you might call sled runners or skids. They both work the same way. Once the ten bales are in place and stacked on the back trailing forks, the operator trips a pedal and the bales (with their heavy weight) tip the forks and bales backwards. The bottom edge of the four bottom bales of the stook grab the ground, the sled keeps moving forward, the stook settles and is left behind upright (hopefully). The forks return back to level and it starts all over again. Although similar, both designs are a bit different.

In the first photo below, this design has the operator platform sort of 'separate' from the back forks (which are hinged). The operator platform stays level at all times (never tilts) and when the operator trips the trigger pedal (you can see it behind where he stands), just the back half of the sled (with the 10 bales) tips backwards. The back edge of the bottom 4 bales grab the ground, the sled keeps moving forward and the entire stook is left behind and it settles upright. A heavy spring returns the back forks back level and the back forks lock into place (foot off the pedal) and the stacking starts again.

In the second photo below, it works in a very similar manner BUT the whole operator platform and rear forks are one solid unit (not separate parts like the first design). When the forks are full with ten bales, the operator grabs the safety rail and steps on a pedal (which is positioned in front of him) which causes the whole thing to tilt (operators platform with operator, plus the rear forks and stooks. After the stook leaves the sled and stays behind, the weight of the operator brings the whole platform & forks back level and it locks in place (operator's foot off the pedal of course).

You'll notice that the back forks on both have 8 pipes, the two designs have a bit different spacing positioning between the pipes but they work exactly the same, four bales on the first row of bales at the bottom, each sitting on an angle

I've got some more photos here but those I could email to you. If you email me at .... [email protected] ..... I can send some more photos back in a reply with some more comments. I also have some basic measurements.

The THIRD photo is a loader frame which attaches to a loader on a tractor or skid steer. It picks up all ten bales at once to move them for storage or to stack them on a flatdeck trailer for transport, etc.