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Bales per hour/day??

C

Casey in Ky

Member
Realistically, whats the most hay(small squares) any of you guys have did in a day. 1 tractor, 1 hay rake(New Holland 256), and I"m probably going to borrow a New Holland 570 this weekend. I know there"s a lot of variables, especially baler capacity, but I"ve got a feeling I"m gonna find out whats humanly possible this Saturday. I hoping to be able to rake the day before, only way I"ll make it work I guess.
 
different balers, different types of hay, it all makes a difference, but for my 69 new holland super liner, D-14 allis to pull it, it figures out something like this. 18 strokes to make a bale, 18 times 3 is 54, thats 3 and a part bale per minute. times 60, thats 180 bales an hour. Now thats now having to stop for nothing, nice long windrows, and not dallying around at the ends. your total figure may be different.
 
I know a man who baled and put up 300 alfalfa bales in one day by himself last week. He raked the day before. I think he used a NH268 baler.
 
Stacking on a wagon behind the baler I know we did about 1,200 a few times,but I bet others can beat that.Most of the time 800-1,000 a day is a good enough work out for me.
 
My uncle used to do a lot of custom baling with a 4010 Deere and an IH 46 baler with a thrower. I remeber one night at the supper table when he was baling here at our place,he said he was pushing out 6 bales a minute.
 
weve done over 1200 and we rake the hay at about 12 and start baling at 2. We use a NH268 baler and a 56 NH rake. And we stack the loads and also unload them. But thats with 2-3 ppl. To get an accurate response we need to know all the variables..
 
Casey,

30 years ago when I began baling with a IH 300U pulling a JD 14T and my son stacking bales on the pulled wagon, we thought 500 to 600 per day was a really good day.

Now we have 2 balers JD 327 and 328 w/throwers and 10 catch wagons, and hit our highest one day production 3 weeks ago at 2046 bales. That included a couple of minor breakdowns, one wagon having to go to the tire shop, shuttling wagons to the customer's barn, and an hour or so off in the afternoon 'cause I'm getting too fricken old to keep up the pace continuously. Our total for the day was 17 wagon loads. My son was running one baler, shuttling some wagons, and managing the unloading crew. I baled 10 loads (about 1250 bales), took the one wagon to the tire shop, and delivered 6 loads (and took an hour off). It was 94 degrees in the shade. The crew unloaded 12 wagons that day, and we got the other 5 unloaded the next morning. The following day my body did not want to move!

We try for 25,000 bales for the season. The JD balers have been good for us, the 328 being a faster baler than the 327. I prefer to bale with our Ford TW 10 with A/C, usually in 4th gear dual power in low range.

Good luck this weekend!

Paul in MN
 
The guys around here are Pro's. I live on a place that puts up about 13,000 ton of hay a year. Mostly alfalfa. They run 6 Hesston inline 4690's. One night last summer the conditions were just right, and they were able to bale almost all night. Ran somewhere North of 2000 bales through each machine. That's alot of hay.

I was running an old freeman 1592 3x4 big square baler last year. Was putting up sumewhere around 300 bales a night in the right conditions. The bales in the picture are about 1100# each, grain hay...

Ben
a17285.jpg
 
I agree with DBAF. Back in the day when we had the neighborhood baling ring about we did 800-1200 bales a day. Here in Northwest Iowa we often had heavy nighttime dews and couldn't get going till sometimes 2:00 in the afternoon. We baled five days straight around the neighborhood for each cutting using a Deere 24T with a crew ranging in age from early 20's (me) to upper 70's (two tough old bachelors). A younger stronger crew probably could have done 1500 bales if they could get going earlier in the day. Jim
 
Thanks for the memories!

Back in the mid 70's, we could put up between 1000 to 2000 bales in one day - with help and not too far away! Course it was kinda like clockwork - breakdowns not counted!

1) Hay Mocoed and raked in the "dry" morning.

2) Baler and rack man changed every load.

3) Prolly 4 guys in the haymow and 2 hauling in who rotated with the guys in the mow.

Still remember we'd stop about 3 PM +/- to have a sandwich, iced tea and a cookie.

Boy, I'm worn out now - BUT - those's were the days! Pretty sure I couldn't keep up now.

Jim
 
I have a NH276 baler and ten 24 foot flat bed wagons. My son and two of his friends load the wagons behind the baler. Each one holds two hundred and fifty bales. We load them in the afternoons and unload them the next morning.
My Uncle and father mow and rake the hay ahead of us. We usually bale about twenty five thousand bales a year.
 
The biggest day I remember was years and years ago. I went to help a friend, Brad, and he had lots of hay down and lots of help. IH 440 baler behind a 656 gas. I was constantly calling for more twine. we put up something like 2400 between 10 AM and dark counting the down-time when I pulled the tongue out of the baler. On my own place I had a brand new 435 baler behind a 2950 John Deere on big windrows I was chucking out a bale every 6 plunger strokes. Now that is filling a wagon! One thing about IH balers, The harder you push them , the better they tie. I borrowed an almost new Deere baler one time. As soon as I tried to hurry it it would go to missing. The fist baler dad had was a 68 New Holland and it would eat hay. The next baler we got was a 268 and it wasn't worth a darn if there was a rain cloud coming. It just would not stand to be pushed. later dad had a 289 and that was a high capacity machine. Now I put up all my hay in large rounds. It takes 45 seconds to wrap a bale with twine and I have been in windrows big enough that I was stopped more time than I was rolling. You can put up a lot of hay in a day that way.
 
I could never get away with raking the night before, too much moisture in the air and in the ground. I have to wait until around 9:30. Then rake for four hours, then onto the baler and bale for four hours. I am a one man operation, The most I have done in a day is about 550 small squares.
 
We've put as much as 400 per hour through our Ford 532 but those were also lighter bales. 200 is fairly typical. I think 3000 was the biggest day we ever had; again with those lighter bales. 1000-1500 fairy typical when I get going at it. Don't always pick them all up the same day tho. Depends on the help situation. But... if you have to rake and bale all that alone and even with some help picking them up, 500 may be a pretty good day.

Rod
 
At the very best the 24T we used put out four 85 bale loads per hour on 16' racks and I only remember it happening a couple of times over the 20 years or so that we baled. It was just a couple of fluke times where the windrows were big, smooth and perfectly matched to the tractor speed in the particular gear it was in. The bales were in the 60 pound range but when the baler was pushed the bales started varying in length. The neighbor who owned the baler and I were always stacking the rack and we knew each other's moves so we could be pretty efficient. He was 30 years older than me but he had more stamina. I can say that now but was I too proud to admit it then. All of you guys who did this job when you were young learned how to keep going even though you were hot, dirty, thirsty and tired. Sure does teach good work ethic doesn't it?Jim
 

Back in the '50s and '60s the Folks custom baled all over around here with a JD 116W Wire-tie.
Was not uncommon for Mom to punch out 1,000 80 lb bales per day..
That was with her changing the coils and everything..
52 plunger strokes per minute and Dad would keep it tieing bales to a tune of about every 5 to 6 strokes..
Sure made that WD-45 snort sometimes..!
When we sold that baler, it had an estimated 7.5 Million bales thru it and I Greased it for the new owner before I backed it on his trailer..!
Ron
 
Worked for some great people back in the late 70's early 80's Besides a 35 cow herd,40 sows farrow to finish and 25 beef cows,we helped Johns father in law with his hay after we finished our own. One year stands out...we had finally retired the 68 NH (yes it would eat hay) and had purchased the 273 with the thrower. Ed(bosses FIL)had a massey 224.The NH would match its out put bale for bale.....We had put up a good bit of hay with both machines running steady for about 4 or 5 days ..started morning chores on day 5 or 6 when the boss tells me he had figured we were putting up an aversge of 2500 bales a day. For some reason the next couple of days we needed to finish seemed a lot tougher than the first days had. I think wehad a crew of 5-6 people
 
ABOUT 350 idiot cubes A DAY IS ALL I WANT TO MESS WITH ...20 years ago , NH 268 ran 1400 bales of clover thru in one day that ended at 10;30 pm ,, for serveral years THEN ,we had a corner of the straw market ,AND WHEAT PRICE WAS TOLERABLE , one year made about 3500 bales of wheat straw in 3 days , EVERYTHING AND EVERYONE WORKED VERY WELL , loaded 4 semis trailers and the rest we stacked in the corner of a 40 acre field for serveral weeks , sold them for 1.25 per bale ,AND NO ONE MESSED WITH IT!...
 
Wish I had kept track of number of bales per day- My brother and I had a custom hay operation for a number of years - we had two self propelled balers New Holland, NH Bale wagon, jd 16ft swather and a truck with bale mover on it. We had contracted to do 1500 acres of irrigated hay for a Feedyard in SW Kansas - plus dad's 200 acres and about another400 acres on the side. Then in the fall we did a fair amout of feed.
One year we bought 1000 boxes of twine off a train car - and had to buy more twine at a higher price later.
Kept my brother and I an 3 of his kids busy - with one hired man. Things got real busy when the kids had to go to school.
Not sure I could do it today!!!!
 
I remember dad and I took turns to keep the tractor going through lunch etc. We put out over a thousand bales one day. That was making the long 36 inch bales with a IHC 45 balor powered by a 1941 Farmall B.
 
1650, give or take 2-3, in a day with 1 tractor and baler, I raked it the evening before so that wont completely translate to doing both operations in the same day.
 
The simple answer would be 200 to 250 bales per hour x number of hours . So in 8 hours you should get 1600 to 2000 bales a day. I use a 4000Y with a IH 440 baler.Once you have done that, get some teenagers to load/shift/stack the hay in your barn.
 
I started piling bales on a wagon when I was about 13 and my younger sister got big enough to drive the tractor. We would go to the field alone when dad was milking after supper. The worst time I remember (I was a grown man) baling a heavy windrow on a hot humid day and coming around the back side of the field against the trees, not a breath of wind and the bales were coming just as fast as I could set one down and turn around. I thought I 'd die and fall off the wagon but I didn't.
 
Too many different options,baby bales(40-50lbs)or good solid bales(80-90lbs.)Bales numbers might be close but hay amount or tonnage will be much different at the end of day.Yes there are people still baling wire bales.
 
A lot of it depends on what you want to call a day. For some people 8 hours of seat time is a big day, for others 16-18 hours isn't out of the question.
 
You people are some hard workers...

I salute the man that does 550 by himself in one day. I don't think I could do that...

500 a day is a big day for us (several people). I do remember in one week we did 2000. When I say done I mean raked, baled, wagoned, and then neatly stacked in barn.

Our bales are around 40 pounds.

We have used NH 68, IH 440, and a NH 273 all pulled behind gas tractors.
 
A few years back I had a John Deere 336 square baler and 1 haybasket that held 100 bales. Me, my wife and 2 son inlaws put 1500 bales in the barn one sunday afternoon from 12:30 until 7:30 and never onhooked the wagon from the baler. The first few loads the conveyor was never shut off. I had it easy, I did the baling.
 

300/day is good for me working alone.

I start raking with a WD-45 and a JD 662 about 9am or whenever the dew starts burning off. Have some lunch, and the hay is usually dry enough to start baling around 1pm. I bale with a hay basket behind a JD 24T. I usually stop at around 75 bales because some bales start to get deformed. I use a hay/grain elevator that's stuck into the barn far enough that there's room for all 75 bales under it. By the time I get the 4th load stacked, it's about 9pm and I'm pretty hungry and exhausted.
 
Dad has a dual-rake hitch. He can get 600 bales on wagons in a day by himself. He could do more but he runs out of wagons.

One guy, having to rake, bale, unload, and stack... You'll be dying after 200 bales.

Whether you can rake the day before or not depends on how much dew you get.

How much ground you can cover will depend on the speed of the tractor, and whether your rake will work at high speeds. Some rakes just thrash the leaves off the hay and miss half of it unless you only go 4MPH.
 
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