Mystang's Homesteading Circus

[farmerjan]

On the shear bolts. You DO NOT want a "hard bolt". You want it to break if there is too much pressure against it. You obviously saw how the PTO shaft was turning and the flywheel wasn't and found the hole for the bolt. So do not get a hardened bolt....I think you want something like a grade 5 or less. They are cheap insurance AGAINST breaking something serious if the flywheel doesn't stop turning.
If the baler just was picking up random green grass I wouldn't worry too much about it. It is mixed in with your dry hay so shouldn't be a problem. I was mostly referring to clumps of mown hay that didn't cure and was still "green", that would feed into the baler and make the bales "heavy". Believe me, you will learn pretty quick if a bale feels heavy and will know that there is "green" in it. If it does nothing else, it will mold. But they have been known to get hot and can cause a fire if packed into a barn tight.

 

[Baymule]

@farmerjan you are a wealth of information and you are a Blessing to people here on BYH with your generous sharing of your years of experience.

 

[Mini Horses]

If you have ever "picked up in the field" you sure can "feel" that heavy bale! They are all heavy but, the one that is way heavy, you set aside. Those balers will kick out pretty darn close to same weight in a field of similar grass.

I watch the hay I buy grow...my goats sometimes go sample it -- taste testing is important...I watch it cut and baled. These guys have the accumulator, picker upper, that picks it up, lays them out and then flips that entire flat of hay up and repeats. They end with a huge block of hay -- maybe 120 bales ??? -- that all goes to the hay barn. Cool to watch!! One guy, one tractor, wham, bam, up & gone. Fast.

Is that what you are mentioning above, Farmer Jan? The Alfalfa/Orchard I just got is unreal! 90% alf, young, excellent, 2nd cut. Can't wait for Aug baling.

 

[mystang89]

@farmerjan you are a wealth of information and you are a Blessing to people here on BYH with your generous sharing of your years of experience.

Couldn't have said it better.

 

[farmerjan]

@Mini Horses I know what you are talking about. It's a stacker and it will stand up and put the hay in stacks that can be backed into a barn and stood up and that's that. No the "cuber" is something newer.. The square bales some out of the baler on a chute, it feeds into this cuber and it puts like, 21 or 27 or something into an actual "cube" and that cube is wrapped with the baling twine. It can be picked up with a set of forks like on a skid loader. The twine they use is like what is put on the 3x3x4 or 4x6 big bales. Extra thick and heavy. But this cuber actually puts the bales into a "cube" that can be loaded into the back of a pickup with a set of forks and the person buying it doesn't have to worry about stacking hay on the truck or trailer. They are kinda neat...I've seen them on youtube, if you search it you can see them. I have never seen the stackers in person, but have seen video's of them Yeah, they are a one man thing too. Thing is, you have to have the barn area so they can fit in and stand up and stack the hay. A small downside for some operations, especially like us having the use of an older barn that has "haymows" on the sides that a stacker can't get to. Cuber doesn't really work for that either....

 

[farmerjan]

Just in case anyone does go looking for a hay "cuber"..... the machine that bundles square bales into a "cube" is better known as a bundler rather than a cuber. A true cuber actually makes cubes out of hay, like buying cubes to feed animals. The bundlers I am referring to are like the Bale Baron or the Bale Bandit. Because they bundle the hay into a cube, it is often referred to a cuber here but that is not the proper term. There are also several different types of sq bale gatherers, a friend has one to help make sq baling less labor intensive.

 

[Baymule]

Here they call that super cool attachment an accumulator. It accumulates the square bales into groups of 8 in the field. We bought square bales from a guy in 2011 during a drought and he loaded up the flat bed trailer with his accumulator hooks. Awesome to watch him lower that thing, engage the hooks and pick up 8 bales at once. Even more awesome that we didn't have to load and stack the bales on the trailer.

 

[Mini Horses]

Yeah, my guy had an accumulator. This one now doesn't leave them, it keeps them on the equipment and there he goes with 8-10 accumulators worth, to the barn. It is amazing to watch.

Comes back empty and starts again.

 

[farmerjan]

The accumulator that you are talking about does not band the square bales together with twine. The bales do collect usually on a trailer that slides them off on the ground then the grapple like hooks pick them up and puts the whole "flat" of hay on a wagon/trailer. The one our neighbor has you pull on the ground, it follows the baler. There are several that look somewhat like a flat trailer, and it slides a full flat off to be picked up later. The bundler ties them into the cube.... like putting plastic shrink wrap on a stack that is on a pallet. So all you have to do is take a skid loader or front end loader on a tractor with "pallet forks" and pick them up and put directly on a trailer. They all accomplish the idea of not manually handling the bales. Faster and the bales are "tight" together. But all those pieces of equipment cost and you have to get more for your hay because they cost alot more than having human help. Problem is we can't get the human help anymore.
At 30,000 for a bundler, if you made and sold 3,000 bales a year and charged 1.00 per bale more than what you get now, it would take 10 years to pay it off, not counting interest. And these things take more horsepower, fuel, and the wear and tear so by 10 years they are needing some work. The accumulator is not as expensive, but then you have to have another piece of equipment -the grapple- to use to load with. That means a FEL with live hydraulics, or some can use the back 3 pt hitch but they can't lift it very high and it still takes hydraulics.

 

[farmerjan]

The one that @Mini Horses neighbor uses probably puts it on a wagon, one "flat" at a time but in an upright position. Those wagons are not cheap either but it is a good way to get a whole wagon load of hay stacked in the barn quickly. Needs enough room to back that wagon in and for it to be able to unload. There are lots of videos to see the different types of ways to handle square bales.