140- Hay

I had an uncle with a 20 cow dairy herd. He did all his work in the 1950s with a Super A. He had used loose hay with a hay loader. His daughter and son-in-law had become NH dealers along with David Brown tractors. They took him a NH baler and 880 tractor to try. Good old dad bought the baler and ran it pto with the SA and baled all his hay. Those Super series NH balers operated very easily. Power was not a big requirment.

If I were you I would trade one of those 140s for a 35 hp diesel with live pto. Live pto will turn baling into a pleasure. As I said power is not a big issue here, but I doubt if you will find much in live pto under 35 hp. Save your other 140 for raking, pulling hay wagons,you could even mount a sickle mower. You will never match a 140 on the hay rake.

Safty first : is your ground level? If so i would try the 140 , way too small but you may get it to work.

I would try to plant a mix, like 3-6 acres Alfalfa it is costly to plant. Grass is a little cheaper to plant, 6-10 area of mixed grasses and clover and a couple of acres of straw early rye etc. and maybe a few other things Like sweet corn or pumkins etc, need or should rotate your ground.

I have for years use a woods 5 foot brushhog with the side open to cut hay and allot of custom brushhogging. Rake 5 bar for turning and raking to bale. I use a old 4 bar to tedd and rake second cut.

Baler with wagon better be level ground and aim for 100 bale to arce tops for 1st cut. if you over fert. and end up with 150 bales to acre/ 4 tons you'll have a harder time to bale it.

Maybe have someone come and bale it for you the first cut any way.

It will take a few years for you to get it right, maybe better off to pay someone to bale it. Learn from him or her. Not as simple as cut today and bale day after tomorrow.

Try to find a place to sell mulch hay, you may end up with some, you may find a land scaper that will pay more than the farmers or horse people will.

Here in western PA I make about 200 acre profit. AC wd tractors , Bushhog 5 woods, NH 477 started to use this year, H would run it but not so sure a 140 would. Oliver 5 bar (207) and older new idea 4 bar like a number 4 , and an AC 444 baler. Baled last years 25 acres got 2950 bales should have been 3300 but was too wet too hard to get it dry , but if it would have been dry the hay would have been less So I'm Thankful I got what I did, mayde up to 3rd, and just part of my 4th.

Price for 35-45 Bales 1st. 1.25 off the field for grass. 1.45 for alfalfa .50 to deliver to customers that have been customers for the past few years. New people pay more have had trouble getting payed etc. I stand behined my hay 100 % , so charge them extra if they are too picky I go back and get it and will not deal with them again. normal is a 1.00 bale more. 2nd grass 1.85 of the field or wagon. 2.25-2.75 to deliver . Alfalfa 2.00-300 off the field and 3.00 - 4.00 deliver.

As you can see the money is in the 2nd 3rd.. and 4th cutiings you maybe can get 5 , not sure. I average 30 bale to acre of grass 2nd cut. and alfafla 2nd around 65-70 bales if things are in good shape, but that same field is 130-150 of first cutting would be hard for you to make it rows would be too large. You would or may have trouble raking with that large of rows. So watch your fertilizer rate. aim for 100 .

Have a Good One !! Teddy ( Punchie ) llmtvm@hotmail.com

Well I cant say it would be fun, but Ken Koch sent me this photo of his A baling hay and pulling a wagon. It can be done.

Any old square baler will probably put twine around bundles of hay, but here I will bleed green just a touch and say that JD has a decent square baler which when in good shape make nice bales. I have never used an IH baler, they may be better, may not be. I personally have a very worn out New Holland Super 69 (yeah, it’s old) PTO driven baler that I square bale about 200 bales a year with. Normally I use the 560 on it, but for grins and giggles (and laziness) I put my B on it this summer and baled a few bales of prairie hay. As long as the windrows were light enough (extremely light) it would pull the baler in low gear. Based on that experience, I would say that you could get by (kind of like using a push mower to mow 5 acres), but I would not have enjoyed doing it all day. An H would be better, but something with live PTO is really desirable. That way if the windrows get a little heavy, you can step on the clutch and the PTO will keep running.

My 2 cents.