what size baler should i get for the M

My cousin now makes about 5-6 thousand 60lb bales per year on the same farm, with a 656D and a fairly new NH baler w/kicker, but also round bales some of the hay.

Uncle never had much good to say about the T45 either, but a bud of mine had one that came with the 40 acre horse farm he bought in 1978 and baled about 1200-1600 bales of nag hay each year with little drama. Used to rile my uncle to no end, when my bud would report how many bales he put up each summer with that old junker, with no problems. He pulled it with an Oliver Super 55.

My bud's son made it through ONE season with that old T45 after my buddy died, went out and bought a used NH baler, which they still use. ;O)

Gordo

I had a NH S-69, didn't seem to matter whether I used 300, 560D or 656D, it baled as much hay in an hour or a day. In fact the most hay I ever baled in one day was done with the 300. Ocasionally when those three tractors were busy with haylage, and some material got too dry for haylage, I raked it up and baled it with the 20hp Farmall 130 pulling a wagon and using thrower on flat land. It wasn't big production with the 130, but at least I didn't have to pull a larger tractor off other work.

I never saw anything that hated work as much as that 45 baler, even when it did go it wouldn't tie more than 25 bales in a row. That was the reason IH designed those twine boxes on the side of the bale chamber, it was a seat on each side for a farmer's sons to sit there and manually tie the bales. It went down the road PDQ, soon as we got a New Holland dealer. By 1960, one of the standing jokes in our community was the 5 acres of 45 balers the New Holland dealer acquired after being in business only 5 years. Some of them hadn't baled 12,000 bales lifetime. I don't even think there was a politician hated as much as those IH 45 balers.

On numerous ocasions I have baled one hundred tons of hay in a single afternoon, probably 8-9 hours baling. In fact I baled 100 ton each day on two consecutive days pulling the S-69 with Farmall 300. The baler had a thrower and it took 15 men and boys to take care of hay at the barn. I've seen the S-69 go for hours making 40" bales on 3 plunger strokes. On those two days I mention we completely filled a 36' x 110 conventional dairy barn, enough hay to feed the 50 mature holsteins our entire 7 month stored feeding Canadian fall, winter and spring. I have also used my 560D and 656D on that S-69 baler, however they never baled anymore hay than 300, and never two days in a row. I wouldn't fault the tractors, it takes a lot of manpower to handle 100 ton of hay from 20' thrower wagons. And labor was the reason I went to a round baler.

I haven't a bit of doubt about you claims on the IH 430. I've heard a lot of good things about them. But don't brag up an IH 45 to me, they had no capacity, poor reliability on tieing and thousands of then got cut up for scrap having baled less than 12,000 bales, lifetime. I am a relative of the New Holland dealer I dealt with, he showed me his 5 acres of 45s, some of them stacked two high. There were balers in there, didn't have the paint wore off the pickup. He told me of going to a meeting of New Holland and the standing joke, "How large is your inventory of IH 45 balers?"

In this entire post and other posts I'm talking about balers that were bought new by the users.

I wouldn't brag up IH 45 balers on this forum, just serves to make one look bad, or show how little he knows. When I was a kid in the 50s almost everyone in the area had a 45 baler. We didn't know any better. We really thought it was necessary to have the kid on behind hand tieing bales. Then two farmers drove 120 miles to the nearest NH dealer and each bought NH balers. By 1956 a local guy took out a NH dealership. Everyone said he would fail selling only a line of haying and forage equipment, and haying and forage equipment more expensive to buy than the others. By 1960 he had a 5 acre bone yard of 95% IH 45 balers. Some of them had not baled 12,000 bales of hay lifetime. It was the standing joke amoung NH dealers in the 60s, "How large is your inventory of 45 balers.

I don't have the facts on baler sales, however I've travelled enough of North America, I'd be satisfied New Holland has 50% of the small square baler market, since the beginning of mobile balers. I don't think I'll question the judgement of all those farmers. I know our own IH dealer never stocked balers in the 60s and 70s. He even tried to buy the New Holland dealership, when the original guy retired.