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I married into a farm family and one of the first activities I got corralled into was baling hay. We put up as many as 30 acres in a first mowing, and didn't need some of the equipment you have mentioned. This may sound kinda silly, but some of the stuff you are planning on isn't needed, nor practical with just ten acres of hay. You can put the hay up in two or three smaller cuttings, and greatly diminish the work intensity and expenses. The cheapest way to cut that small amount of hay is to use a sickle bar mower. Sickle bar machines are fairly cheap. New guards and cutters will give a pretty clean cut. These mowers can be found for as little as $50 and up to $500, depending on condition. Raking requires no PTO at all. You can pick up a pretty decent pull type rake in need of some replacement teeth for about $500. The easiest job on any tractor is to rake hay. If an AC B will rake hay on hilly ground anything will. Windrows aren't dependent on mower size, at least not with a sickle bar mower. Windrows are determined by how heavy the hay is, and not the size of tractor you are using to rake the hay. If the hay is thin, then you can double rake to make enough hay in the windrow to keep your bales from getting too loose. Loose bales can be caused by not feeding enough hay into the baler, while covering a lot of ground. At the same time extra heavy hay could result in raking less than the full width of your rake. A baler that is trying to get through extra heavy windrows could become choked with hay and sheer pins, or produce much heavier than wanted bales. Fairly consistent windrows, consistent ground speed and consistent PTO rpms makes for consistent sized bales. A mower/conditioner is handy, but I know of a heck of a lot of farmers that put up a lot more than ten acres of hay at a time without the use of a conditioner. This is a luxury item that is not needed for such a small plot. With the advent of round balers there are a lot of good older square balers to be had, and these balers need homes. I've seen some really good NH and JD balers go for between $500 and $2500. The very last thing I would attempt is baling hay with a 2n, 9n, 8n, NAA, etc. They just aren't made for that kind of work, and their PTO is not designed for that work. Baling hay virtually necessitates independent PTO. You need to get your baler's RPMs up to speed before beginning to bale, and not while you are trying to bale. Going from 0 RPMs to operating speed in the middle of a windrow is a prescription for replacing a heck of a lot of sheer pins. In baling a field there are a number of times when one must slow down the ground speed when you come upon a thicker patch of hay, or heavier windrow. With the tractors you mentioned the problem is that the moment you shove that clutch in to stop forward motion of the tractor the PTO slows down. We bale with a 4000 Ford, a lot of farmers in the area use 3000 Fords, and even some use 2000 Fords. In general we mow the hay, two days later the hay is raked and baled. If it gets wet it may be raked twice to turn it over and allow it to dry. A tedder can fluff up the hay and allow it to dry quicker. We have never used a drill to sow hay, and have sown a lot of it over the years. We use a PTO powered spreader that you use for fertilizer. A very light dragging will cover the seed, or if rain is quickly coming it will cover the seed for you. You can use the same spreader to fertilize and lime your hayfields. A new spreader is fairly inexpensive, and considering you will use it 2-3 times a year on that field is a pretty good investment. One strategy that we have implemented the last three years or so is to have someone come in and mow, rake and bale the hay for half of the crop. This includes putting it in the barn if it is square baled. At one point we mowed and raked the hay, and hired it baled. The rate at that time was 25 cents a bale, it was 50 cents the last time I heard a price. A far more recent price was $5 to bale larger round bales. This sounds expensive, but the savings from labor paid for the baling. Farmworkers don't work for free, unless they are family. If you do go with a standard square baled one investment that would pay for itself is a hay conveyor. We got one fifteen years ago for $200, it runs off a standard 120V circuit. The end is set on the back of the wagon and one person can keep 5 busy stacking hay in the loft. More than one wagon is likely not necessary. With your 40 bales an acre figure you can stack 2 1/2 acres at a time on the wagon. Four loads and the crop is in. The NAA would work well enough for planting the hay crop, mowing with a sickle bar (this is afterall what they were designed to mow with), raking and hauling it to the barn. You could probably purchase a larger, older tractor to bale with by not purchasing the mower conditioner. One nice option that comes with the second tractor is the ability to rake and bale at the same time. This maximizes drying time. You can also begin hauling hay to the barn before baling is complete. Looking at what you have it appears that for around $3,000 you could pick up the sickle bar mower, baler and rake. Some of the bigger, older tractors can be had for that same price. One deal to keep your eyes open for is buying all the equipment at one time from a retiring farmer, or estate sale. Sometimes you can get a pretty sweet deal from some of these guys that have some older, well-cared for equipment.
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