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CONDITIONING HAY

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LYNNE

04-23-2002 12:44:10




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IS IT NECESSARY TO CONDITION ALFALFA HAY? PRO'S AND CON'S? DON'T HAVE A MOWER CONDITIONER.




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Steven@nd

04-25-2002 11:39:08




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 Re: CONDITIONING HAY in reply to LYNNE, 04-23-2002 12:44:10  
Pro - conditioned hay dries faster, sometimes we cut in the morning and bale that afternoon. (hot dry day - cutting a field that hasn't been cut for 2 years, old hay mixed in)

Pro - after going through the mower conditioner the hay is set the perfect width for our baler - no more weaving to get a straight bale.

Pro - baler picks up the hay better because it is "fluffed" up

Pro - much faster than mowing and then raking

Con - initial cost of a high quality, high speed mower conditioner is high ($18,000 used)

We have a 114 New Holland hyrdra swing right now and it works OK, but it is slow and worn out. We are going to get a 116 or some other brand in a newer model this spring.

Steven

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Hal/WA

04-24-2002 22:00:43




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 Re: CONDITIONING HAY in reply to LYNNE, 04-23-2002 12:44:10  
We always found that the cattle ate the alfalfa stems better if the hay had been conditioned. It also cut drying time down, so baling could be done sooner. Most of the guys who do a lot of hay in this area use swathers, some with conditioners. I would not buy a swather without one, even though, in my experience, that was the system that always gave the most trouble, especially if the alfalfa was real tall and thick.

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B.C.

04-24-2002 18:15:15




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 Re: CONDITIONING HAY in reply to LYNNE, 04-23-2002 12:44:10  
Conditioning, crimping or tedding will generally cut drying time by at least a day and will result in more uniformly dried hay. Having grown up in Wisconsin and hayed there, No Minn. and Ohio, I am a believer in doing more than just mowing and letting it lay like Grandpa did.

He wound up waiting for more rain-soaked alfalfa and clover to dry a second time than he would have liked.



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david

04-24-2002 11:57:30




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 Re: CONDITIONING HAY in reply to LYNNE, 04-23-2002 12:44:10  
I used one for 10 years and then stopped, now I've gone back to using one occassionally. Our climate is humid (central KY) but we don't have blister beetles so that's not a concern. The conditioner saves me 1 day curing, same as tedding 4 hrs behind the mower. For me it is a lot faster to run a disc mower and teddar than a mower conditioner. My horse customers are wanting conditioned hay and I need to swath for round bale sileage, so I'm going back some.

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Fred270

04-23-2002 18:25:03




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 Re: CONDITIONING HAY in reply to LYNNE, 04-23-2002 12:44:10  
Before I got the Haybine that cuts and runs it through the rollers right away, I had a hay crimper that I went through with after I cut it with a sickle mower.It cut atleast 1/4 of the time off drying cause it got the hay off the ground and crushed the juice out of the stems.I wouldnt recomend conditioning it after you cut it with a haybine or if you conditioned it once already cause you loose most of the leaves.Crimper worked really good in the old sickle mower days though.You could also try raking it up when its still wet earlier in the day and going out in the afternoon and turning it over again , that also speeds up curing time.

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Fred270

04-23-2002 18:23:57




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 Re: CONDITIONING HAY in reply to LYNNE, 04-23-2002 12:44:10  
Before I got the Haybine that cuts and runs it through the rollers right away, I had a hay crimper that I went through with after I cut it with a sickle mower.It cut atleast 1/4 of the time off drying cause it got the hay off the ground and crushed the juice out of the stems.I wouldnt recomend conditioning it after you cut it with a haybine or if you conditioned it once already cause you loose most of the leaves.Crimper worked really good in the old sickle mower days though.You could also try raking it up when its still wet earlier in the day and going out in the afternoon and turning it over again , that also speeds up curing time.

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Honkey

04-23-2002 15:09:27




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 Re: CONDITIONING HAY in reply to LYNNE, 04-23-2002 12:44:10  
It depends where you live. If you have a dry climate then no you don't have to condition it.

If you are going to feed the alfalfa hay to horses, then do not condition it. There are bugs in the alfalfa called blister beetles. When the hay is conditioned, the rollers mash the beetles and that bug juice is toxic to horses.

Mowing or swathing is the prefered method to use if you plan on feeding it to horses.

Matthew in SD

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John in Maryland

04-23-2002 13:32:27




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 Re: CONDITIONING HAY in reply to LYNNE, 04-23-2002 12:44:10  
A conditioner is ideal, and a tedder even better, but as said below, you can get by fine w/out. But keep your eyes open, older hay mower conditioners are out there, often times replaced with a faster cutting one, even though there may have been nothing mechanically wrong with the replaced one. And we used to have just a conditioner that you ran over the hay after you cut it years ago, but I don't know if they still make one or how well they did, as I was a young buck then.

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JD70Jim

04-23-2002 12:54:57




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 Re: CONDITIONING HAY in reply to LYNNE, 04-23-2002 12:44:10  
IMHO I don't think it's absolutely necessary. On the other hand, conditioning hay crushes the stalks and speeds drying time. If you are in a climate where it is humid and rains a lot during haying season, you may wish you had one. People have put up hay for a very long time, successfully I might add, without one. If you are finding that you are getting your hay rained on, a lot, the day or even just a few hours before it would have been ready, there is your case for getting a conditioner.

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