Homemade Hay Rake

This is a hay rake I built to ease the task of gathering cut hay for loose storage.

After three years of cutting and hand forking the hay off of the 2 acre field I decided to come up with a better method. I'm still trying to get the baler working for next year, but for this year I put together this rake to gather the hay into large piles before forking it into the utility trailer to haul off to the shed.

Last year it took the wife and I two days to pick it up off the ground and move it using only forks and a small pickup. This involved a lot of walking to gather the hay from MoCo created windrows and carrying it to the pickup.

This year despite doubling the size of the field, using the rake to gather the hay into big piles, we got done in about 7 hours! I still want to get the baler working but this wasn't too bad.

PS..... old haying equipment is cheap at auction and eazier on the wife too (what a trouper)

And you are right - she is a trooper! At her suggestion she did 7 loads herself with the pickup while I did 10 with the 8N and the trailer.