Hi I’m Mike, today we continue with our haying series and quite literally wrap things
up by taking a look at the final step in making a bale of hay.
That step is getting out with the most complicated and most expensive implement we own.
Firing up the baler and rolling some hay on our Wyoming life.
Welcome back to our series on haying.
Making the bales that we will feed the cows all winter long is one of the most important
steps on the ranch probably just as important as calving.
The hay that we can make on the ranch can make the difference between profit and loss,
it can make the difference between selling cows or expanding the herd and sometimes it
can make a huge impact in the future of the ranch itself.
Lets take a quick look back over the last few years.
In a normal year, the hay that we have make on the ranch will feed all the cows over the
winter, we hay over 500 acres of hay ground and with just a minimal output of one ton
per acre, we can do that.
Of course, in order to do that the grass has to grow.
It needs a combination of things all at the right time to give us that kind of hay crop,
sun, rain and the right temperature.
In this area of Wyoming we average about 14 inches of rain per year and in order for the
hay to take full advantage of the rain we have to get at least some of that in April
and May.
That way that rain will give the grass the moisture it needs to get off to a good start.
The average rainfall for April is 2 to 3 inches this year we got 1 inch, in may the average
is almost 5 inches and this year we got 2 . So instead of upt to 8 inches of rain to
get the grass the head start it needed, we got 3 of those.
Less than half of the rain we needed.
This lack of early spring rain is what really did in the hay, its been worse but this year
again and for the 3rd year in a row we will be buying feed for the cows over the winter.
We still haven’t quite figured out how to do that but we don’t have much choice, its
gonna happen.
I hate to sound like I am complaining, because really I’m not.
I cant control the weather, and when faced with a situation you cant control.
You make the best of it.
As they say, you make hay while the sun shines.
Today we are truly making hay.
We are going to taking 70 acre of grass and rolling it up in to 1400 pound bales.
To help us do that we have a john deere 568 baler.
It’s 12 feet long, over 9 feet high and weighs in at just over 2 tons.
I know that 70 acres is hard to judge and when we first came to the ranch, I couldn’t
have shown you the difference between 5 and 20 acres.
So lets see what we can do to help.
70 acres is 53 foot ball fields.
Or 35 city blocks.
Anyway it’s a chunk of land.
It took roughly 8 hours to mow it and before we get into baling it we have to take a step
back and talk about raking once again.
When it comes to economics on the ranch, one thing we look at is wear and tear on machinery
and equipment as well as replacement or repair cost.
I can tell you that a rake costs right around 20 thousand dollars, that’s a big chunk.
But a new baler can cost upwards of 60 thousand dollars or even more.
That’s a bigger chunk and repair costs compare about the same.
So a long time ago, especially since we have been fighting with thin hay over the last
years, I have decided to put that extra wear and tear on the rake instead of the baler.
The baler could get pulled around the field and used to pick up smaller windrows of cut
hay that the rake has already put together.
But if I can cut the run time, the wear and tear on the baler in half, but spending some
extra time putting windrows together.
Well it only makes sense.
And If I can cut it in half again but putting more than two together, I’m gonna do that
to.
So before we get to baling, we roll some windrows together.
Making larger windrows made up of more hay, that will make bales faster and more efficiently.
After all this work, 8 hours mowing, 8 hours raking we are going to have maybe only an
hour or so in making bales.
We have to make this baler last.
Once the rows are all rolled together, then its time to get the baler.
The baler attaches to the tractor just like any other implement with a pin, it also attaches
to the pto of the tractor to make it work but unlike most other PTO implements we have,
the baler runs at 1000 RPM instead of 540 like the mower.
Changing from 540 rpm pto speed to 1000 is all done at the back of the tractor by removing
the pto shaft and turning it around.
540 pto side has big thick splines, the 1000 rpm side has smaller and closer together splines.
The entire shaft is held in with a snap ring and just like that we are good to go.
Then we attach the pto shaft to the tractor, then hydraulics.
Everything gets dirty while haying, trust me, all the tractors will get a nice bath
when we are done.
After the hydraulics, then comes the brain of the baler.
The baling computer.
Its placed in the cab of the tractor and the connectors are run out the back window where
they connect to the baler itself.
The we are ready to go.
I actually like baling, its pretty simple but not only that its quite relaxing.
Like all of haying you spend hours in the field and by default you spend hours with
nature.
Deer many times cross my path and then run from it, even though I will see them again
my next time around.
Antelope meander through and yes even snakes come slithering out of the taller grass.
This is a bull snake, perfectly harmless and actually a friend to the ranch as he really
likes to dine on rodents.
I’m glad he didn’t get baled like this rattle snake from a couple of years ago.
Wildlife aside, we do have a job to do.
The pickup on the front of the baler is what is going to grab hay and move it into the
machine.
It is lowered to the ground.
The baler is turned on and we are off.
The whole point of baling is to keep the bale even in shape and that’s where the baling
computer comes in.
It controls everything electrical about he baler but the only thing we need to worry
about today is the number of times we are going to wrap each bale in netwrap, which
is stored in the back of the baler and how each bale is formed.
Once we are up and rolling, the computer is going to show us two black bars.
Each bar represents each side of the bale and our goal is to end up with an evenly shaped
bale and heres how I like to do it.
First off, everyone I have ever talked to about this has their own method for forming
bales.
This is mine but the great thing about all the methods is that we all end up with a bale,
eventually.
As we take off down the windrow, the bale grabs the hay and starts rolling it between
belts.
The first part of the bale we are going to form is the core and its every important to
the shape of the bale.
As we form this first part of the bale we need to keep the black bars even.
As one side starts to fill up more the bar will rise and we can counter act that by moving
the tractor over and getting more hay in the other side of the baler.
Once we reach a bale size of just over 22 inches, then the screen will start showing
the size of the bale in inches.
Now we can really start making the bale.
I like to fill one side of the bale to the top of the black bar, then move to the other
side and fill that.
Swerving back and forth over the windrow and pack the hay into the bale evenly on each
side.
When we reach 55 inches, the computer will beep at us.
Now we move back into our maintenance mode and try to keep the bars even once again.
Until we reach 60 inches.
The size of bale we are going for.
When that happens.
The computer beeps some more, telling you to stop.
You have 2 seconds to stop, before the bales starts wrapping in netwrap.
A few seconds later, we are told to eject the bale.
Pulling on the hydraulic lever.
The baler pops open and pushes away a nicely formed bale.
Hopefully.
I have my moments of daydreaming, or my phone rings, or anything else distracts me and occasionally
an uneven bale will sneak though.
It happens and luckily, they feed exactly the same as the perfectly even bales.
They even stack the same.
But the computer will help you make the best bales you can to maximize size and weight
for each one.
Along the way we keep an eye on the moisture monitor in the cab of the tractor as well.
It constantly measures the moisture content of the hay we are rolling around in the baler
and averages it out.
This hay was cut yesterday, raked and baled today and already is less than 10% moisture.
Boy its dry here.
And that’s it my friend.
This is what you do for days, for weeks even in order to make hay for the cows.
Its not glamourous.
Its often greasy and dirty, but it’s a job.
And one that I am happy to do right now.
Every bale we make saves the ranch money.
To buy hay, it can cost up to 200$ a ton delivered.
Each bale we make costs us about $40.
That’s the difference between hay and no hay here.
We are running long so join me on Tuesday for the project list as we tackle a huge project
and do some math, I hate math.
We are going to average our yield to now, project that across the acreage we have left
to cut.
Figure out how much hay we are going to have and how much we are going to have to buy and
talk about options for how we are going to do that.
Should be a good time that is going to make my head hurt, but it needs to be done as well.
Thanks for hanging with me today, please subscribe and follow along with us as we explore the
ranch life and escape the ordinary.
The good and the bad and sometimes the downright depressing.
We will see you on Tuesday, in the meantime click this little thing and visit our website.
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Have a great week and thanks for joining us in our Wyoming life.