Can't believe all the negative comments. Guess some folks have an unlimited supply of money. I run a small farm and can't afford the upkeep on my 40 year old equipment and certainly not new equipment. Something that eliminates the baler is perfect since I only feed on the hay field anyway. Thanks for sharing!

Its really nice to see that people still have what it takes to get out and do some goos manual labor! Keep up the good work yall! :)

Good outfit. I remember working on my Aunt and Uncle's ranch in the 50s and 60s making hay. Using the buck rake and the farm hand to stack hay in the field. Cattle ate the hay and fertilized the field. Then came the square bailer. It was a bit older, always always seemed to breakdown when the rain was coming and there was hay on the ground. We loaded bailes on a truck and trailer and moved them to a more protected place. Not so good for the hay fields. When the blizzards came and there were early caves it was nice to be close to the home place. Much easier to warm a calf up when needed. I never did understand how the knotter on the bailer realy worked. I adjusted it and it never realy worked, my cousin adjusted the same way it worked. I know it was magic.

We called it a buck rake and it works quite well, thank you. We put it on a ford 9n. the lifting wad hooked to the arem that lifted the the ddraw bar. We took it to the barn where we had a sling streched on th efollr. the hoisting would lift the lowad of hay to the roof and to one end where we would pull a trip rope.

With a good F-10 Farmhand and hay sweep, don't let anyone fool you -- this is a fast method of putting up hay. Have two units and let one guy sweep and the other guy stack.

first time i ever saw anyone putting up hay with a lawn mower..We used a M farmall with a M and H kit in the trans that gave you 4 more gears forward and two speeds in reverse.Some fields were smooth and we bucked hay in road gear.

the old timers did this except they used a horse drawn sled to get the hay to the stack. and they had a very tall post maybe 20 feet or so high and piled the hay around it, that was so as the pile settled it would'nt fall over and the wind would'nt knock it over too. after it was piled up, they'd build a split rail fence around it to keep the stock out of it.

My Granddad put hay up this way, he had an old F10 Farmhand loader that was mounted on an old truck chassis with the steering wheels in back, more or less drove it backwards. He cut his hay with a sickle mower, would let it dry a day or 2, then he would rake it, let it dry another day, then pick it up with his Farm hand. Only he did not go the direction of the windrows, he went across them, seemed to work pretty good

These are usually called buck rakes and they work quite well. Used to be pulled by horses even. Some hitch on the back of a 3-pt tractor. The worse part about these is the BACK and FORTH. Anything to minimize the the amount of contact of the tractor to the ground is an improvement, even if it means using a baler and a bunch of wagons.

I like it! Although we didn't get to use it this year, because of the drought. I was 3 days from feeding hay in early August when we finally got a thunderstorm enough to green the pasture a bit.

in the 40, 50 and 60s we stacked near 100 stacks of alfalfa and prairie hay per year with a F-10 Farmhand on an M Farmall. What I see going on here is one hell of a mess

This is the only way we put up hay when I was a kid, Used horses to rake, another tractor to sweep, and had a tractor with loader, cage type farmall or farmhand that put it into the stack. First field job I had when I was nine was to sit on the dump rake behind a team of Percherons that were 18-20 years old and rid up and down the hay field.. if Dad could have figured a way to have the horses trip the rake I'd of been out of a job.. LOL

I just do everything by hand with a fork. I once tried to let the cows eat down the pile, using an electric wire to control them from trampling too much hay, but they waste too much that way. So forking hay it's my winter workout!

they did make hay sweeps we call them buckers for the 158 john deere loaders and dual had them also but they quit making and selling them as the balers took over. the f10 farmhand was the king of hay stacking could make very large stacks in no time and stack movers would pick them up and haul them to the ranch

good idea

Is there any maw that I can see some more detailed pictures of the way you put your sweep together? I might make one to hook on to my front loader (or replace it, as you did), but I'm concerned about getting good pickup.

his problem is there isn't a fast enough float on the loader..we NEVER lifted the bucker off the ground until near the stack...

When just dumped into a pile like that, what keeps if from just rotting? The old style haystacks (as others have described) were set up so they shed most of the rain, with the top basically doing the job of a thatch roof.

Thanks for replying. I've wanted a sweep for many years and this might be the year. Do you have any advice on tarps or how to build the stacks? Do you do anything to keep the stacks off of the ground?

When you feed the hay, do you use the sweep to take it off of the stack and put it in the feeder?

We always called those buck rakes.

Here's how: push six butts into a perfect rectangle and then start stacking from alternate long sides. If you approach the stack from the north, that buckerfull reaches across the top of the stack and is placed on the opposite side. Just build your stack evenly and it will naturally peak toward the middle, and you will eventually cap your stack with a single middle butt.

Are your tines made of wood? What's the spacing between tines? Thanks for posting,

It's dry, so no heat. A simple electric fence around the haypile keeps the animals away.

Good alternative for small acreage

Yes, tines are made from ash planks from a local sawmill, 9" spacing.

This is my first year making hay and I'm going to try stacks in the pasture. What are the dimensions of your finished stacks? Do you pack it down at all? Do you have any pictures of a finished one? Thanks!

Were do you store your hay? and how many acres do you farm/ number of head and what? that just looks like a cheaper way to start a homwstead.

Unpainted wood out in the open, *if able to dry,* keeps for years. I store it on blocks over the winter, off the ground. And if they do break and need replaced, the wood tines are cheap, easy to fabricate with simple tools.

Any old tarp will do. I want to experiment with just putting a small tarp at the tippy top and leaving the sides open. From my observation, I've developed a hypothesis that it would work.

@marksmopar609

5 жыл бұрын

Top the stacks off with some meadow hay (reed canary) that will shed the rain

@oldtimeway1 - It will rust and depreciate at the same rate as a larger tractor, and cost the owner less.

Correct, an elegantly simple, economical contraption made from mostly rubbish. It's better than buying an expensive baler and then having it break down right before a line of storms come to clean the hay. I don't like my women on the trashy side (as the song goes) but hay equipment...why the hell not? ;)

Beaver slides in the Bighole Valley. Come in mind here

I cover it with a tarp. In the old days, they knew how to stack it so it would shed rain.

I like your sweep. The video is dated 2010, it's now Dec. 2012. How do you like it after 3 seasons?

No, this is as absolutely simple as possible. I've owned balers before.

@horseblinderson4747

5 жыл бұрын

Looks like it works ok. Good job getting it done.

I've got a 550 and its good for anything I need to do up untill I need to move 3K lb bales.

What's that little tractor gonna be when it grows up?

So where do you store it? The hay? Can't leave it i a pile in the field, it'll get rained on and moldy.

@Puffie40

9 жыл бұрын

The composting hay forms a crust that prevents any more from rotting. To use it to feed, you literally cut into the pile using forks and hay knives. There is quite a bit of loss, but don't forget mankind did it this way for centuries.

why the hell do people leave the bucket way up in the air when they drive? just leave it close to the ground!

you dont wire around the boomers so they wont release from all that bouncing?

last year the last ranch in our valley switched to round bales (sad day)

Cheaper and loose hay keeps better under a tarp, as I have no barn to store hay.

id love a flat piece of pasture land .

I admire what you're doing but when you're putting up close 250 tons of hay per year I don't think it would work out for a lot of folks. I know there are some big ranches out West still putting hay up using your method though. There was a series on Animal Planet called Last American Cowboy and one of the ranches on there put their hay up in huge stacks. I tried to find a video clip of it but couldn't. KZread won't let me post a link to what videos I found on Animal Planet.

@joescheller6680

6 жыл бұрын

put in a stack hay will keep forever if properly topped off. unlike round bales that rot after one year in a stack. we had a neighbor stack hay and the stacks were used for wind break for the cattle for several years. then we had a drowth and the wind break which looked terrible from weeds groeing out of the top and holes from birds nesting was ground up in hay grinder only a few outer inches were bad and the rest off stack was like the day it was put up.

yeah people get pissed when someone figures out a smart cheap way of using smaller equipment to manage their farms. (;

should buy a baler!!!!!

@oldtimeway1 Whatever I'm gonna be when I grow up!

Im having a hay day

Hay will fall off the front if tipped too far forward.

why is this better than baling?

@BowmanFarm

@randybingham281

7 жыл бұрын

Harold Epps bi

D

It's a hay fork!

You might want to learn to spell before you insult someone's video. On the other hand, it doesn't really matter, as it still just shows how rude you are.

One word, RUIBBISH!!!!!.