Baling the Hay
Our big hay baling project continues at my Bedford, New York farm.
Hay is a harvested plant that’s dried and cured after being cut in the field. In most cases, hay is cut during the late bud or early bloom stage to maximize its nutritional value. This week, Carlos Triguero, an expert in hay, has been working alongside my outdoor grounds crew to cut, toss, rake and bale the hay in my large fields. It’s an arduous process, which depends largely on the weather, but the team got it done - and just in time before the rain.
Enjoy these photos.
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- Earlier this week, I shared a blog explaining how my hay was cut and tedded. A tedder spreads and fluffs the hay in a uniform swath after the mower-conditioner has made the windrows.
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- For this process, I enlisted the help of Carlos Triguero, a very skilled hay baler. His family owns a farm nearby that specializes in hay.
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- After the hay is tedded and dried, it is then raked. Raking the hay is easily the fastest part of the process. The rake is used to create more windrows that the baler can pick up.
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- This is a rotary raker. It lifts and sifts the hay, but also helps loosely pile the hay to prepare it for baling.
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- Here is Chhiring inspecting a sample of hay taken from the bottom or inside of one of the windrows. The hay should be brittle and crisp, but not too easy to shatter. Baling the hay too early can result in spoilage, mold and even spontaneous combustion in stacked bales. Hay creates a lot of dust, so everyone wears protective masks during this process.
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- Rain was expected in the forecast, so it was crucial to bale as much as possible. Carlos hitched the baler to the tractor.
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- A baler is a piece of farm machinery used to compress a cut and raked crop into compact bales that are easy to handle, transport, and store.
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- In just a few minutes, it was hooked up and ready to go.
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- Behind the baler is the hay trailer, which will be used to catch the “square” bales once they are formed and tied.
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- The hay is lifted by tines in the baler’s reel and then packed into the bale chamber, which runs the length of one side of the baler.
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- Here is a closer look at the baler’s mechanisms. A measuring device—normally a spiked wheel that is turned by the emerging bales—measures the amount of material that is being compressed and then knotters wrap the twine around the bale and tie it off.
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- Once done, the bale comes out the back of the baler. Each bale is about 15 by 18 by 40 inches large. The bales are usually wrapped with two pieces of twine and are light enough for one person to handle, about 45 to 60 pounds each.
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- The bale is then propelled into the wagon by a mechanical arm called a thrower or a kicker.
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- The wagon has high walls on the left, right, and back sides, and a short wall on the front side, to contain the randomly piled bales, which are then stacked neatly from front to back.
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- Each of these trailers can hold about 150-bales. Carlos drives up and down the windrows of both the lower hayfields.
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- If the hay is properly dried, the baler will work continuously down each row. Hay that is too damp tends to clog up the baler – but so far, so good.
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- Here is a view of the baler from above. It is easy to see what rows have been baled.
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- After the trailer is full, Chhiring is ready to transport the trailer to the stable, where it will be stored.
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- Here is one of my empty trailers ready to be hitched to the baler and sent out for more hay.
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- The full trailer is pulled right up to the side of the stable by the hayloft door.
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- To get the bales up into the hayloft, a long motorized bale conveyor, or hay elevator, is set up. A hay elevator is an open skeletal frame, with a chain that has dull three-inch spikes every few feet to grab bales and drag them along. It works as a pulley system on a track that moves the bales up to the hayloft.
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- Chhewang and Carlos “four” move the bales one at a time onto the angled track of the elevator.
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- At the top, each bale is released from the elevator for manual stacking.
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- Pete is ready to remove the bale from the hay elevator.
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- And then Chhiring takes it to the side of the loft for tight stacking.
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- Phurba and Dawa carefully stack the bales. There is a lot of hay to stack – up to 2000 bales – everything must be stacked neatly to fit them all.
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- This process continues one bale at a time from the trailer to the hayloft…
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- … until the entire trailer is empty.
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- Then the trailers are switched again – an empty one for another full one back in the field. The team works quickly. Carlos reminds everyone that he can only bale until about 6pm as the evening weather tends to generate more moisture in the hay.
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- And here he goes to bale some more. I am so excited to see all these bales of hay made right here at my farm. Do you bale hay where you live? Share your comments below – I would love to read them.
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