Anybody Ever Try to Feed Goldenrod?

[BarnyardEngineering]

I feel that the caddy is an intrinsically dangerous piece of equipment.

When raising the mower while cutting, the mower will bounce badly...........lifting the unweighted wheel almost entirely off the ground. The only thing keeping the whole thing upright is the drawbar on the tractor. Same when in the transport position over rough ground with side angles.

I have a few hundred pounds of tractor weights on hand that I've removed from my tractors. It might be wise to make a bracket to carry those on the left side of the caddy. But........if the drawbar is doing the job........(shrug)

I might note..........the drawbar would have been inadequate without the total rebuild I did on it some time back. The supports coming off the PTO housing were cracked, the bar pin under the transmission was severely worn, and the roller thingy that allows the bar to pivot, were pretty far gone from years of use.

Other than this small issue.................................I'm pleased as punch with the entire setup.

Your caddy looks similar to mine, which is a KMC. KMC makes a counterbalance weight kit so obviously you're not in uncharted territory here. Had my mower's gearbox not seized on the first time around the field this spring, I would have put counterweights on mine this year.

Add the weights. The drawbar will NOT stop it from tipping over.

I never felt the need to "steer" the mower. It tracked perfectly and all I ever needed to do was move the tractor a few inches right or left to minimize overlap.

So handy too. 30 seconds to hook up. A drawpin. A PTO shaft. A single hydraulic hose. A rope. Unlike that greasy pig of a disc mower, which hangs from the 3pt and is a pain to hook up.

 

[farmersamm]

An update is in order I guess. We're feeding this trash as I speak. AND THEY'RE MOSTLY CLEANING IT UP. Desperation, and starvation, are strong incentives.

THE BALING IS ONGOING. Yeah.......ONGOING.

Gettin' a lot of this This baler will not start a bale in this stuff for love nor money............................................

Unless you get off, and hand rake the windrow into a narrow ropy windrow. Have to do this for around 20-40 feet, depending on how thick the original windrow is. Each and every attempted start.

Baling has been limited to about a one hour window immediately after sunrise. Once the humidity falls below around 40%...................might as well just go on back to the house. The POS will not start a bale. (We're running record highs, and record low humidity, for this time of year)

Standing back, and looking at the situation.......................I've got a few takeaways.

This machine will not, and never did, work well with large windrows. Nature of the beast. It will run fine in a large windrow once the bale's started, but it will not start a bale in a large windrow. Helpful suggestions have all been worthless. I'm on the ground, and dealing with the issue in real time. In stemmy crop, which we bale, the machine is not satisfactory............never was, and still isn't.

The machine will bale behind a swather(what y'all call a MOCO) if the drydown moisture is fairly high. Hay Grazer bales fine when not fully dry. This is somewhat dangerous, but will work. Once the crop hits a certain % moisture.........it's all over.

The disc mower/raking process is a disaster on this stuff....................and that's been mostly due to my inexperience with the hay rake. I need to close it down to 6 wheels instead of 8. It's simply gathering too much material for this baler. The field is running at 4 bales to the acre.

The hay/garbage is feeding pretty much as I hoped. You'd be surprised what an animal will eat in hard times. The cows in Delhi will literally eat newspapers to survive. Only thing left in the bottom of the feeders has been Blackberry stems that are as thick as your index finger, otherwise they're cleaning it up. Supplemental feeding will be expensive, owing to the poor quality hay, but still cheaper than paying what folks are wanting for a bale of hay around here.

I still feel, and always have, that the mowing/raking system causes "Bale-Flation". This experience reinforces the thought. Baling behind a swather, which leaves a relatively tight, flat, well oriented windrow will produce a denser bale. Trying to cram a fluffy raked windrow into a baler makes for light bales IMHO. This applies to Johnson Grass, and Hay Grazer. Stemmy stuff makes for a light bale to begin with, but raking exacerbates the situation. How this machine handles Bluestem is yet to be determined. It's never run long enough to get on my Bluestem meadow. Maybe next year I'll find out.

All of this makes me want to restore the old NH846................a reliable, proven, baler. When old guys like me say "They'll bale trees".............this is what it means. They will handle ANY crop. And do it without any drama.

Am I being fair................Hell, I dunno. This has been another bad year, what with getting into the fields late. Perhaps in a normal situation I'll find out that I like the baler, and mower/rake.

The rebuild on the baler has been a resounding success. Everything is running as it's supposed to. No hot bearings, tracking issues, or other glitches. Once I get my fields renovated, and can send this mower, and rake, on down the road.......................it might turn out to be a machine that I like.

 

[flying belgian]

An update is in order I guess. We're feeding this trash as I speak. AND THEY'RE MOSTLY CLEANING IT UP. Desperation, and starvation, are strong incentives.

THE BALING IS ONGOING. Yeah.......ONGOING.

View attachment 90521

Gettin' a lot of this This baler will not start a bale in this stuff for love nor money............................................

View attachment 90522

Unless you get off, and hand rake the windrow into a narrow ropy windrow. Have to do this for around 20-40 feet, depending on how thick the original windrow is. Each and every attempted start.

Baling has been limited to about a one hour window immediately after sunrise. Once the humidity falls below around 40%...................might as well just go on back to the house. The POS will not start a bale. (We're running record highs, and record low humidity, for this time of year)

Standing back, and looking at the situation.......................I've got a few takeaways.

This machine will not, and never did, work well with large windrows. Nature of the beast. It will run fine in a large windrow once the bale's started, but it will not start a bale in a large windrow. Helpful suggestions have all been worthless. I'm on the ground, and dealing with the issue in real time. In stemmy crop, which we bale, the machine is not satisfactory............never was, and still isn't.

The machine will bale behind a swather(what y'all call a MOCO) if the drydown moisture is fairly high. Hay Grazer bales fine when not fully dry. This is somewhat dangerous, but will work. Once the crop hits a certain % moisture.........it's all over.

The disc mower/raking process is a disaster on this stuff....................and that's been mostly due to my inexperience with the hay rake. I need to close it down to 6 wheels instead of 8. It's simply gathering too much material for this baler. The field is running at 4 bales to the acre.

The hay/garbage is feeding pretty much as I hoped. You'd be surprised what an animal will eat in hard times. The cows in Delhi will literally eat newspapers to survive. Only thing left in the bottom of the feeders has been Blackberry stems that are as thick as your index finger, otherwise they're cleaning it up. Supplemental feeding will be expensive, owing to the poor quality hay, but still cheaper than paying what folks are wanting for a bale of hay around here.

I still feel, and always have, that the mowing/raking system causes "Bale-Flation". This experience reinforces the thought. Baling behind a swather, which leaves a relatively tight, flat, well oriented windrow will produce a denser bale. Trying to cram a fluffy raked windrow into a baler makes for light bales IMHO. This applies to Johnson Grass, and Hay Grazer. Stemmy stuff makes for a light bale to begin with, but raking exacerbates the situation. How this machine handles Bluestem is yet to be determined. It's never run long enough to get on my Bluestem meadow. Maybe next year I'll find out.

All of this makes me want to restore the old NH846................a reliable, proven, baler. When old guys like me say "They'll bale trees".............this is what it means. They will handle ANY crop. And do it without any drama.

Am I being fair................Hell, I dunno. This has been another bad year, what with getting into the fields late. Perhaps in a normal situation I'll find out that I like the baler, and mower/rake.

The rebuild on the baler has been a resounding success. Everything is running as it's supposed to. No hot bearings, tracking issues, or other glitches. Once I get my fields renovated, and can send this mower, and rake, on down the road.......................it might turn out to be a machine that I like.

Is that by chance a 648? like mine. That pos of mine I spent 2 days to get 14 bales of cornstalks baled. I finally got mine to start the bale but now I can't get it to start the net wrap. The wrapping never gave me problems in hay but will not work in stalks. Does that sound right? It just does not leave a tail on the duckbill. So then I will pull 3-4 inches of net through the bill and try and manual wrap and it still won't grab the net to start wrapping.

 

[farmersamm]

You, and I, have had a very respectful, and useful conversation about these particular balers. Not like other forums I'm used to. Bravo, and Thanks!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Mine is the 650...................in my opinion............................the ultimate advertisement for a John Deere baler. It's working, but it kills you to make it work. I hate it................I MEAN I REALLY HATE IT. Not like I haven't a baler befor before.................been doing this for 30yrs. This thing is a solid gold plated POS.

The hand raking of windrows actually works. Might seem stupid, but it works. Try it, like I tried your suggestion to keep the wind shield at a close proximity to the starter roll. If you narrow the windrow down, and start into it at about idle.............which means about 1000rpm on the tractor.......maybe 250rpm on the PTO............it will start the bale. But you need to keep an eye on it for quite a while. About 20-40 feet. WHICH SUCKS. You will see the crop suck into the the baler. It's a very singular thing..................no way to mistake it. The hay starts to jump into the throat of the baler. Once this starts, you can put your foot to the floor....................it will ROCK. 5mph baling is quite easy after the damn thing starts the bale.

I think the major failing is the steel rollers. The sledge rollers. Steel is slippery. Other manufacturers don't rely on steel rollers.............seems they rely on the belts. I'd rather rely on rubber belts.

About your cornstalks, and my overly dry Johnson Grass. They're the hardest thing on the planet to bale............as you know. It separates the real balers from the wanabees.

I put up "laughing smilies", but I'm actually very upset about this. Not angry, but pretty depressed. I need to get baled. I need to feed the gurlz. It isn't going well. Best luck to you on your, seems to be, similar journey.

Is that by chance a 648? like mine. That pos of mine I spent 2 days to get 14 bales of cornstalks baled. I finally got mine to start the bale but now I can't get it to start the net wrap. The wrapping never gave me problems in hay but will not work in stalks. Does that sound right? It just does not leave a tail on the duckbill. So then I will pull 3-4 inches of net through the bill and try and manual wrap and it still won't grab the net to start wrapping.,

 

[TerryfromSWIowa]

I have not run a round baler but always said baling can be enjoyable when a square baler is working and the most frustrating when it is not. Sometimes within minutes of each other.

 

[flying belgian]

You, and I, have had a very respectful, and useful conversation about these particular balers. Not like other forums I'm used to. Bravo, and Thanks!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Mine is the 650...................in my opinion............................the ultimate advertisement for a John Deere baler. It's working, but it kills you to make it work. I hate it................I MEAN I REALLY HATE IT. Not like I haven't a baler befor before.................been doing this for 30yrs. This thing is a solid gold plated POS.

The hand raking of windrows actually works. Might seem stupid, but it works. Try it, like I tried your suggestion to keep the wind shield at a close proximity to the starter roll. If you narrow the windrow down, and start into it at about idle.............which means about 1000rpm on the tractor.......maybe 250rpm on the PTO............it will start the bale. But you need to keep an eye on it for quite a while. About 20-40 feet. WHICH SUCKS. You will see the crop suck into the the baler. It's a very singular thing..................no way to mistake it. The hay starts to jump into the throat of the baler. Once this starts, you can put your foot to the floor....................it will ROCK. 5mph baling is quite easy after the damn thing starts the bale.

I think the major failing is the steel rollers. The sledge rollers. Steel is slippery. Other manufacturers don't rely on steel rollers.............seems they rely on the belts. I'd rather rely on rubber belts.

About your cornstalks, and my overly dry Johnson Grass. They're the hardest thing on the planet to bale............as you know. It separates the real balers from the wanabees.

I put up "laughing smilies", but I'm actually very upset about this. Not angry, but pretty depressed. I need to get baled. I need to feed the gurlz. It isn't going well. Best luck to you on your, seems to be, similar journey.

Do you think it would help to put a bunch of weld spots on the starter roll? I've been tempted to try that. If the welds are bothersome just grind them off.

How much tail have you got sticking out the duckbill after cutting?

 

[farmersamm]

Do you think it would help to put a bunch of weld spots on the starter roll? I've been tempted to try that. If the welds are bothersome just grind them off.

How much tail have you got sticking out the duckbill after cutting?

Some time ago, I welded 1/4 x 1/4 square stock on the starter roll full width. I feel that it's helped a bit. If you do something like this..............weld your strips on in a sequence that your welding is opposite of the last one you installed(rotate the roller 360* every bar). In other words, balance your heat input so that you don't banana the roller. Keep the welds to about maybe one inch in length, every 6-8". Small welds have a lot of holding power. Lot of folks tend to overweld.

I don't have net wrap. Mine's a twine wrap baler. It has the Bale Command system. I wish it was Auto Wrap, but they were starting to phase them out around this time(I think). I sometimes look around the internet, and see a lot of issues with the duckbill. You might want to look at Hay Talk, and do a search for the NH balers. There used to be a guy there that was/is a NH tech. He's posted a good series of articles on these machines.

 

[UAFitter]

An update is in order I guess. We're feeding this trash as I speak. AND THEY'RE MOSTLY CLEANING IT UP. Desperation, and starvation, are strong incentives.

THE BALING IS ONGOING. Yeah.......ONGOING.

View attachment 90521

Gettin' a lot of this This baler will not start a bale in this stuff for love nor money............................................

View attachment 90522

Unless you get off, and hand rake the windrow into a narrow ropy windrow. Have to do this for around 20-40 feet, depending on how thick the original windrow is. Each and every attempted start.

Baling has been limited to about a one hour window immediately after sunrise. Once the humidity falls below around 40%...................might as well just go on back to the house. The POS will not start a bale. (We're running record highs, and record low humidity, for this time of year)

Standing back, and looking at the situation.......................I've got a few takeaways.

This machine will not, and never did, work well with large windrows. Nature of the beast. It will run fine in a large windrow once the bale's started, but it will not start a bale in a large windrow. Helpful suggestions have all been worthless. I'm on the ground, and dealing with the issue in real time. In stemmy crop, which we bale, the machine is not satisfactory............never was, and still isn't.

The machine will bale behind a swather(what y'all call a MOCO) if the drydown moisture is fairly high. Hay Grazer bales fine when not fully dry. This is somewhat dangerous, but will work. Once the crop hits a certain % moisture.........it's all over.

The disc mower/raking process is a disaster on this stuff....................and that's been mostly due to my inexperience with the hay rake. I need to close it down to 6 wheels instead of 8. It's simply gathering too much material for this baler. The field is running at 4 bales to the acre.

The hay/garbage is feeding pretty much as I hoped. You'd be surprised what an animal will eat in hard times. The cows in Delhi will literally eat newspapers to survive. Only thing left in the bottom of the feeders has been Blackberry stems that are as thick as your index finger, otherwise they're cleaning it up. Supplemental feeding will be expensive, owing to the poor quality hay, but still cheaper than paying what folks are wanting for a bale of hay around here.

I still feel, and always have, that the mowing/raking system causes "Bale-Flation". This experience reinforces the thought. Baling behind a swather, which leaves a relatively tight, flat, well oriented windrow will produce a denser bale. Trying to cram a fluffy raked windrow into a baler makes for light bales IMHO. This applies to Johnson Grass, and Hay Grazer. Stemmy stuff makes for a light bale to begin with, but raking exacerbates the situation. How this machine handles Bluestem is yet to be determined. It's never run long enough to get on my Bluestem meadow. Maybe next year I'll find out.

All of this makes me want to restore the old NH846................a reliable, proven, baler. When old guys like me say "They'll bale trees".............this is what it means. They will handle ANY crop. And do it without any drama.

Am I being fair................Hell, I dunno. This has been another bad year, what with getting into the fields late. Perhaps in a normal situation I'll find out that I like the baler, and mower/rake.

The rebuild on the baler has been a resounding success. Everything is running as it's supposed to. No hot bearings, tracking issues, or other glitches. Once I get my fields renovated, and can send this mower, and rake, on down the road.......................it might turn out to be a machine that I like.

So you’re baling dry brush that you raked into too-large windrows with a clapped-out thirty year old baler, and it’s because the baler was No good when it was new. I wouldn’t be too proud of myself for starving those cows: if you can’t feed a profit into them, you surely won’t be able to do it by starving it into them.

 

[caterpillar guy]

Just as a thought. What if you could wrap a piece of belt around the roller and just pop rivet it on to hold it. Would now have a rubber coating so to speak to grip the stems better.

 

[farmersamm]

Feeding as we Go​

Bring a bale up every time I come up from the field.

They're goin' through it fast, with minimal waste. One of the reasons it's feeding so fast is that it's sub prime hay. Very little energy.

We're only running 2 feeders right now. When the stuff's all moved up from the field, we'll run 5 at a time.

The reason I like twine. Very little trash to deal with. The net wrap from a 4x5 would be at least 5x this size.

FOR THE FLYING BELGIAN
​

I grabbed a pic of the sledge rollers. The floor roller has 1/4 square stock welded to it, in addition to what came from the factory. The starter roll has been stripped to weld 1/4 square stock to it. Note the weld size/spacing.

I hope this helps. When I get around to it, I'll post the entire rebuild..........including bearing housings(OEM, and modified), modified parts, modified rollers, partial replacement of the sledge frame, wheel repair, sledge pivot replacement................etc.

 

[Phill Tibbetts]

Old farmer tried to cut back on hay by mixing in sawdust. Kept putting in more sawsust and less hay until he had them eating only sawdust and they all up and died on him !!!

 

[UAFitter]

@farmersamm - How are the cows doing on this feed?

 

[MARK ROBKE]

Our extension office newsletter just had an article about starving cattle with a full belly. No nutritional value in the hay and the cows die. I am curious of the outcome here too. Mark.

 

[Janicholson]

Goats eat anything, find a goat farmer !!! Jim

 

[flying belgian]

Goats eat anything, find a goat farmer !!! Jim

Yes. If you throw your gloves down to open the gate, goats will eat them.

 

[farmersamm]

We're getting by fairly well.

They're being supplemented daily, with a better ration during cold snaps. We're using 14% cubes when the weather is moderate, then shift to 20% cubes when the weather gets messy. They're getting 6#/hd/day. Tonight it's supposed to dip down to around 10*...........they'll get more.

If you go a day without supplemental, they consume more hay..............

It's sort of hard to pinpoint just how much they're eating per day. The bales are not uniform. While breaking in the new belts on the baler, I started with small bales, and gradually worked up to a standard 4x5. We can feed larger than 4x5's without a loader, but it's a PITA to flip the feeders back over the taller bales........so 4x5 is max until I get my loader running.

Their weight has seemed to be holding. They're not as heavy as they would be on good hay, but it is what it is. Not seeing any signs of starvation.

I'm not seeing any undue stress. Hard to describe.......................... Let's say you can't get bales out due to weather, etc. Cows will crowd the feeders, and eat till they're bloated, when you finally get the bales on the ground. We're not seeing that. Everything has been "orderly" for want of a better word. They don't stand and eat all day, nor fight over the cubes.

I'm continually amazed at how much is actually being consumed. There's not a lot left in the feeders, all things considered. I assumed they would be unable to eat the thorny stuff. The large thorny stalks are all that's left behind. The smaller Blackberry shoots are being eaten. Same with the stalky Goldenrod.

I really need to take a sample to the extension office. Be interesting to see just what we're actually feeding.

Be glad when Spring's here.

 

[MARK ROBKE]

We're getting by fairly well.

They're being supplemented daily, with a better ration during cold snaps. We're using 14% cubes when the weather is moderate, then shift to 20% cubes when the weather gets messy. They're getting 6#/hd/day. Tonight it's supposed to dip down to around 10*...........they'll get more.

If you go a day without supplemental, they consume more hay..............

It's sort of hard to pinpoint just how much they're eating per day. The bales are not uniform. While breaking in the new belts on the baler, I started with small bales, and gradually worked up to a standard 4x5. We can feed larger than 4x5's without a loader, but it's a PITA to flip the feeders back over the taller bales........so 4x5 is max until I get my loader running.

Their weight has seemed to be holding. They're not as heavy as they would be on good hay, but it is what it is. Not seeing any signs of starvation.

I'm not seeing any undue stress. Hard to describe.......................... Let's say you can't get bales out due to weather, etc. Cows will crowd the feeders, and eat till they're bloated, when you finally get the bales on the ground. We're not seeing that. Everything has been "orderly" for want of a better word. They don't stand and eat all day, nor fight over the cubes.

I'm continually amazed at how much is actually being consumed. There's not a lot left in the feeders, all things considered. I assumed they would be unable to eat the thorny stuff. The large thorny stalks are all that's left behind. The smaller Blackberry shoots are being eaten. Same with the stalky Goldenrod.

I really need to take a sample to the extension office. Be interesting to see just what we're actually feeding.

Be glad when Spring's here.

Getting your hay tested is a good idea. Especially poor hay. Usually better to do in the fall before start of feeding though. Sometimes even good looking hay can have low feed value. Knowing the crude protein, relative feed value, and the total digestible nutrients can help know what to buy, the correct supplements. Also knowing your cows' body score (at least a 5) can also help to know what to feed. Mark.

 

[37chief]

View attachment 88226

I finally got my mower running........................too late to beat the crap that's grown up through the Johnson Grass. This was a beautiful field at the beginning of September. It appears to be Goldenrod. I'm a day late, dollar short.......is what it is I guess. Gonna roll it up, and see just how bad it feeds.

On the flip side, I've seen them eat just about anything once it's in the roll. Or..............eat around it..........and you find it in the bottom of the feeder when you go to change bales. Dunno how this is gonna pan out(sigh)

Also........a disc mower question

This is the first time in my life I've run a disc mower. For 30yrs I've run the old Hesston Hydro Swing.

I'm experiencing problems. The mower will cut some stuff, but leaves the finer stemmed grasses just pushed over. I'm not thrilled about this.

I'm thinking it's a blade problem, and have replaced all of them.

View attachment 88227

I'm thinking that the blades are just beating the crop, not cutting it. I've had similar problems with a Bush Hog with dull blades. The thing will cut heavy woody brush, but just skim over grass. Been the same thing with the disc mower. It cuts Sumac, Blackberry bushes, and Persimmon saplings just fine, which is what I bought this mower for...........reconditioning one of our hay fields. But it's supposed to be cutting the good grass too.

Find out today if the field's dry enough to work. Got rained out on Tuesday night.

I have high cut skids on the mower, but I don't think they're contributing to the problem. What's being cut is at the skid shoe height, just problems with either not cutting, laying it down, or ragged tearing, of the crop. CROP he says A fine word for garbage.

This is the worst mess I've ever dealt with. Looks like an abandoned lot

I'm not sure I'm gonna like this thing. If you have trouble with a sickle machine you see it immediately. It's all shoved into a windrow, and any problems show up on the clean ground. You know if you have a bad section, or guard..........leaves a strip. This doggone thing.......you don't know crap unless you keep climbing off the tractor to see if it's actually cutting.

I guess if cows get hungry enough they will eat about anything. My Grand ma told me back in the early years there wasn't much for the cows to eat some years They would burn cactus leaves to get the stickers off, and the wows would eat them. Stan

 

[Mobuck]

"Goats eat anything, find a goat farmer !!! Jim"
This is a fallacy spread by cartoons. Many breeds of goats are EXTREMELY picky eaters.
"I guess if cows get hungry enough they will eat about anything. "
Yupper, if the cows are eating 'golden rod' hay, they're desperately hungry.

 

[Destroked 450]

I don’t know what the fix all cure all is for the bale starting issues some NH balers have but I guess after over 20 years using them I’ve become accustomed to its quirks
My old 640 got that way as it aged and the belts wore and stretched, my present BR7070 is getting that way after 11 years and over 12,000 bales, I need to relace the belts and get them to proper length to see if that helps
Long stemy hay is harder to start a bale with than short grass, I’ll start off about 10 ft or more and stop giving the baler time to crimp the stems over to start a bale, once I see the hay suck into the bale chamber I roll on until the buzzer sounds. I bale at 4-5 mph in hay thick enough to make 6.5-8 4x5 bales per acre
I know it’s easier to bale with my NH than it was with the Hesston 5545 I owned prior
After helping a couple neighbors repair their JD balers I won’t be owning one, not saying a NH is easy but the repairs I’ve done to mine were easier

I’m not sure when NH discontinued AutoWrap but my 2012 model has it