Baling loose hay

[BearGap]

We have had a pretty good year with 2 cuttings and good pasture growth, so we have an unusually large pile of loose hay in the barn where we want to store the 3rd cutting. I am thinking of trying to bale it by tossing it into the NH 311 baler driven by an IH 674 tractor, but concerned that there will be very loose bales that will fall apart since we can't toss it in as fast as when picking up from windrows. Any suggestions? Should I slow the tractor/PTO down from the normal 540 speed to allow us to keep up?

 

[JimB2]

About 60 years ago when I was a teenager and Dad used to thrash all are oats with a thrashing mill and blow the straw into a pile outside, we would bale it later by forking into the baler.
Dad would run the tractor about half the normal RPM and he would tighten the bale chamber adjustment to make proper bales.

 

[redforlife]

Park your baler as close to the hay as you can. If you don't have a ground level pile of hay you can pull up to, then make one and put your loose hay there.

Pitch hay into the feeder house with 2 people alternating throws. Might work better if one of ya is left handed. Have a third person stacking the bales back behind the baler.

If you feel your feeding adequate hay to the baler, and it is still making loose bales, then tighten your compaction adjustment down some.

It'll be very helpful if your baler makes nice tight square bales during normal use. Because if it don't, it will worsen with this method of baling.

I have done it by myself a little bit. But your busier then a cat on a hot tin roof in trying to do it, and you end up with a percentage of messed up bales that'll need to be taken apart and sent through again. Better to have the extra people to make things go smoother.

 

[Charlie M]

I would think it would be similar to going through a thin spot in the field so if you know how your baler handles that then I would think you'd have an idea what hand feeding will do. As has been suggested if you slow down the baler you could keep up better and not have a problem.

 

[Absent Minded Farmer]

Tighten down the tension cranks evenly on the chamber until you get a bale that is the right density. The tractor, you could almost run at 1/4 throttle & still make tight bales. You can always throw an extra wedge set in the chamber if the bales are still loose.

Mike

 

[BarnyardEngineering]

Never had a problem doing that. If anything the bales came out HEAVIER than normal because the hay had already been baled and compressed once.

The only way it would be loose is if you're starting with an empty baler, and that'll only be the first few bales.

Just pull up with the baler, set it to normal operating speed, and start forking.