Drum Mowers

[Wade Pantermuehl]

I have a two questions about the drum mower: I live in South Texas; we have a lot of fire ants down here. How does the drum mower function with the fire ant mounds? With my sickle bar, it takes forever to mow my field. Currently when I hit one of the fire ant mounds I have stop, get down and clean it off before it will function right, do I have to do this with the drum mower? Or will it vibrate the dirt off and still function? How does it function in light grass i.e. KR bluestem, Bermuda, coastal?

The second question is if anyone has used a HayMAXX, how well do they hold up. I am about 800 miles from where the distributor is and don't know much about them.

 

[Chris Parrish]

I bought a Haymaxx from Carter Machinery this spring. I had been using a no5 john deere. I did very good with the sickle mower but I have some hay to cut with Vetch in it and it was giving me fits. So I broke down and bought the drum mower. WOW why didnt I buy one sooner. I will cut dang near anything. Mine is holding up good. Ive put about 60acres through it and Im still on the orginal blades. It will mow wet hay it will mow basically any hay. It will also cut as fast as you ride. Buy one and I dont think you will be dissapointed.

 

[Anonymous-0]

I have a Reese drum mower. It will mow anything, wet grass, fine garss, 6 foot high grass. The only complaints I have is it is very heavy and seems to take a lot of horse power to run. It will mow as fast as you care to drive your tractor.

 

[Roy in UK]

Wonderful machines! Thick or thin, they will cut through any crop. Drum mowers ( and lately of course, disc mowers ) have been popular here in the UK since the late 1960's. I cannot remember the last time I saw a sickle bar mower in use over here. I know when we got our first drum mower, our sickle mower was never ever used again.

 

[Bayou Dave]

I'm in South Louisiana with plenty of fireants. I got a drum mower 15 years ago because of what you are dealing with. You will never slow down with that drum mower. Don't know about the HayMaxx, I got a PZ mower.

 

[Anonymous-0]

I just bought a used P-Z 4 drum; had one years ago & loved it. I need a u-joint (one closest to the mower) for the pto shaft; anyone know a nearby place for parts? The dealers here have no idea who distributes P-Z anymore; went several places & it's apparently not a common metric u-joint. Also I'd like to find out a model number if anyone knows (or can make an educated guess); can send pix but all it has on the plate is GA0013830 which is probably the serial number. I've heard of a coupla dealers but they're not real close to here to contact but feel that the first thing will ask for is the model number & would really like to find someone within "reasonable driving distance" (maybe 50 miles or so?) of Waco.

Lew Best near Waco. TX.

 

[Gumby]

I've got a twin drum Zetor mower. It only mows about 6 ft. in a swath, but it will mow down pretty much anything. I've been using an old Vicon disc conditioner now instead of the drum mower only because it also has the rollers that crimp my thick alfalfa which helps with drying time. Drum mowers work very well.

 

[barnrat]

I have a JD 720 sickle bar mower conditioner, a 12 ft Gehl hydro swing disk mower and a 10ft Reese drum mower. I run my drum mower with a 62hp tractor on my roughest ground becuase it has the least trouble with it. Just take a big Crecent wrench with you to straighten a blade if it gets bent.

 

[Anonymous-0]

Most pz mowers i've seen came originally with "WALTERSCHEID" shafts ( german ).

 

[Hay Dr]

ACI Distributors in St. Charles, MO can get any original part for the PZ mowers.

The HayMAXX drum mowers are based off the PZ drum mowers. There are hundreds on the HayMAXX drum mowers sold each year in the USA. The people that have the PZ135,165 & 185 drum mowers will recognize this HayMAXX drum mower.

ACI Distributors

 

[Anonymous-0]

Thanks guys! Mine is much older & "squared off" than the one pictured; I'll try to get pix tomorrow. No big rush; just got little over an inch of rain again; blessed that the flood areas are to the north & south but still gonna take a while for things to dry out enough to think about cutting hay!

Lew near Waco, TX

 

[barnrat]

Find me one like that thats at least 12ft wide, center pivot, and draw bar mounted with NO conditioner. I'll buy it in a heartbeat.

 

[Hay Dr]

Large center pivot cutters are nice but it is a smaller market than you think.

50% of the cattle in the USA are owned by operators that have 50 head or less. 60% of the beef cattle are owned by operators that farm 150 acres or less. What this means is, that cutters 9' and shorter are 70% of the all cutters sold to harvest hay. If you are going to market products the larger market looks better because there are over 2 times as many customers in the 70% than in the 30%.

 

[barnrat]

I milk 40-50 dairy cows on 160 acres so I do fit your statistic. I also, with my neighbor do the crops for about 6 other dairies that are 50 milkers and smaller and a hand full of horse and beef owners. When we make haylage or baleage, we mow as soon as the dew is off in a wide swath, rake in the late afternoon then immediately chop or bale. If I can get rid of the conditioning process I can save fuel and it's been proven to improve feed quality. Vicon is close with the 4000 disk mower, but I want center pivot and draw bar hook up, no 3 point hitch(takes to much time to switch tractors). I'm getting to the point I might just build one. As no dealer can seem to help me.

 

[Hay Dr]

All dairy cattle die as beef cattle. There is a different economy with dairy cattle operators than beef only operators. Dairy operators tend to have larger tractors and are accustomed to making silage. Dairy operators do have income coming from the milk, more now that 2 years ago.

You mentioned about wishing you could mow and use less HP. You need to look at the Vermeer Trailed Mowers. Look for the TM900 to be available soon. That will give you the 13'6" cut you desire and the Vermeer will mow in all positions. The current Vicon 4000 can only mow with the mower out to the side.

 

[barnrat]

Thanks the Vermeer is just what I'm talking about.