Why are throwers unpopular?

[Ryan - WI]

I grew up making small square bales each summer. Every place I did it the baler used either had a thrower or a kicker. The required only the driver in the field. Granted you don't get as many bales in a load. Is that why they are so unpopular? We had racks that the back opened and then you lifted the deck with a hoist and the hay came tumbling out. That sure seems better than stacking (and lifting) it twice.

 

[Anonymous-0]

The throwers were popular here in NY, especially the JD hydraulic ejectors. One man can fill wagons but it still takes people to unload and stack in the barn. Traditionally that was a job we hired high school boys to do in the summer. Alas trying to find boys who will do that work even for $10-15/hr cash is hard any more. As you know due to weather when you need them you need them now not when it is convienient for them. So the move was toward even more mechanization. The ejectors eliminated one lift and stack, the stackwagons eliminated the second. To accomodate the stackwagons the ejectors came off and bales were dropped in the field. Bigger packages (large round or square) are also geared to mechanized hay makeing and feeding.

 

[centralilbaler]

If i was still doing squares, i'd definately go with a kicker. Its getting too difficult to get any help anymore

 

[kyhayman]

I think a lot depends on location and local custom. I associate bale kickers with latitudes north of the Ohio River and primarily east of the Mississippi River. In the west, its not a problem to leave hay on the ground for a few days (in most years) hence the greater density of automatic bale wagons. In the south, the greater available labor pool (and at least here the large percentage of tenant famers) up until the late 1970's made either option more expensive.

 

[Lanse]

$15 an hour? and you cant find people? I'd be out there in any weather at any time!!

 

[Anonymous-0]

For me, that's one more thing to break! The bale wagon that I have feeds the bales up a chute and they drop in the basket. Then when it's full I just pull a lever to dump them where I want them. Amost no moving parts.

 

[kyle in NY]

well, he did say that he lives in NY.

 

[Walt Davies]

We have had real trouble getting help to buck hay its not a full time job and the pay is not much and its hard, hot and sweaty work. We try to find teenagers to do it but most now have jobs in the fast food market or just don't want to work.
We hire 3 Mexicans who worked hard for one day but never came back the second day. Must have worked them to hard.
I hope to get a bale wagon next year to make it easier on us OLD guys.
I wouldn't pay anyone $15 an hour for farm work it just ain't right and the work is nothing better than $10 an hour if they work hard.
Walt

Boy I remember getting $1.00 an hour and was happy to get that.

 

[Lanse]

Yeah, I'm in OH

 

[Luke S]

I too have paid $15 an hour and still can't get help. One day I had help and at 4PM they said gotta go to a four wheeler race, see ya. So I had to bale the rest on the ground and then go back and pick them up by hand by myself. I said enough of that non-sense and ordered a new accumulator and grapple.

 

[noncompos]

Walt, with all due respect, I also remember getting $1 an hour (and considering it fair to pretty good wages)...but then I took it to the gas station and bought 18 cents a gallon gas, or a good big burger (don"t recall if fries or a drink was included, but it had lettuce and tomato, and was a meal in itself) for 25 cents...

 

[dej(Jed)]

Sure sounds like a bunch of farmers talking.
I grew up on a farm and picked up a lot of square bales. $15 an hour for a few days work each summer isn't worth it. Get a kicker or
an accumulator.

 

[Anonymous-0]

It seems to me like the thrower's were alot more common in dairy country. I think part of the reason for that is that when labor wasn't available for small square bales most of the beef cow guy's went to round bales because they didn't need real high quality hay like the dairy guys. Generally speaking the dairy farmers wouldn't put up as much dry hay since they fed alot of silage and so the throwers let them put up high quality hay in small squares where they didn't need to bale super large quantities of hay.

 

[DarwinCam]

We didn't get a thrower until my brothers left home...Dad and I were it. I welded a small hydraulic cylinder on to the side of the thrower, and would tweak it to the left and right as I drove, and I could put 10 to 20 more than hand stacked. We just just used long livestock gates on the sides of the rack.

I would get to the point where I could slide a bale down the top pipe clear to the end.

One thing I didn't like about the bales was if they were left overnight, it seemed like they were all messed up and were a bit more difficult to stack in the barn. None of our neighbors had them...and we were one of the few that picked them up in the field when baled. But then again we were one of the last to have small square bales too.

 

[Anonymous-0]

I have a thrower on my bailer. My wagons are 8x18 can get 105-115 bails on a wagon. I mow,rake,and bail myself.Sometimes my wife will run the bailer so I can help unload.If we have the help.So,up to the point of putting the hay in the barn,it's a one man operation.

 

[jonathan s]

wow i would be out there in a heart beat, i worked on a frm for 2 an hour and i liked it.

 

[JT]

I thought we were doing good when we baled, stacked on a wagan, took to barn put in barn and we all got paid .02 a bale. I would have thought I was rich at $15.00 an hour. I do not even make $15.00 an hour now. But my back and shoulders could not take that like it used to when I was younger. I just think the younger generation do not understand real work, so they look for mommy and daddy to take care of them and give 'em what they want and they do not have to work.

 

[Mark]

Funny thing reading this thread. My age is showing on me...hard!

First, I never seen an automatic bale wagon until I went to Colorado on a hunting trip about 11 years ago. I watched in amazement as this man drove along on this contraption that gathered the bales and STACKED them...then dumped them out in a big rick.....da---um!

The first round baler I ever saw was probably 25-30 years ago and barring a few running antiques, I haven't seen a square baler in use, since. That is also why I have never seen a kicker in action!!!

As for $15 an hour......this generation is just smarter than mine/ours. There's a better way to make a buck than working like a brute...and they know it. I wouldn't buck hay for $15 hour.....I know how the man paying $15 an hour wants to drive his bale wagon then. I know how many bales I'd have to toss all the while going on a dead trot. Screw that!

There was the day I could hoss a 70 pound bale higher than my head for hours on end, have hay seeds crawling down my neck and sweat burning my eyes while the sun beat down unmercifully.....for $2 an hour. Huh uh...nope, ain't doing that ever again. Sometimes being 50 isn't so bad....I'm a bit slower, but in many ways a lot smarter.

 

[ohio]

if you're using the hay yourself, it's ok, but most people don't want to buy hay that's been all jacked up. i'd much rather unload and stack hay in the barn that was stacked on the wagon than hay that was haphazardly tossed into a kicker wagon. but if you have no help, what can you do?

 

[ohio]

boy, i did it for $2.50! (when i was in jr. high. worked all the way up to $5.75 in high school, but i carried alot more responsibility then!) and we put up about 25,000 bale a year! (stacking wagons behind a n.h. hayliner. they might have been misshapen and inconsistant, but they were light!)

 

[Don-Wi]

We buy hay from a guy who pretty much makes all small squares with a kicker. He did just buy a round baler this year, a NH that can make a 4x up to 6' bale.

We got one load this year that was last year's second crop, still in the wagon he baled it in. Talk about messed up bales!! Most were ok, but there were quite a few that had just turned into pretzels. Makes it hard to stack them good & tight in the barn that way, but the price is right so we just keep on buying from him.

I think he's got atleast 40 kicker wagons by now, and he keeps on buying them up at auction, whenever the price is right.

Donovan from Wisconsin