Second hay cutting baled

I got my second cutting of hay baled on Wednesday.  It was a long day.  A very long day.  I got up at 7 am to move irrigation pipes. I had to get more diesel for my tractor.   Then the county weed department called.  I have been after them for a month to spray the weeds in the property across the road.  Their department has a communication problem among employees as they didn't share my contact information and would go to the wrong places.  Even on the phone with me they were in the wrong area.  I finally got them here and showed them the weeds and how to access the property.

So I didn't get a chance to add to my 5 1/2 hours of sleep.

Days ago I had gone over most everything on my newer baler except for resetting the net wrap.  Supposedly it is a good idea to reset the net wrap start if it had not been used in a long time.  But I couldn't figure out how to do it.

At the start of baling a problem rose immediately.  The pickup is controlled hydraulically.  I had tested it days ago and it worked fine.  When I started baling the pickup wouldn't lower.  I fiddled around with the hoses and lever, etc. but to no avail.  Eventually I manually lowered the pickup to get it to work correctly.

I must have PTSD from the disastrous start to baling this Spring as I was aggravated that a problem happened in the exact same spot at the exact same time when baling.

This newer baler has some things that happen automatically as the baler has some electronic controls.  A person sets the bale size electronically.  As the bale is formed you can see the size increase on the monitor starting once the bale size reaches 30 inches.  At the final size - which I set to 60 inches - the baler automatically, after a few seconds delay, starts wrapping the bale.  No more do I have to get out, tie the end of twine to some hay and toss it into the baler, hydraulically move the twine arms, cut the twine, then tie the end of the twine to the baler grill to avoid the twine getting sucked up into the baler when making a new bale.  Now I sit there and in seconds the bale is wrapped.  The monitor tells me when the wrapping is done and that I can now hydraulically eject the bake.

The first bale did not wrap correctly.  When I didn't reset the wrap in the beginning I thought what was the worst that could happen?  The bale wouldn't wrap.  Wrong.  The worst that happened was that the net wrap was somehow sucked into the bale as it was being made.  I started with a partial roll of net wrap and all of the roll was sucked into the bale.  Now that I am done baling I will have to unroll that bale and try to get the wrap out of the hay and then re-bale the hay.  That's for another day.

I had an extra roll of net wrap.  So I loaded it into the baler and set it up according to the instructions.  I was paranoid and several times while baling I checked to see if the wrap was being sucked into the bale.

It wasn't.

When it came time to wrap the second bale, it wrapped.  But not correctly.  I had the baler set to wrap the bale 1.9 times.  Once the bale was ejected it appeared the bale wasn't even wrapped once.  I had to unroll the bale, pull the net wrap out of the hay, and re-bale the hay.  Which is a pain all the way around.

I changed the wrapping to be 2.3 times.  The third bale was wrapped.  But part of the wrap had a tear.  I didn't have to re-wrap the bale but it was disappointing.  I had my newer baler and was looking forward to nicely wrapped bales and the first three were poor.  Not a good start by any means.

But things improved.  Most all the remaining bales were wrapped correctly.  I had two problem bales.  Over halfway through I had another bale that was partially wrapped which I had to re-bale.  The other problem bale was one that would not stop wrapping.  Panicked, I stopped the PTO and checked the baler. I was afraid all my net wrap was being sucked into the bale.  I couldn't find anything wrong.  When I re-started the PTO the monitor informed me the wrapping was complete.  After I ejected the bale I found it was way over-wrapped.

Over-wrapped bale

I also expected the bales to be level.  Because one can't see into the baler as the belts block the view, the monitor has two bars showing the bale "level" so one can see if one side of the bale is higher or lower than the other.  It so, one adjusts the hay intake to be more on the other side of the baler to even the bale out.

As you can see I need practice.  Not sure how I got a barrel shaped bale, as seen below.  In the background of the previous photo you can see how a number of bales came out, that is one side is a little smaller than the other.

A few other quirks were as seen below.  I don't know why the net wrap didn't go all the way to the side of the bale.

Overall I am pleased with my newer baler. I am certainly happy I don't have get off the tractor multiple times when wrapping each bale.


While I was making hay bales Donna was also making bales.  Since I have more than enough large bales - so much that not all can fit into my hay shed - I wanted some small bales.  This way I didn't have to buy extra small bales from Wyatt.

Donna encountered my hay field jinx.  When setting up her baler's tongue position somehow the PTO's collar got stuck in the hitch's bolt.  I had to get a crowbar to pry the bolt and PTO collar loose.  This has never happened to Donna before.

She was cruising and making small bales fast.  My initial estimate was that I could hold at least 180 bales in my barn to supplement that bales I had left over from last year.  The first 150 plus bales were made without a problem.  Then her baler started to have knotter problems.  By the time she had to quit she had made 174 bales.   The barn could hold more, but I believe the amount of small bales is more than enough for this Winter.

Wyatt was out camping at a lake and not available to fix her baler's knotter problem. I haven't a clue how small balers work.  Donna took her baler home.  She came back by the time I was finishing re-baling the second partially wrapped bale from before.

Then it was time to move irrigation pipes for the second time that day.  It was dark by the time they were moved.  Then I had Donna drive my pickup while I loaded bales into it.  We got all 174 bales in the barn with multiple pickup loads.  It was 11:30 pm by the time I was done.  The day's high temperature had been 93 degrees and it was still around 70 degrees by the time I was done.

I was exhausted and covered head to foot in hay residue.  But it all had to be done as rain was in the forecast.  It briefly sprinkled shortly after I got my small bales in the barn.  It rained a little overnight and then most of the rain came this afternoon.  Two tenths of an inch.   Another close shave in getting my hay done without it getting wet.  My hay is excellent.

Today I was tired. Very tired.  I got up at 7:30 am as I had one last move of the irrigation pipes.  This evening I completed irrigating the pasture and turned the pump off.  Later, once I lay the mainline pipe back out across the hayfield, I will irrigate the hayfield one last time.

I went back to bed and slept until 2 pm. It took me another 45 minutes for me to get the energy to get out of bed.  After breakfast and a shower I fell back asleep on the couch for a few more hours.  In the evening I went out for a 15 mile bicycle ride and that re-energized me.

I'm getting old for this.