Once I straightened the hay baler's twisted belt I started to bale hay. I got an earlier start than yesterday. Little good that did me. For the first hay bale part of the net wrap got caught in the baler. So when I move the bale later I will have to tie some twine around it once I lift it off the ground.
The other problem was that hay had wrapped around several of the rollers. That never happened before. The middle of each roller was hay free. The hay would be between the roller and the belts. I was concerned this would continue to build larger with each bale made. So I had to use a knife to cut through the tightly wound hay. I still couldn't pull all the hay out from between the roller and belt so I had to run the baler briefly over and over and the belts would move and loosen some of the hay each time. After 20 to 25 minutes I got rid of the round hay from the rollers.
Another thing is that I didn't have any loose chaff in the baler I had to clear out after unloading a bale.
Here is a photo of a lightly wound roller and one that I could get a good photo of. Most of the hay wrappings were larger and thicker.
I made a second bale. This time the bale was wrapped correctly when I unloaded it. But again several of the rollers were tightly wound with hay. I got some of the wrapped hay cut and then it began to rain. Great. Just great. We got another .01 of an inch of rain. I parked the baler and turned it off.
I checked the baler's manual to see why hay would wrap on a roller and nothing was mentioned. I called the local John Deere dealership and talked to their service department to learn why this would happen. They never heard this happening before. They had no idea why.
Donna stopped by and agreed the hay was not wet but that it was sticking and wrapped tight around the rollers.
Since it had rained and was now damp I took a break and didn't make any more bales. The wooden salt feeder in the north pasture needed some repairs as the cattle abused it badly the last time they were in the north pasture. I hadn't gotten around to fixing it until now. I'll see how long it lasts before the cattle abuse it again.
I then had time to make one bale before I had to move irrigation pipes. This time the bale wrapping wouldn't stop. I had to stop the PTO and only then did the control wake up, stop wrapping and cut the wrap so the bale could be unloaded. This bale was wrapped two to three times the normal wrap. But the baler's rollers were not wound with hay.
After I moved the irrigation pipes I had time to make one more bale. It was dark when I unloaded the bale. It seemed to be wrapped okay. I'll know more when I can see the bale in the sunlight tomorrow morning.
So, all in all, I only was able to make 4 bales today. I have lots of windrows left to bale. Hopefully tomorrow will be better.
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