On the baler they fixed one of the belts. Apparently the belt was starting to shred/get loose near the stitching. The belt only needed about 3 inches of a newer belt. But because the new belt section had to be stitched in, their minimum length is five feet so that stitching isn't that close to one another.
The other baler problem was the bearings in one of the rollers was shot and would cause the roller tension to freeze. They believe that was what caused the fire as the bearings probably locked up and overheated.
To repair the baler they has to dump the partial bale still inside the baler. They never bothered to try to net wrap the bale before dumping it. So they threw that bale away.
The baler's repair price was $1100. About $160 for parts, and about $940 for labor. Not cheap.
I planned to bale Donna's hay first thing on Saturday. So I drove to her place Friday after bringing my tractor and baler home. I hadn't tested the baler at the dealership as I was in a hurry to get home before rush hour traffic really took off. At Donna's place the baler monitor said the baler's gate was open. It was not. I opened and closed the gate but the monitor still said the gate was open. I couldn't figure out what was wrong. Donna's place was on the way home for the repair guy so he stopped by after work. When working on my tractor they had disconnected the baler from the tractor. It was reconnected when I got the tractor and baler. But they hadn't reconnected the monitor's cable. And I hadn't noticed that they hadn't reconnected the cable. Once the monitor was reconnected everything worked fine. Why the monitor thought the baler's gate was open when it wasn't connected is strange.
Saturday I baled Donna's oat crop. Everything worked fine. Not a single problem. Which for me at this time is amazing. I was able to bale her crop faster than normal. All the bales were wrapped correctly with no tears of the net wrap. All the bales looked uniform. I made about eight and two-thirds of a bale.
Back home I finished baling my hayfield. I completed the ninth bale and then made a quarter of a bale. And then I was done baling. I spent a long time - hours - using an air hose to blow out and clean all of the baler. I still had bits and pieces of matted hay in the baler to clean from when I used a garden hose to put out the fire.
My neighbor Curtis wasn't around to haul the bales back to my place. I didn't want to wait as the weather is predicted to change. So I loaded a bale in my pickup and drove home. I then was able to push the bale out of the pickup and then go get another bale. The last bale I put on the tractor's bale spear to bring home. So all the bales are now stacked.
I am extremely happy I am finally done baling my hay for the year. What should have taken a day and a half had taken almost three weeks. Now I can get on with my other projects.
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| Donna's oat crop |
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| Donna's oat crop |
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| The rest of my field |
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| The small remaining hay bale |
Donna had a little grass hay in addition to the oat crop. The grass hay is the darker part of the hay bale.
When I pushed the bales out of the pickup's bed the bales would end up on their end. While one can stack bales on top of standing bales, the rest of my stack isn't set up this way. Besides with a bale spear it is harder to spear a standing bale. So I tipped the bales on their sides.
I got lots of hay bales this year as they all won't fit inside the hayshed.
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