Hay baling done

Work to do today.

I finished baling my hay today.  Barely.   Unlike yesterday things started out well today.  But things ended with a problem.   I only had one or two bales where part of the net wrap caught on the baler's belt.  One time the net wrap wouldn't quit so I had to stop the PTO.  When I restarted the PTO the net wrap did not start back up and I was able to unload the hay bale.

Overly net wrapped hay bale.

When cutting the hayfield earlier I noticed where the deer had laid in the grass.  Now I noticed where the deer messed with a windrow to get at the grass underneath.

The green areas is where the windrows were before I baled the hay.

Then when I got to the area where last year I started to have real baler problems, this year my tractor started to act up.  I run at 20 to 21 rpms.  But now the tractor would slow down on its own a number of times to 15 to 16 rpms.  I have no idea why.    For a while then back up to 20-21 rpms.  I was able to bale the hay so I kept going.

Then when baling the last large hay bale I saw a belt was missing on the baler.  Also, the second belt from the right was trying to move under the most right belt.  My bale size is "60" when done.  I was at "57" so I kept going as I quickly reached "60" and then unloaded the bale.  Before unloading the bale I made the baler net wrap the bale a second time as I didn't trust the bale was completely or correctly net wrapped the first time. With the bale unloaded I was able to move the belt back into place.  Now to find the missing belt.

Here is the bale after I unloaded it.  Looks like net wrapping the bale two times was the right thing to do.  The left side was the missing belt area,  The right side was the partially moved belt area.

Where is the missing baler belt?   I found it in the one end of the hay bale.  I pulled it out.

I don't know why the belt tore from one side where the belt fastens together.

I had a little hay left to bale.  Since it wasn't a full bale I decided to try to bale it so then I would have all the hay baled.   Below is how the last bale turned out.

Without the belt to pack the hay, some of the hay wasn't packed into the bale but remained in the baler when I unloaded the last bale.  So I unloaded the loose hay and put it in the barn.

Then it was time to clean the baler.  Last year I used my air compressor to clean the baler and again did so.  I don't know why hay particles go everywhere in the baler, even inside the closed door area.  Other areas of the baler had even more hay to clean.  It took me two hours to blow all the hay out of the baler.  You'd think it would be quicker to do.  I had to clean the baler from top to bottom.  Hay everywhere.

So now I have to figure out how to repair the belt and get it back on the baler.

Even with my problems this year, overall this year the baling went better as last year was a nightmare with baler problems, bad bale problems, and rain.  It took me a lot longer to bale my hay last year.

I looked at last year's post.  I had made 74 bales then, not the 59 bales I thought I made.  This year I made 56 and 1/3 bales.  Next year I will fertilize the field to get my bale totals back up there.