bushhog & hay cutter in one?

[tncattle]

Is there any piece of equipment that can bush-hog and cut hay also? I don't mean at the same time but will do both without having to buy a bush-hog and hay cutter.

 

[M-5]

Back in the day old timers would remove the side off of bush hog to cut hay. With side off it throws the grass out so it does not get chopped fine.

 

[Bigfoot]

Back in the day old timers would remove the side off of bush hog to cut hay. With side off it throws the grass out so it does not get chopped fine.

I've seen em do that. They would also cut the sides down shorter and put the skids back on. Would make em cut a little shorter.

 

[cowgirl8]

Nothing says you cant bale shredded grass.. We just shredded a field and were tempted to go back and rake it and bale it.
On custom jobs we are often asked to cut road sides, barn lots, etc for hay. Husband always tells them, my mower is not a shredder. It will never be used to clean up land for customers. Some dont understand this..We have this one guy that ask every time for us to cut the roadsides in front of his house.
If your land is clean and you have no trees, there is nothing that says you cant cut it with a hay cutter. You'll have a nice mat of grass over what you cut, if its thick, it will smother the grass under it. Other than that, i cant recall anything sold saying its for both...they cut grass different, but its cut the same....if that makes sense... The only difference is, you can lower and raise a shredder, not sure how good that works on a hay cutter.. maybe it can be raised. I'm cutting right now with our 20 footer and leaving the grass about a foot tall. Just lobbing off the dalis grass heads..i dont think we could do that with a hay cutter....

 

[skyhightree1]

I've bush hogged good grass and decided to take and bale it up cows are it just fine

 

[TN Cattle Man]

Back in the day old timers would remove the side off of bush hog to cut hay. With side off it throws the grass out so it does not get chopped fine.

Still some folks around here that do that... they will also do that to their rotational fields if the cows can't keep up with the grass. They mow it high without chopping it up too fine.

 

[Caustic Burno]

Back in the day old timers would remove the side off of bush hog to cut hay. With side off it throws the grass out so it does not get chopped fine.

Still some folks around here that do that... they will also do that to their rotational fields if the cows can't keep up with the grass. They mow it high without chopping it up too fine.

Pretty common with the old Sidewinder bush hogs with the tire clutch better than the old hateful sickle bars.
Sickle bars and fire ants don't go together

The old Sidewinders were popular because they had high speed gear boxes on them.

 

[arkie1]

First time I've ever seen it but an outfit down the road actually did this with a 15 foot batwing. I drove by and saw them dragging the bush hog across it and just figured that it had went to head so they were knocking it down and just trying to catch it on the next go round. The next day I'll be damd if they weren't raking and baling that same field!

 

[True Grit Farms]

I tried raking and bailing behind my 10' JD mx10. It worked just not very good. The hay was to short and beat up, and the hay wouldn't rake right. I feel that raking hay right is the secret to bailing hay right.

 

[arkie1]

I tried raking and bailing behind my 10' JD mx10. It worked just not very good. The hay was to short and beat up, and the hay wouldn't rake right. I feel that raking hay right is the secret to bailing hay right.

I have always been told that a side delivery rake will works best for short hay. I used one some when I was a teenager but don't really recall if it worked better or not. All we use not is a speed rake mostly to cover more ground in fewer passes.

 

[tncattle]

I like the idea of just baling the grass after cutting it with the bush hog. We're looking into taking on 300 acres to bush hog and bale hay on. This way we bush hog everything and only bale what we want for hay. We're getting a newer 15 ft. or maybe 20 ft. bush hog, baler and rake if the contract is good enough for us to do it.

 

[DLD]

My father in law had a 3 point disc mower without conditioners that we used for rougher cutting after we got a bigger better one (with conditioners) for hay. Great for cutting roadsides and creek banks, and actually handled light brush pretty well. Like someone said earlier, won't chop up the grass like a brush hog, but worked really well for a lot of things.

 

[lavacarancher]

I have used a bush hog to cut hay grazer because I didn't have a crimper/conditioner. It helps to dry the hay a little faster because it breaks up the thick (er) stems better. Works pretty darn good.

 

[Bigfoot]

I have used a bush hog to cut hay grazer because I didn't have a crimper/conditioner. It helps to dry the hay a little faster because it breaks up the thick (er) stems better. Works pretty darn good.

I just might try that.

 

[kickinbull]

I bought an old bushhog brand mower from dealer. He claimed it was for mowing hay also. We did mow some small bottoms one year with a different one. It was the only thing we could get to mow.

 

[cowgirl8]

I have used a bush hog to cut hay grazer because I didn't have a crimper/conditioner. It helps to dry the hay a little faster because it breaks up the thick (er) stems better. Works pretty darn good.

I just might try that.

I would suggest that you only use a shredder on very thick grass and cut it low. I dont think it would work well on shorter finer grass.

 

[lavacarancher]

I have used a bush hog to cut hay grazer because I didn't have a crimper/conditioner. It helps to dry the hay a little faster because it breaks up the thick (er) stems better. Works pretty darn good.

I just might try that.

I would suggest that you only use a shredder on very thick grass and cut it low. I dont think it would work well on shorter finer grass.

Yes, you're right. Would never use a shredder for hay baling on anything but the hay grazer (Sudan) type grasses.

 

[hurleyjd]

I like the idea of just baling the grass after cutting it with the bush hog. We're looking into taking on 300 acres to bush hog and bale hay on. This way we bush hog everything and only bale what we want for hay. We're getting a newer 15 ft. or maybe 20 ft. bush hog, baler and rake if the contract is good enough for us to do it.

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Should work okay just be sure your blades are in good shape and sharp. Even new blades might need a sharper edge on them.