Hay Making Equipment Recommendations

[Texas Ranch Man]

Here we go, I am completely frustated with being at the mercy of the people who cut and bale for a fee. I need to purchase the equipment to do it myself. Not new stuff, but used equipment. I would like suggestions on each of the four components
#1. Tractor Make and Model
#2. Cutter Make and Model
#3. Rake Make and Model
#4. Round Bailer Make and Model
I am leaning towards JD 4020, after that I have not a clue. Surly there is this type of equipment with tried and true reputations as reliable and of quality manufacture, which has proved itself venerable over time. Please list your favorites.
Remember I would like to do this for under $20,000 Total.

 

[Stepper]

I think you are going to be pushing it to get all of that equipment for under $ 20 k even at buying older equipment. But i know of a really good New Holland that a friend of mine traded in just recently. It is a 4610 with only 130 orginal hours on it. I think it is a 90 something year model with a front end loader for $ 12,500. That is a good price and i mean the tractor is in excellent condition.

 

[msscamp]

Remember I would like to do this for under $20,000 Total.

Isn't happening - not with all four and quality equipment. I'm not sure you could pull it off with even 3 of the 4 components and still get quality equipment.

 

[Grippie]

I bought an old David Badley rake, an old Kuhn single swath tedder, and a NH 479 haybine and a NH kicker baler (good shape) for a total of $3000. I had to put $300 worth of chains and sprockets on the mower and have been doing 100 acres for 3 years with this equipment. Deal can be found. Grease, grease, grease!

 

[HAY MAKER]

TX R Man,You can probably find some used equipment for 20k,if you can work on it yourself and parts are availible,you see when you start makin your own hay,then you are at the mercy of folks that repair equipment when you break down,that being the busiest time of the year for repairs you will wait your turn and you will pay dearly.
What kinda hay are you thinking about baleing,you mentioned a round baler so I guess you are wanting to round bale,the reason I mention this is because you also are set on a 4020 ?
I havent seen many of them with cabs,you might want to think about round baleing in an open stationed tractor,I know some folks do it but not me .............good luck
PS MY best guess & this depends on how much hay you are baleing & the type.
used cab tractor..........$12500
used cutter.................$5000
used rake....................$2500
used round baler...........$10000
I realize this is out of your targeted price range,but I think if I was buying used equipment this is what it would take to get something solid that would'nt break down with weather threatning and all the repair folks too busy to help you.

 

[ddivinia]

$20K is going to be tight. I have been doing the same analysis and here is what I came up with on used gear:

New:
Rake - $3,000
disc cutter - $9,000
square baler - $20,000
Round Bale - $27,000

Used
rake - $1500
disc cutter - $4,500
square bale - $5-9,000
round baler - $7-18,000 (lots of options here)

Now, this is good quality equipment. If you get a heck of a deal, you migth get the baling equipment fro $10K or so.

Tractor - even more options. You could buy a new John Deere 5103 for like $12K - just depends on how big a machine you need/want.

Cab - add more
FEL - Add more - needed? Could use a spike on the 3pt to move bales.

Tractor - 10,000
rake - 1,500
cutter - 4,500
round baler 7,000
--------------------
$23,000

Not under $20k - but pretty close. If you shop for a while - you will be really close.

D.

Here we go, I am completely frustated with being at the mercy of the people who cut and bale for a fee. I need to purchase the equipment to do it myself. Not new stuff, but used equipment. I would like suggestions on each of the four components
#1. Tractor Make and Model
#2. Cutter Make and Model
#3. Rake Make and Model
#4. Round Bailer Make and Model
I am leaning towards JD 4020, after that I have not a clue. Surly there is this type of equipment with tried and true reputations as reliable and of quality manufacture, which has proved itself venerable over time. Please list your favorites.
Remember I would like to do this for under $20,000 Total.

 

[alabama]

I bought my first hay making equipment back in 2000 and used the small tractor I had. I have up graded since but it let me get started but I was only cutting 50 acres at the time.
I started with the following:
Tractor, JD 2020 with 143 loader for $5000
Cutter, Vicon 4 disk
Rake, Ford 505 side delivery
Roller, JD 510
I bought the cutter, rake and roller for $2000


Total counting tractor that I had to have anyway was $7000

I still use the rake and roller but have added a JD 6300 tractor a new cutter and old fluffer and a used wheel rake.

 

[Saltydawg]

I use a NH 477 Haybine and a NH 273 Baler with a kicker. Spent 2k total for the pair of them at equipment auctions and cut 60 acres of hay field every year with them.
Both have been very reliable and when they do break parts are easy to find and not ridiculously expensive.

I haul both of them around with a Case/David Brown 1210 tractor. It's a 65 or so HP tractor. I gave 5k for the tractor about 15 years ago and the only significant repair I've had to do to it is rebuild the hydraulic pump.

I would highly recomend this equipment to anyone. It does a nice job and is pretty reliable. Not the fastest haying setup around but I put up 4-6k bales every year with minimal problems and help.
A larger model haybine would be nice to cover more area in a single pass but my 7 footer gets the job done.

I am looking for a good used Disc bine to speed up the cutting....cause I cant get out of second gear with a sicklebar bine cause it plugs up when the grass comes through too fast.

I won't get rid of the sickle bar bine though...it's just too reliable.

I sure am envious of those guys flying across their fields with the disc mowers though hehe.

 

[dun]

I sure am envious of those guys flying across their fields with the disc mowers though hehe.

I alwasy get a laugh out of the advertisements thta claim it will cut 6 acres an hour, etc. We can;t go fast enough on any of the fields around here to cut that much an hour unless we used a 50 foot mower.

dun

 

[Caustic Burno]

Here we go, I am completely frustated with being at the mercy of the people who cut and bale for a fee. I need to purchase the equipment to do it myself. Not new stuff, but used equipment. I would like suggestions on each of the four components
#1. Tractor Make and Model
#2. Cutter Make and Model
#3. Rake Make and Model
#4. Round Bailer Make and Model
I am leaning towards JD 4020, after that I have not a clue. Surly there is this type of equipment with tried and true reputations as reliable and of quality manufacture, which has proved itself venerable over time. Please list your favorites.
Remember I would like to do this for under $20,000 Total.

You aint going to make it for your budget, also you can buy a lot of hay for 20 G's. with no upkeep year after year.
But if you stuck on the idea I would only look for equipment that I could find parts for in my area. If the local tractor dealership carried Vermeer bailers thats what I would look for etc.

First rule hay equipment only breaks down when you need it and can make a preacher cuss like a sailor.

 

[alabama]

Here we go, I am completely frustated with being at the mercy of the people who cut and bale for a fee. I need to purchase the equipment to do it myself. Not new stuff, but used equipment. I would like suggestions on each of the four components
#1. Tractor Make and Model
#2. Cutter Make and Model
#3. Rake Make and Model
#4. Round Bailer Make and Model
I am leaning towards JD 4020, after that I have not a clue. Surly there is this type of equipment with tried and true reputations as reliable and of quality manufacture, which has proved itself venerable over time. Please list your favorites.
Remember I would like to do this for under $20,000 Total.

You aint going to make it for your budget, also you can buy a lot of hay for 20 G's. with no upkeep year after year.
But if you stuck on the idea I would only look for equipment that I could find parts for in my area. If the local tractor dealership carried Vermeer bailers thats what I would look for etc.

First rule hay equipment only breaks down when you need it and can make a preacher cuss like a sailor.

Caustic is right on this one. I only roll hay so that I can have hay in the dry years. If I could buy hay for a fair price in dry years i would sell all my hay equipment today. But like this year with no rain. Lots of folks paying two prices for hay and it will get higher by fall and higher in winter. One more cutting and i will have mine and if we get a last cutting I will sel it for the same price as last year.

 

[ChrisB]

I started out with an older 1090 Hesston mower I bought at an auction for $1500 just to get by for a few years, I still have it 10 years later and it works better today than when I bought it. I replaced 1 bearing and put a new sickle and new guards on for about $350. I would still like to upgrade to a disc mower though. New Holland 489 mowers are popular and they have been making them a long time. I would be very leary of buying an older disc mower as tempting as it may be. They can be costly to repair. Sickle mowers have been around a long time and are still being made today with very few changes.

Good 5-bar rakes seem to hold their value pretty good and will probably cost between $1000-$1500 from what I've seen. I prefer the v-rakes though. They may not be as easy to find but will probably cost about the same. Not many moving parts on them so once you get it field ready you shouldn't have too many problems with a rake.

A baler will be your biggest hurdle in my opinion. There are a lot of used balers out there for under $5000, but many of them are just worn out. If you are going to spend a little more on a piece of equipment, I think it should be on a baler. If you have problems cutting hay, you just wait until you can get the haybine fixed, but if the hay is ready to bale and you break down, you could really be regretting your decision. I had a New Holland 850, it ate up the hay, but I had a lot of problems with bearings and chains. Also the bales didn't hold their shape, but that could have been operator error as much as anything. I would stay away from the chain balers, but that is just me. I now have a Hesston 5540; it's a decent baler I guess, it cost $4000. I haven't had any major problems with it but doesn't eat up the hay as fast as I would like. I also used a New Holland 650 for a couple years, that was a good machine. I would guess one of them would cost around $7000-$8000 now. I have been told that JD didn't make a very good baler until the 30? series, just what I've been told. Vermeer has been around a long time, and I still see some of their older models being used so that might be a good place to start.

As was mentioned before: Make sure parts are available, and keep it greased. Just don't expect an older used machine to be able to mow or bale as fast as the new ones. You will have repairs to make, hopefully they are minor. But just in case, keep the numbers of the custom operators handy.

 

[El_Putzo]

As far as the tractor, a 4020 should easily do what you are wanting, a little overkill for raking, but unless you buy a smaller tractor just for that (probably not feasible), it's your only option. These are just my opinions and the prices I've observed on good used equipment in these parts:

JD 4020 - $10,000-12,000
NH 256 Rollabar rake - $1,500 or less
NH ??? or Heston 1091 haybine - $3,000-$5000
NH 688 Round baler - $5,000-$8,000

Of course these price ranges are heavily dependant on who's at the auction or what kind of deals you can find. Also the condition of the machines will dictate price obviously. As you can tell, I'm a little partial to New Holland when it comes to hay equipment. Weve used some Heston and some John Deere, but neither have had the reliability of the NH.

 

[mitchwi]

This is what we did as startup for hay equip

JD 4010 - $5500 (multiple uses also put a loader on it)
IH 1066 - $5000 (multiple uses also)
NH 256 Rake - $700
NH 258 Rake - $1100
Gehl Haybine - $3500 (sorry can't remember model)
Case 8430 Baler - $11000 (this was only thing we bought brand new)

These were purchased over a period of years (2 or 3) back in '93 to '95. Haybine has been the biggest headache, baler has been problem free, until last year we were having prob with hay accumulating on rollers and therefore creating the belts to cross. Put new belts on before 1st crop, works like brand new!

We have a small baler as we have large, steep hills and we don't have a lot of acres to bale.... usually do 3 crops on average of 30 to 40 acres of hay.

 

[Stocker Steve]

Used hay equipment prices are pretty seasonal and there is a lot of older used equipment around. We bought a New Holland 256 rake last fall for $500. A well used 12' swather runs $1,000 to $2,000. You do not need to spend 20 grand if you are a decent mechanic.

 

[Caustic Burno]

Used hay equipment prices are pretty seasonal and there is a lot of older used equipment around. We bought a New Holland 256 rake last fall for $500. A well used 12' swather runs $1,000 to $2,000. You do not need to spend 20 grand if you are a decent mechanic.

He is talking about buying the tractor as well, takes a pretty good tractor to stand up to bailing hay. Tractor stays pretty bowed up running a pto at 540 on a disc cutter.

 

[Stocker Steve]

I have had good success in buying haying equipement at auction - - but it seems like you need to go to about 3 of them if you are looking for a deal on a specific piece of equipement. I usually drag some unplanned project home from the other 2 sales as a consolation...

I am not sure about the best approach for buying used tractors. Some of them need an overhaul at about 5,000 hours and that is a big project for the average mechanic. We had to overhaul one John Deere in each of the last two years. A neighbor does it for about $2,400 each.

What is a typical for hours between overhauls on your tractors? Is there an inexpensive off color model that holds up well?

 

[TXBobcat]

Here's an ad (not mine) I saw online in the Thrifty Nickel. Don't know where you are exactly in central Texas, but this is east of Waco.

HAY EQUIPMENT, selling due to health, 1066 Massey Fergussion tractor $8,500. Hay Rake $2,500. Cutter $2,750. 550 Hesston Bailer $3,800. Equipment located in Groesbeck area, mobile 281-543-1739 or 318-748-6025

 

[cfpinz]

I sure am envious of those guys flying across their fields with the disc mowers though hehe.

I alwasy get a laugh out of the advertisements thta claim it will cut 6 acres an hour, etc. We can;t go fast enough on any of the fields around here to cut that much an hour unless we used a 50 foot mower.

dun

I can average around 4 acres/hour in a good field. Maybe a little more if it's perfectly flat/smooth. The mower will go faster but I'm not brave (stupid) enough to ride the tractor that fast.

cfpinz

 

[donnaIL]

Our hay equip consists of:

JD 4020D (multiple uses) and is not a cab tractor
JD 350 9' sickle mower (it does the job)
NH 256 rake
JD 214T square baler
Int 241 big round baler

We got all for about $12,000. We got a good deal on the tractor 5 yrs ago...most 4020's I see now go for around 10,000. Luckily my husband is handy and can fix anything, all the hay equipment required parts and $$., the tractor just regular maintenance.

You'll probably want to add a planter to your list and a sprayer so you can spray for weeds..we got those also.

I agree the baler is where I would spend the money. We went to auctions and bought what we could afford and it puts the hay up. We don't like either of the balers, and when we can afford it we will probably get a Vemeer. Right now it gets the job done and the cows don't care how pretty the bales look.

Donna