Inverter vs. Tedder vs. Wrapper ?

[Stocker Steve]

Hayin times are tough in fly over country. Too much rain. Hay is damp and beaches are closed due to bacterial blooms...

Seems to be several schools of hay thought:

- Rake two windrows up into a one big rope. Not my favorite.
- Wrap it all. Sounds good till you price one. U$S 29,500 last time I checked.
- Tedder the **** out of it. OK for grass, except that tedders are imported and on back order.
- Dig out the old NH inverter and flip windrows that are wet on the bottom. Out of business dairy inverters are $3,000 to $4,200. Is there a downside to this approach?

 

[SmokinM]

Never used one so I can't say. Must be what they were doing to alfalfa the other day outside of Detroit Lakes. Welcome to VA first cut hay weather. Should of called I could have brought you a nice new tedder. Everybody in my neck of the woods wouldn't be without one. Your right great for grass but no go on legumes. Grass does look good up here and the alfalfa is incredible. In the old days we would take a rollabar rake stand it up then flip it back and forth every couple hours. Anything you can do to put air in it.

 

[Aaron]

Been raking hay into rope for many years here. Takes time, but nothing is cheaper than one old 256.

You should just go buy a wrapper and...

 

[Nesikep]

don't know the acreage you need to do, but we have a little side delivery rake, doesn't turn it into rope, but it's not very fast either.

Back in the day people had silage pits, just run a chopper through it and dump it in, put a tarp over it.

 

[jdg]

I've seen fairly good shape anderson in-line wrappers sell for $10-$16k around here ($30k new abouts), but you still have to be wrapping for a few hundred cows for it to be worth the investment...unless you were doing custom work. I assume you're talking about a thin stemmed grass, and not a summer annual, so a tedder would certainly help, but won't make the rain stop. Never used an inverter, but sounds cheaper than a wrapper. We just finished wrapping about 300 4x5 bales of hybrid bermuda and about 6o 4x6 bales of it this week. I"ve been cutting the baleage hay in the afternoon and baling the next morning when the dew dries. Leaves me more time to get everything wrapped in the afternoon. Preserves the quality of the forage, but there are downside to baleage. (lifespan, potential bacteria/fungus, and more difficult to move from farm to farm once ensiled)

 

[Texasmark]

I think I'm getting the gist of this conversation. "Rope" apparently means what happens when raking long stemmed/leafed crops with a parallel/roll bar/whatchamacallit JD 500 or 600 series as an example.

Simple solution. Make your rope and come back on the next pass with your tedder and scatter it just to be raked back up again after getting what drying you can get on that pass. I saved some nice spring hay that would otherwise have been junk by just keeping it rolling...spent all day pass after pass. Rakes and tedders don't require much hp so using my Branson 2400 all it really cost me was time and being retired, I have enough to get my farming done.

I got my tedder, a Murray from ASC shipped to my farm motor freight. Not your Cadillac of rakes but not priced like one either. I modified mine....took the wheels completely off because I couldn't get the 5*ish slant I wanted with them in the way. It's a 2 basket 3 pt and doesn't need them anyway.

 

[snoopdog]

I still don't understand the "rope" thing, and had never heard of an inverter until a few weeks ago. Saw it on a for sale sight under 2k, watched a video and it looks like the stuff to me for damp or rained on hay. Not sure how much tractor/fuel it takes to run one though.

 

[cowrancher75]

they have 'inverters' here.. piqua (sp?) all over teh place .. i know where ones at for 800 bucks.. it looks nice.


they just go over the windrow and flip the bottom to the top for people who don't know. really good in damp wet world where i live.

I just flip down 1 side of my v rake.. get at the right spot so only 2 of the wheels hit the windrow and it'll flip them over perfect

 

[ERNIBIGB]

I just flip down 1 side of my v rake.. get at the right spot so only 2 of the wheels hit the windrow and it'll flip them over perfect

Been doing this occasionally.Works well when tedder is not available.

 

[Stickney94]

I inherited an NH inverter from my dad. It honestly hasn't and doesn't get used much. A wheel rake at the right speed can do nearly as good a job.

There are individual bale wrappers for <10K new and even <6k new as well. They are more labor intensive, but when things are going well two ppl can wrap 15 bales an hour which works ok for our little operation. It worked well this week to mow on Mon and rake, bale, and wrap on Tuesday.

 

[Stocker Steve]

Did some inverter research. Some modify them to reduce plugging...
Was told I needed both a tedder and a rotary rake to be a real hay man. I may not make it.
Plan to wrap some oats hay next week. They are paying $3.75 for oats here, but mine has a lot of field peas and new seeding in it.

 

[Silver]

Did some inverter research. Some modify them to reduce plugging...
Was told I needed both a tedder and a rotary rake to be a real hay man. I may not make it.
Plan to wrap some oats hay next week. They are paying $3.75 for oats here, but mine has a lot of field peas and new seeding in it.

When we had an inverter we had to modify it so as not to plug up. Legumes were problematic. It was a happy day when that thing left the place.