Ha, for sure. Some 50 yrs ago as a child I spent summers in the country with my grandparents. All men would come out in the field with their hand held scythes at sunrise and cut the grass. Women will go out several times to turn hay with hand held rakes. Then both men and women would take a horse buggy out in the field and collect dry hay with hand held forks. It worked! Most households had a cow, and/or a goat, couple of pigs and poultry...some had a horse as well
Back in the day we used a sickle bar all the time and averaged 20,000 bales a season. We never had much trouble with it cloging and we cut some really tall and thick grass. But we ran with some speed usually 5th or 1st high and around 2,000 to 2,500 rpm. The extra speed helped with the cloging issue. By the sickle bar traveling faster before grass had time to collect and fall into it.
Just got my first sickle bar mower two months ago. I grew up on the farm and operated tractors but never have I used hay equipment nor mowed hay, just brush hogged. Thanks for sharing this it really helps.
Hay timing ... in the star rake manual John Deere P140 they wrote ... mow only what you can also turn no later than 2 to 3 hours after the morning cutting. Before night make a row, next morning spread out maybe another go with good weather and then make row 2 hours before pressing, if still not dry make row for the night and repeat the next day as above...
Angle in you outside shoe so that you have at least foot clear of grass so you make your next pass. Helps keep you from build up on the inside ofthebar.
You should't cut the grass until it reaches your knee if you want good hay off course. This is how we do it here in Kosovo any grass lower than your knee is a no cut zone
How come nobody ever put a guard in front of the sickle bar to knock down the mole mounds? Maybe a 1 inch round bar or something that ran parallel in front of the mower about 2 feet or so. Set at mower height... You know, just something to level out the mounds before the sickle mowed it.
Im sure lots of people have told you to look for a used tetter. I have a different suggestion for you. Maybe look for a drum mower with conditioning teeth on the drums, or weld some on a drum mower you buy. You will be able to cut faster, miss less, get better breakage on the stems which will let you dry more evenly and faster. My processing times speed way up and I burn way less diesel.
really any work on PTO implement should be with tractor not running. That said, thanks for the video. I cut hay with a mower like this for years before I could afford a rotary mower.
Hey, that's me back in 1959. Grease those certs. Yep. Always got along fine with that sickle cutter bar on the Ford. I can still smell it. Sad thing I hated was all the birds we had back in my day. You should have seen the birds in the hay fields. We had clover and Alfalfa fields. No birds? Regards...
SSLFamilyDad I should have clarified better about cutting the hay in the fields. There would be so many birds with nests. I hated cutting the hay. Apparently the pesticides have taken a terrible toll on the birds. This in turn probably means more bugs. How about spittle bugs? Do you see many of those bugs out in the field? I lived in Michigan. The barn swallows were many. Glad to hear you still have them. Regards...
Im thinking of cutting the hinge part off my sickle mower and extending it out since i trample it with my tire since my ford 501? Is mounted on my JD 520 with 45w loader. The loader makes me have tires out
@@SSLFamilyDad maybe you should do two and let them go to seed, so when you feed your stock it will seed your pasture as well. I would guess it works best when rolling out sound bales.
We have a pasture that needs to be cut for hay. Since we have been renting it we have had a lot of trouble getting someone to cut and bale it. We've had three different custom hay guys cut it and all have got out of the business. I mentioned to my dad about using my sickle bar mower. He said you don't know what you are getting in to and you won't be happy. Dad is 80 and has cut hay this way with both horses and tractors. I have also been told that without the crimper on the swather the hay won't right. The hay gets fairly tall, chest high and more and is hard to get dry (up to weeks and there is wind). Custom harvesters don't want to come unless there is quite a bit of hay and bales to be made. Plus the pasture is on contours and rough. I would love to cut, rake and bale all myself but don't have equipment. And used balers are expensive for just possibly 60-70 acres. When we have got it cut, it really saves on our hay bill. We have 20 horses and a 100 head of cattle ( cows, calves, replacement heifers, bull and steers for home slaughter). And my wife and I both have fulltime jobs. Mine is fairly physical, on concrete ( which takes a toll on my knees and feet, legs, hips, shoulders, back etc) along with forced overtime and a 6 day week with rotating days off.. So sometimes feeding is all I can after work let alone maintenance on my days off. So cutting and baling the hay myself may be out of my league.
Congratulations on selling your hay your first year! And now you'll have returning customers too. Have you thought about growing pumpkins at some time? Thank you for the video.
I really want to grow Christmas trees and pumpkins next year to sell. I am hoping to come up with an innovative way to grow them off the ground so we will see how that goes!
I’m not trying to start anything but I’ve been doing that my whole life. Just make sure PTO disengage/brake works. And I don’t use all those new plastic tractors with all the safety shit. Newest tractor I got is a John Deere 4020.
Hi, thank you for posting. I'm setting up a sickle bar on a small tractor. Does the cutter rest on the ground? Or do you keep it lifted up a few inches? Also is your cutter 90 degrees of the machine or is it raked back a small amount. Thanks again, Tony
@ the 6:58 Mark The top link is for adjusting the tilt of the cutter,bar just to let you know to aim it up or down
Good to see someone showing that it is possible to get hay with older less expensive equipment.
Ha, for sure. Some 50 yrs ago as a child I spent summers in the country with my grandparents. All men would come out in the field with their hand held scythes at sunrise and cut the grass. Women will go out several times to turn hay with hand held rakes. Then both men and women would take a horse buggy out in the field and collect dry hay with hand held forks. It worked! Most households had a cow, and/or a goat, couple of pigs and poultry...some had a horse as well
Back in the day we used a sickle bar all the time and averaged 20,000 bales a season. We never had much trouble with it cloging and we cut some really tall and thick grass. But we ran with some speed usually 5th or 1st high and around 2,000 to 2,500 rpm. The extra speed helped with the cloging issue. By the sickle bar traveling faster before grass had time to collect and fall into it.
Just got my first sickle bar mower two months ago. I grew up on the farm and operated tractors but never have I used hay equipment nor mowed hay, just brush hogged. Thanks for sharing this it really helps.
Hay timing ... in the star rake manual John Deere P140 they wrote ... mow only what you can also turn no later than 2 to 3 hours after the morning cutting. Before night make a row, next morning spread out maybe another go with good weather and then make row 2 hours before pressing, if still not dry make row for the night and repeat the next day as above...
Thanks for the info. Very helpful in understanding how everything works. 👍
Angle in you outside shoe so that you have at least foot clear of grass so you make your next pass. Helps keep you from build up on the inside ofthebar.
You should't cut the grass until it reaches your knee if you want good hay off course.
This is how we do it here in Kosovo any grass lower than your knee is a no cut zone
I love your tractor buddy
Dad was fanatical about greasing all the zeros before every use! Sickle bars could be a pain in fields with gopher mounds
How come nobody ever put a guard in front of the sickle bar to knock down the mole mounds? Maybe a 1 inch round bar or something that ran parallel in front of the mower about 2 feet or so. Set at mower height... You know, just something to level out the mounds before the sickle mowed it.
Im sure lots of people have told you to look for a used tetter. I have a different suggestion for you. Maybe look for a drum mower with conditioning teeth on the drums, or weld some on a drum mower you buy. You will be able to cut faster, miss less, get better breakage on the stems which will let you dry more evenly and faster. My processing times speed way up and I burn way less diesel.
really any work on PTO implement should be with tractor not running. That said, thanks for the video. I cut hay with a mower like this for years before I could afford a rotary mower.
Hey, that's me back in 1959. Grease those certs. Yep. Always got along fine with that sickle cutter bar on the Ford. I can still smell it. Sad thing I hated was all the birds we had back in my day. You should have seen the birds in the hay fields. We had clover and Alfalfa fields. No birds? Regards...
Normally I get the barn swallows out when I am cutting swopping in to eat all the bugs I am kicking up but not much else
SSLFamilyDad I should have clarified better about cutting the hay in the fields. There would be so many birds with nests. I hated cutting the hay. Apparently the pesticides have taken a terrible toll on the birds. This in turn probably means more bugs. How about spittle bugs? Do you see many of those bugs out in the field? I lived in Michigan. The barn swallows were many. Glad to hear you still have them. Regards...
Zerks*
Nice job!
I knew you could do it!! I am so proud of you man. Keep learning.
You are learning, better luck next year. You will get there. Not bad!
If you ever need help around the homestead i would be more than happy to lend a hand and learn some new skills in the process
Im thinking of cutting the hinge part off my sickle mower and extending it out since i trample it with my tire since my ford 501? Is mounted on my JD 520 with 45w loader. The loader makes me have tires out
Very cool!! I just bought a scythe and been doing this but much smaller scale. It feels good to be even more self sufficient!! Great video my man!
Fascinating about hey bailing. I wonder when discovery of Alfalfa put into livestock feeding? Grass grew far and wide.
How many hay harvests will your fields give you in a season?
+dan Hamakua this year I have done three. If things go well next year and I start earlier I might be able to get 4
@@SSLFamilyDad maybe you should do two and let them go to seed, so when you feed your stock it will seed your pasture as well. I would guess it works best when rolling out sound bales.
Would it be good to mow a lawn
Have you a rev counter on the tractor if so PTO runs at 540 revs
+Andy Ellis unfortunately the tachometer is broken:(
@@SSLFamilyDad there are a bunch of cheap electric ones that you can add to the alternator.
You need to post a 2 hour video only of you cutting hay with mellow music! Very relaxing, like a fireplace channel. :)
Lol, I want to do that
We have a pasture that needs to be cut for hay. Since we have been renting it we have had a lot of trouble getting someone to cut and bale it. We've had three different custom hay guys cut it and all have got out of the business. I mentioned to my dad about using my sickle bar mower. He said you don't know what you are getting in to and you won't be happy. Dad is 80 and has cut hay this way with both horses and tractors. I have also been told that without the crimper on the swather the hay won't right. The hay gets fairly tall, chest high and more and is hard to get dry (up to weeks and there is wind). Custom harvesters don't want to come unless there is quite a bit of hay and bales to be made. Plus the pasture is on contours and rough. I would love to cut, rake and bale all myself but don't have equipment. And used balers are expensive for just possibly 60-70 acres. When we have got it cut, it really saves on our hay bill. We have 20 horses and a 100 head of cattle ( cows, calves, replacement heifers, bull and steers for home slaughter). And my wife and I both have fulltime jobs. Mine is fairly physical, on concrete ( which takes a toll on my knees and feet, legs, hips, shoulders, back etc) along with forced overtime and a 6 day week with rotating days off.. So sometimes feeding is all I can after work let alone maintenance on my days off. So cutting and baling the hay myself may be out of my league.
Just wondering what the song in the beginning is called? The daily beetle is a different song than the beginning
I miss you owning that tractor
Congratulations on selling your hay your first year! And now you'll have returning customers too. Have you thought about growing pumpkins at some time? Thank you for the video.
I really want to grow Christmas trees and pumpkins next year to sell. I am hoping to come up with an innovative way to grow them off the ground so we will see how that goes!
Should Never put the PTO shaft on a running tractor!!
Here comes the safety police.
Maybe not, but I'd say 99% of people don't shut the tractor off to attach the PTO shaft, including myself.
m16ty I do. I’ve heard too many bad stories
I’m not trying to start anything but I’ve been doing that my whole life. Just make sure PTO disengage/brake works. And I don’t use all those new plastic tractors with all the safety shit. Newest tractor I got is a John Deere 4020.
Life is dangerous. Get over it.
Hi, thank you for posting. I'm setting up a sickle bar on a small tractor. Does the cutter rest on the ground? Or do you keep it lifted up a few inches? Also is your cutter 90 degrees of the machine or is it raked back a small amount. Thanks again, Tony
Basically there are two shoes that rest right on the ground with mine. They are adjustable
You should always run equipment to warm up bearings to take grease an oil will work in places were needed better
Will you have to replant now or will it be good for a few more years? Thanks for sharing :)
+Benja's Uber 1337 Hobby should be ok for a couple more years then I will have to replant
Nice :)
Is that a Ford 4600?
Wirh all the greasing your doing a pneumatic gun would sure help... $20 at harbor freight....
Today i mowed with sickle bar mower just half of acre and i'm tired as hell
Hi
Are you gonna video baling the hay
I did, yes, I have the old video on my channel from earlier this summer but the baling of this filed will be out early next week
SSLFamilyDad ok thanks that is why I was asking your last video of baling was awsome
Hays alittle short this year