First Time Square Baling From Scratch (Start to Finish)
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 8 ก.ค. 2023
- In this video, I try starting a Hay Business from scratch. I already had the tractor (JD 4020) and hay wagon from my brother. So I found a John Deere 350 sickle bar for $300 and a New Idea hay rack for $350. Dialing in the mower with proper adjustment and learning how to run it correctly took a while. Next, I found a JD 336 square baler for $3850 that was in good condition. This video is just the first cutting off 5 acres that my dad owns and has not been fertilized or sprayed for weeds in years. I have plans hopefully in the future to use it on the land I purchased this spring. The 50 acres have a lot of field edges that won't yield well next to trees and creek banks. So the hope is next year I can turn those bad spots into a bite of hay acres. Comment below with any thoughts or feedback, as this is my first time running the equipment.
Brother's channel (Grant): / @granthilbert5632
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A lot of people are going to be giving you advice on how to make hay. I put up around 15,000 small squares a year, and another 5,000 5 X 6 rounds. Trust me, you are doing good for your first time. You will slowly figure out how to do it the best you can. If it means anything, I wish my first 1,000 bales sold that easy. You are doing well. Welcome to haying!
Good stuff!
Shoot yeah he is. You can tell he's getting the knack for the farming life.
Colin thank you for giving Spencer positive comments. Exactly what he needs to read.
Your comment said all I needed to see.
Yup, him did fine, Dad purchased a new holland 268 hayliner kicker baler in 65 and it worked great till I retired in 2011 average was 55-60k bales of hay&straw a year, just kept it properly lubed ,,, as with all farm equipment most failures I've seen result from lack of maintenance and lubrication
This is essentially a real-life survival challenge at this point.
This is exactly like watching an Austin farming video
Is he a farm sim streamer or connected to one ?
@@jakedevillier5863 I wouldn’t be surprised but idk
@@jakedevillier5863The Squad and Spencer TV
@@NathanSteershe plays with them
Love how you put the cost and profit into it very rare these days 👍
That’s the goal with this channel. Be super transparent on stuff like that. Helped me a lot when others do it.
@@spencerhilbert Hey Spencer great vid a good way to tell if you hay is dry is to grab a handful and twist if the hay breaks when you twist your ready to bale. Just a tip great vid have a good day.
@@spencerhilbertI live in the city and have recently become fascinated with farming equipment. I would love to see an episode where you take a blue collar city worker and teach him to farm.
You need a little jockey wheel on the end of your sickle bar, just to stop it bending too far and ground striking. New teeth might be expensive but once you get two sets, you can resharpen one set each winter and fit them in Spring. Fun job in March
I know I personally will never have a reason to product hay bales but I found this to be a fascinating video. I never fully understood what it takes to start producing a salable commodity ( tractor, rakes, baler, trailer, labor….). Thanks for including us on your journey!
Glad you enjoyed it!
John Deere Sickle Mowers can be a real pain, but if they’re adjusted well they cut like a dream. The angle of the cutting bar is something important to keep in mind that makes a huge difference in the way it cuts. It looks like your bar drags behind you as you drive, but the tip of the bar should be slightly angled forward as you cut. This will keep it from breaking apart so much. The sickles are like scissors too so the gap between the teeth and the rock guards makes a difference too. You wouldn’t cut a piece of paper with scissors that have a gap between the blades and cutting hay is no different. Besides that for a first time cutting you did great! Love the video keep it up!
You’re correct. Cutter bar should have a slight “lead”. Also I find my massey sickle bar works best when the front of the bar is angled slightly up so the grass falls away better. Keep pto rpm up. Also sometimes it’s counter intuitive, but if the bar keeps clogging try going faster. It keeps the bar clear of cut material and will sometimes work better
Awesome series, I grew up in the 90s/2000s on a dairy farm using the same equipment you have (except we had a New Idea disc mower). Older equipment if maintained is still pretty capable. Matt from Diesel Creek put it pretty well, "These machines were meant to be maintained, not just replaced." Keep up the hard work, and hopefully you have a decent crop this year.
केएनएम
@@arvendrakushwah8498 what
I'm 70 now but I remember my parents used to go to upper michigan deer hunting in the fall. We stayed at this farmers place and would help with the chores in return for room and board for a week. I was the tractor driver when they bailed hay, it was the best! driving the ford tractor all over the place. I couldnt have been more than 9 or 10 at the time, but I loved every minute of it.
I left a Iowa farm over fifty years ago and never looked back. As I was watching I could almost smell new cut hay. Farming really takes a lot of skills and knowledge, often much of it gained the hard way. You seem to have some fundamental skills and knowledge. Time will provide what additional skills you require. I marvel at how ill informed most Americans are about how food is raised. There is often a built in prejudice that farmers aren’t very smart. Of course to be successful the opposite is true. As you were cutting the hay I could almost hear from grandfather yelling, “you doing it wrong”. Good luck in your endeavor. There is a freedom in farming (of course less so today) that is difficult to emulate.
When you are stacking on the wagon you need a couple of hay hooks, pick up at a farm supply. Let the bales come up the shoot a bit more then hook on the top and bottom, flip over, hook either end place your knee in the center pull up to straighten the bale. They will stack better on the wagon and stay in place. Good luck!
Thanks for the advice!
@@spencerhilbert also make sure that you check the string in the baler.
This was a real step back in time for me, I haven't used this type of hay making equipment for fifty years. Very brave to take this on with some limitations you have. You have learned a lot about the equipment, I know why we replaced all of these models over the years, I could see it in the issues you were having. Thanks for the video, jogs a lot of great memories for me. Btw, I'm an ex Dairy Farmer from Victoria Australia.
Hey, love your vids, I have a 250 acre horse farm so we do hay every single year for the past 30 years and i think if u want to do the hay better maybe you should buy a hay tedder to just turn the grass and then it will dry better
small tedders should also be cheap used since the smaller operations are closing for good all the time so they have equipment to sell
Or too be cheaper you can rake each windrow into more compact rows because what a rake does is flip the hay over and then before you rake you can put each row together instead of spending more money and buying a Tedder
@@fazeobama8872 my area a "cheep" old almost scrap tedder will run ya close to $1000. However I to agree drying will be greatly shorter and better quality feed
I like channels like this. Buy old equipment, fix it up, maintain it properly and put it back into production and make a living. I find this more interesting than channels that get sponsored and the videos become commercials. Show more of your maintenance work and how you refurbished the equipment
Thanks for the tips!
You're doing fine. Learning is the easy part. Implementing your knowledge is all the hard but fulfilling work yet to come. Sometimes old machines just need to be used again.
I started out like you about 35 years ago. I bought old equipment, fixed it up, used it for a while and then sold it for generally a small profit which I then put into a newer, better piece of equipment. You are doing great. You've probably figured out there are as many different ways of doing things as there are people. Listen to the advice then interpret it to your situation. A tedder and a mower/conditioner will make your life easier, especially in less than ideal conditions. I'm still working on my first cut. We had 22 days of rain in June and July is looking to ne the same.
What you can do with those two hay patches, is brush hog them low, then clean them up - rocks, sticks, and fill in any holes and knock off high spots. When you can run a high speed mowing, raking, and baling, you can get the production up and lower your labor rate
Thanks for the tips!
Man this is so awesome to watch. I bought old tractors to take care of my property and I barely knew anything. I’ve learned that there’s no shame in trying to figure things out and making mistakes. Don’t be too hard on yourself. We are all learning how to do things.
Dude this brings me some great memories. When I was about 13 or so, I was trying to fix an old snowblower, and I needed 2 small pieces of metal (wheel cogs), to make the thing work.
I put up an add on craigslist in search of a machinist, and I get a call from a man named farmer Greg. I go to his farm, and he made me those cogs for free, and told me to pay it forward.
One day, I was across the street from his farm at a friends house. I had honda three wheeler, and I needed a place to ride it. So I park the 3 wheeler at the end of the farms driveway, walk up and ask farmer Greg if I could ride it on his property.
Not shortly after, my parents and I went over for dinner to meet them, and we made a deal that I would work on the farm and for every hour I worked, I got an hour to ride my 3-wheeler.
I would help with bailing hay, putting it up in the barn, spreading manure, cleaning stalls, and whatever else needed to be done.
I could talk for a long time about the great memories I had working with farmer Greg. When we would bail hay, he had a bailer that would throw the freakin bail into the wagon like a catupult! hahah that was harrrd work. Fun times
I'm beginning my farm journey and it's great to watch your videos of your upstart and equipment. I hope you continue to post because it's informative and entertaining.
I love hay baleing it's pretty fun!! The racking and cutting and the smell of cut grass I just love it all!!
Your baling rig is exactly what I owned in 1976. I had a ‘68 4020, 336 baler, New Idea rake and 6 hay racks on JD running gears. I custom baled hay all through high school. Ran 15-18,000 bales a year. Great business for a 16 year old farm boy. Never wanted to be an athlete going to practices all summer long. Wonderful memories of my youth. You’re doing great! Best wishes for continued success!
Dang that’s awesome. 15-18k bales a year is a lot! I have some work to do… haha. Thanks for the interesting comment! Have a good 2024 👍
Nice video! Its nice seeing someone running a siclebar mower. They are the newest craze here in germany, because they protect the insects much more than the disc- or drum mowers. for your siclebar, you might want to cold rivet the blades to it, because of the clearance, and for easier maintenance. For removing them just get a flat sharp chisel with which you can knock the keads off. Then its just a matter of punching the headless rivets through the holes, it speeds up the whole maintenance process. The problem is, that the bolts are gonna rust and wear to a point, where its nearly impossible to unscrew them again so rivets are the way to go. Also they are much cheaper for an item that doesnt have that much lifetime. Best wishes and sorry for my bad english.
I THOUGHT YOUR ENGLISH WAS GREAT!
This reminds me of when I was a much younger man. Hauling hay on a hay crew. Made six cents a bale to load and stack. I hated the heavier alfalfa bales. Lol. Nice job Spence. 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻
Yeah these bales were on the lighter side. Never put them on a scale, but guessing 45-50lbs. It was nice just leaving them on the hay rack and not unloading.
@@spencerhilbertidea for 4020: put a straight pipe on it
I started a hay pickup crew in the Summer of 1975. I was only 17 years old. I hired fellow high school classmates. We picked up small round bales that farmers let drop in the field. I paid my crew 2-1/2 cents per bale. I started out paying by the hour but I had a couple slackers and the by the bale motivated them to work harder. It was an experience. LOL.
If I were you I would just replace all of the rock guards. It’s best not to mess with the old ones since they’ve seen a lot of wear over the years. I did that myself and my sickle has almost no clogging issues. Also making sure your bar is slightly tilted back makes a great difference.
God bless the American Farmer. My grandfather had a small, small farm and had the exact equipment of a sickle bar mower and square bailer. He also had difficulty with the mower and replacing teeth. The bailer we had was painted red, so I don't think it was John Deer. As a kid, I was amazed on how it made the hay bails square and even tied the string around them. A true engineering accomplishment.
May have been a New Holland
Hey spencer I have done hay my whole life. I have some advice for raking do it in the morning so you don't lose the nutrients in the seeds same with the bailler cows and other animals love the seeds farmers look for that stuff in hay. And if thay really like it thay will come back to get more
Thanks for the tips!
Btought back memories when we used to have to pull the bales and stack on wagon. Thanks for this was fun watching older equipment used and brought back to life
Very much enjoyed the fact that you showed us the whole learning experience, equipment tune ups, and all.
Just like we did it in the 50’s and 60’s. Awesome.
If you’re going to be doing this in the future, get yourself a bale hook, or blacksmith yourself one or two, for pulling the bale from the baler on the hay rack.
I love how your basically doing a 70’s rp in real life. I love it.
Good luck. Brings back lots of memories working with my grandpa and my uncle. The had a small dairy farm.
Glad to find a farming channel where someone will be straight about cost and the ups and downs, I don't know if other farming channels have something to hide or just don't want to which I'd say then wh u have a channel putting your business out there if you're not willing to share, America is in desperate need of more farming and like a lot of the people following is to learn and grow as fast as the Lord will bless, God, bless and keep the video coming
I really love how the video went from mowing, raking and haying hay to the progress show showing not only his brother's new game but also meeting Nick Welker from Welker farms Really awesome!
The sickle bar and baler should be run at 540 rpm. The tach should have a line that says pto, which is about 1900 engine rpm.
Good stuff mate. Looking forward to seeing your farm and seeing how it grows with time
Learning step by step, you are patient and not afraid to ask others for help and/or information; good trait to have. Lou in Apopka, Fla.
As a beef farmer in the UK your going back in time with the sickle bar mower,,,we used to use these in the 70s 80s..
Great video.Great content.👍💯👍💯
Thanks 👍
Nice job. This sure brings back memories growing up as a kid. Baling hay was hard work but it sure beats cleaning out silos and detasseling.
That was really good, man! You did a great job all around! You definitely brought back a ton of memories. I LOVE the old school approach too; what better way to learn your stuff?! It's a pioneering mindset. Very healthy imho. And money making projects like this one are really great, and stir the motivational juices too.....I'd say this shows some of how much you have learned in the last couple of years/your comfort-competency zone is getting much bigger. Also, really glad for the nice long length of video, and all the detail you put in. When I listen to your commentary, I feel exactly where you are, and it all makes sense to me what I'm hearing/which things you choose to accentuate. That is: I do feel I am seeing it through your eyes, and that's a good essence of communication! So thanks again Spencer! Glad you are cluing us in on your adventures!
Wow appreciate the comment! That’s the goal with these videos. I want to make high quality videos that document projects like this. Yeah definitely learning a lot as we go.
@@spencerhilbert I'd say you're succeeding at making quality videos, Spencer. Thank you!
This is inspiring you did good, wish I knew how to weld and fix things.
Looks like your doing good for just starting and you can and will make adjustments as you go. Live and learn
Your farm and grants farm are so different and i love it, thank you grant for showing yiu dont need a million dollars to farm
Best part is the sketchy part when he took the rake of the trailer lol I’m city dweller recently fascinated by farm equipment great channel
The JD4020, mower, rake and baler really took me back. You really did a good job and learning to adjust equipment is not always easy. Great content and please keep it up.
Thanks 👍
Love your videos right along with your brother You guys are something else Learning as you go to But do a good job at it all in a very caring and safe Keep up the great work and keep making videos take care of
Well done. Love seeing you use the older equipment, reminds me of my days on the farm as a kid. Glad to see you are wearing ear protection as well, that's important. :)
Back where I grew up, haying all summer every year, our local school teams were the cyclones too! (different colors, though)
I was around ten years old when I started work in the hayfields, pulling a rake just like yours, with a little Fordson tractor. Dad was pulling the baler with a John Deere tractor like yours. I never used a sickle bar mower, since grandpa had a windrower.
Hi Spencer, just wanted to say how much I’m enjoying your channel. It’s well-shot, honest, and cool to see your experience as many of us learn with you. I grew up in SE Ontario and worked as a farmhand for a couple of summers and always had that “what if” I pursued it instead of my city life. Nice to scratch the itch of one of my interests through your videos. Keep up the good work, man. Thanks for these videos!
I appreciate that!
Small hay bales will make you appreciate every penny you make off of them
Two things I've learned about mowing with a sickle bar, they don't cut really fine grass well, and sometimes the grass has a "grain" to it and will only cut well in one direction. I have a 346 baler, same baler except my pickup is wider, Your bales are shaggy on the edges, you need to look at the plunger knives either sharpen or replace them.
Yes that’s what I ran into. The fine grass would clog quickly. I put new sickles on and that helped!
@@spencerhilberthe is talking about the baler not the sickle bar mower. There is a knife on the baler also.
the knives on the baler plunger/side wall of chute could reversible. If nothing else remove and try to sharpen. The person on the hay rack will thank you when they don't have to pull the bales apart! It will also produce nice clean flakes which are a lot easier to separate when feeding horses. Good stuff! great content.
Cool time lapse of the bale stacking. Thanks for posting.
Awesome video Spencer. We'll done and will be looking forward in seeing more. Best wishes
I super proud of you and grant
🎉
Similar situation here, first time bailing on my own, bought a JD number 5 sickle mower, wheel rake and using my grandpa's JD 60 to do all the work. Trial and error has been the way I've been learning as well. Keep up the good work!!
I think this is great man. keep this up, brings joy to watch.
The square bailer is one of the coolest pieces of mechanical engineering I’ve seen. It’s like a clock inside that thing with all those gears and linkages. And all powered by one PTO that’s cool
probably the most interesting youtube channel for poeple that are thinkin to go back to farmland thanks a lot to share !
Appreciate the comment!
Spence I like your plan. I’m getting into the hay crop myself. No experience but I’m committed to make it work. All my land must produce including water ways with hay.
Another great video Spencer. Funny I remember when you were clearing that land a year ago and here we are a year later putting it to use. Great idea haying the unsuitable acreage near the corn/beans bean fields and just another example of you thinking outside the box. Keep it up kid, you're doing great
Thanks appreciate the comment!
I'm not a farmer. At all. Nu guess is they your doing alright. Maintaining a bit of land, getting a few bucks off of it.
There is something so satisfying about watching this old stuff being used. I liked it. Thanks for the video
Love that you are buying old equipment. That stuff was built to last. Regular maintenance and care and a few spare parts will keep them running well for years to come. Glad you got your bro to put in some sweat equity as well LOL
That's right it looked like a different shirt at the end. haha. Thanks for watching!
Great video, love the transparency.
Great job, Spencer!
Sometimes I wish I could go back to doing it this way, but I will say that the air conditioning and satellite radio isn't bad when I'm cranking out big squares all day. Glad to see some guys are still out there just doing it, and making a little out of what they've got.
You did good job....Learn something everyday.... Yesterday I learned I aint no spring chicken and helped out bucking 800 bales of straw hungover....Lol
I have always found the best thing to have happen when running a cycle bar mower is hitting a yellow jacket nest, fun times. Making square bales is how I spent a good portion of my teenage years. However, we dropped the bales in the field and came back to pick them up. Work like that made going to boot camp kind of like a vacation.
Hey, just stumbled across your videos. I have been having fun watching them. I thought the house looked familiar. Then I saw it was burning and thats how I remembered it. I drove past that house on my way to work that day. Crazy.
Haha dang that’s interesting you remembered it. Was pretty cool watching it go.
Good luck brother❤ your doing preety good so far
you dont know till you try, im loving this farming series this is so cool to watch
Respect dood. Glad the weather held out for ya
I have the same new idea rake. It's a tedder/rake combo. It works really well when you get it dialed in and all the tines are angled correctly.
we need more people on YT like him. I love the videos bro. 👌
Brought back some memories, that rake will fluff the hay also to help it dry faster or if it gets rained on
Experience is priceless...and you're gaining experience.
I love this series
Great Job! You learn as you go along, I notice that people are really good on TH-cam giving you great tips. You should proud of yourself, great that you are mechanically inclined to do repairs. Loved your video thanks great to watch. I wish the best to you! Take some water along with you or Gatorade.
Spence you should service the gear boxes.
God bless the farmers! ❤
Hey Spencer great video! 👍 Love the “ old school “ equipment. Much more fun to watch than all the new stuff. I remember the days of bailing hay, covered in hay and dust. 😂 You have a great channel!
Thanks for watching!
You keep working hard my friend, you will learn new ways to fix things, and you will learn new ideas, for new projects, keep going AND certainly DON'T WORK TO HARD, 👍🇺🇲😁👌💪🤠👍
Bravo Thats just good land management , good for the land, good for pocket, and to think that small field will pay for all that equipment..👍🚜👍
Looking good Spencer can’t wait to see what’s next
I think the sickle bar cut is the best. It does not chew up the grass so much.
Great video. Thanks for disclosing your numbers and showing your problems.
hay kook helps while loading wagon, makes it easier, nice to see some one out doing the simply and small scale , with that said it not easy work and your doing great job keep videos coming.
Bro if the horses love your bales then your doing it right it’s the love 😂 you made them with and I’m proud of you for doing this I was hoping you would definitely you and grants farms need I’m curious to see what you can get from them love you bud you truly are a golden child 😂 This was wholesome. Also awesome thumbnails bud keep it up very captivating
I,m just wondering whether it,s the horses or their owners who are loving the hay....:)
Thanks for sharing your journey. Great entertainment.
Glad you enjoyed it
Most interesting!! I grew up on a farm using equipment just like you are using except we had Allis Chalmers tractors. You are a fine young farmer, Spencer. Keep up the good work and documenting it with videos. Good on you.
Thanks for the comment! I appreciate the kind words!
Hello i am farmer in estonia and i make a lot of good hay for horses. first thing to do is buy youself a good tedder that helps to make a good dry hay then upgrade your hay rake and after that upgrade your mover thats the things you should do after that you will make good hay. But right now if you move dont leave spots and make sure you mover is cuting like 5-7inch off the ground and make sure your hay is very dry like 10 max 15% moisture not more. i can tell more if you have some questions ask me.
That scrub hay is excellent for goats.
I grew up using a sickle bar type mower then switched to a new holland haybine and wow what a difference. Having the hay conditioned cuts off at least a day in dry time and is much easier to use than the sickle mower.
Hey man , really inspired by your what you’re doing keep it up🦾🦾
I use to HATE bailing and stacking season as a teen. Now,in my 40s, I miss it! Lol
Back in 1968 ti 1972 Dad did custom hay work for a man in Basin City Washington. He had 1000 acres of alfalfa. My sister ran the 880 John ??Deere swather cutting 100 acres a day. Mom, Brother and Dad baled at night when the dew was on with three John Deere 214 Wire tie balers and I ran the Haro Bed stacking 3 to 4000 bales a day.
Keep up the videos brother even just day to day stuff such as maintenance or other side hussles you got goin on your channel will continue to boom
Everyone starts somewhere- looks like you got that sickle nar dialed in pretty good for the second part- good job
Great job young man👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽
You have done a great job with the tools you have. It does get better with time. enjoyed your video Sir.
thanks for sharing video it was nice seeing somebody doing this from start to finish
Glad you enjoyed it!
Good on you for getting into this. I am planning on getting my own mower, rake and bailer in the next year. I only have about 5 to 6 acres of pasture to deal with. I want to do it so I don't have to rely on someone else doing everything and I only get a portion of the hay.
you are now my favorite youtuber..keep up the good work
Glad to see that you still have the maroon truck. 😃