STEP THREE: Gather in and bale your hay
At this point you will definitely need help from others.
This is also when you learn why the original article had the word ‘cumbersome’ in its list of disadvantages. Carrying the baler down to the field is a two-person job.
You also discover an oversight in the plans. Robust carrying handles would be a good addition.
Gathering the hay was relatively straightforward. We used a large blue tarpaulin. One person was on pitchfork duties and two more people dragged the tarpaulin. We also had three dogs to disrupt the process and liberally scatter hay.
It’s a great team-building exercise. You’ll quickly find yourself with a large haystack on a tarpaulin that you can slide easily around your field.
Move the hay to sit beside the baler. How to use the baler This is an important health and safety message. If you take the easy option of resting the compression platform on top of the loading box frame, it can slip off and you’ll get a nasty bump on the head.
The moving parts can trap a finger, so be careful when you’re using it.
We worked out that folding the level arm right back (as seen in the image below) after making each bale was worth the few seconds to avoid it falling and causing injuries.
1Set
up the hay baler with twine, ready for loading. Put a loop of twine over the eye hook on the back of the baler and run it down the inside of the loading box. Run it under the gap between the eye hooks and wooden strip on the baler floor. Don’t put it through the eye hooks - it needs to go between them and the wooden strip (see 1A). This allows the twine to slip out once you’ve tightened it. If you run it through the eye hook, you’ll just fix your finished bale to the floor of the box and have to start again. 2 Bring the end of the twine through the slot in the front door, leaving enough length to tie it off later. 3Repeat
these steps on the other side so you have two lines of twine set up. 4Close and bolt the door, then fill the baler with hay from your haystack. Press it down by hand after each addition of hay. Keep loading until the hay sits level with the top of the baler box.
5Take your bailer twine off the eye hook at the back. Bring it over the top of the hay in the baler. Find the top of the slit in the front door and bring the twine through, ready for tying off in a moment (see 5A). The following steps are illustrated on page 18 by hay baling assistant Kelly Mckenzie. 6 Carefully bring the baler arm over and insert the flat plate into the top space of the baler.
7 Pull down on the arm to compress the hay inside into a tight bale. If, like me, you opt for the two-door model, you might need to put your foot in front of the door to stop it bursting open. This is a good reminder to accurately follow the plans next time.
8Once
the hay is compressed, take the ends of the baler twine from the top and bottom of each slot and tie them up tightly together. This holds your compressed bale together when you open the door. If you break the twine, you’ll have to unload the baler, re-set it and start again. 9 Lift up the compression arm so it’s clear of the baler. You can rest it on the top, but it’s better to put it back in the ‘safe’ position ready to start again. 10 Open the front door to reveal your compressed hay bale.
11Give
the twine a tug and pull forward your compressed bale onto the loading platform.
Practice makes perfect. Our processing time for the first bale was 12 minutes. We got to a final production-line-efficiency time of under five minutes to re-set, fill, tie, compress, unload and stack a neatly-packed bale.
We’re not going to win any awards for farm efficiency compared to machine baling, but it does have some advantages: •
it’s an oddly entertaining way to spend • a day with friends in a field;
it’s low-cost if you live on a block that is too small to warrant investment in machinery or a contractor, or not accessible • for a tractor;
it gives you a satisfying sense of achievement as you innovate new ways to speed up your production line process; •
I got a lot fitter.
Our productivity could have been increased further by not having dogs barrelling through the haystack. However, that would have cut back on a lot of the fun.
My knee-length grass problem was turned into around 40 bales of hay.
You do need to factor in the cost of beers and a barbecue to thank the raking, moving and baling team.
Hay baling by hand is an experience to remember.