# Manual Hay Baler



## Ozarker (Apr 2, 2008)

I'm new to this site so please bear with me. I've devised a way for drying my grass clippings and using them as hay for my 6 heifers. I've been stuffing them into large trash bags, getting about 30-35 lbs of dry hay per bag. I'd like to know if anyone has any plans or knows where I can get some for building or buying a device that I can make hay bales by hand. I think I can bale the clippings faster than bagging them


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## 4h farmer (Jan 21, 2009)

we use a pitch fork and drag the hay into a mound then cover it with a trap the old way


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## pookshollow (Aug 22, 2005)

Somewhere in one of my books is a plan for a manual hay baler. To the best of my recollection, it's just a bale-sized wooden box with a couple of slots cut at either end for the baling twine to sit. Basically, you put two pieces of baling twine in the bottom and through the two slots at either end, put the hay in and pack it down as tight as you can, then bring the twine over the top and tie it tightly.

Looks like a lot of labour.


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## agmantoo (May 23, 2003)

Maybe this is what you are thinking about. http://texaspinestraw.tamu.edu/baling.html . I have two of these and they work rather good for pine needles. I loan them to folks needing to make some money to tide them over. Provided a person is willing to work and has access to pine needles it is surprising how much money one can make. A bale of pine needles will sell for $4 and I can make a bale using the manual baler in less than 3 minutes. This is not a guess, I have timed myself doing it.


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## Ozarker (Apr 2, 2008)

Agmantoo I've seen the baler on that website. I printed off some of the pictures. The problem I had with it is that the "plans" were a little too vague for me. Did you have any problems building it?


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## agmantoo (May 23, 2003)

Yes, I found the plans somewhat difficult also. You can see more detail here http://www.naturalresources.msstate.edu/pdfs/pine.pdf . I actually had an advantage in that I saw a baler owned by others and I have a knack of being able to replicate something once I get the idea behind it. Here may be a better bet and this is what I would replicate if I were to build another http://barnesweldingshop.com/balers2.aspx 
Watch the baler video on the last link here and you will get a much better idea as to how everything works. If you build one put larger diameter wheels on to make it easier to move in rough ground.


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## cowkeeper (Feb 17, 2007)

I remember seeing plans in a magazine eons ago. Mother Earth News or Countryside..I think it was Countryside Magazine, about 30 yrs ago! I dont think plastic bags would be very good. Any moisture and the grass would mould. Even plastic sacks would be preferable as they are woven and admit a little air. ck.


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## Ozarker (Apr 2, 2008)

I've been using plastic bags for a couple of years now. Once they are filled I poke holes in them with my hay fork. I dry my grass down to about 11% moisture before bagging. No mold problems after doing this. The bags I opened this week were just as green and fresh as the day I bagged them last summer.


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## deaconjim (Oct 31, 2005)

The problem with baling grass clippings in a pinestraw baler is that grass clippings are usually cut too short for baling. The plastic bags would probably be a better option.


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## sammyd (Mar 11, 2007)

I was thinking the same thing, unless you had a really overgrown yard and a non mulching mower....

You could just put the stuff in bags after cutting, apply vacuum to the bag and tape shut for some bagged hay silage.
Might also work if your hay was dry too.
I noticed that a regular vacuum cleaner will suck down a bag of corn silage to about half the size it was even after I packed it as tight as I could.


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## Sonshine (Jul 27, 2007)

What we did was plant a deer field. We let it get pretty high and start to go to seed. Then we cut it down and let it dry. My DH got one of those plastic bins from Wal-mart, cut a piece of plywood to fit down in the bin. We put twine in the bottom of the bin, but cut it long enough to tie up the bale. After the grasses dried we put it in the bin, pressed it down with the wood, kept adding till it was packed pretty tight and tied it up. Doesn't get it as tight as with a regularer bailer, but we got a few decent size bales doing it this way.


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## furholler (Feb 1, 2005)

There is a plan for one in the book "Build It Better Yourself". I built one and it works great. The next one I build will be bigger though. I'm going to look at the pine needle deal too.


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## haypoint (Oct 4, 2006)

I can't imagine that you could collect and dry enough grass clippings to consider bailing them.
Then I wonder what nutrient levels would be for grass clippings.
Long ago, stationary balers made bales without complicated knotting mechanisims. After ramming enough hay to make a bale, they dropped in a wooden spacer. The spacer had slots that allowed baling wire to be shoved thru in front of and behind each bale. The wires were then twisted together.
Getting a good amount of tightly packed material takes power. You'd either need more than hand power or expect a lot of time pressing small bits at a time.
Might be less costly to buy a baler and throw your clippings into it.
To me baling grass clippings sounds like bundling toothpicks to make firewood.


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## Chixarecute (Nov 19, 2004)

trash compactor?


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## bigmudder77 (Jun 9, 2008)

i just used about 75-100 feedbags and put it all in there and stored it in the barn till winter then i give them a bag a night still smells like fresh grass i also use one of them hand held sitchers and get them pretty much air tight 

i use a lawn catcher type thing get all the grass and just spread it all out behind the barn let it dry really good use to use a rake to rake it up but now just use a leaf blower and get it all in a nice line/pile and just put it in bags and bag it seal it and throw it in the back of the truck and put it in the barn 

some times i get some moldy bags then they go on the compost which later gets spread out on the garden but about 95-96% of my bags are good and ready to eat 

but making them in to bales sounds like a better idea im gonna have to build that and make some bales 

i get alot of my grass from my 3 acre farm but i mow lawns on the side and people dont like the grass so i have to remove it all and i just use it for the cows so makes me more money in the long run cause i use less hay and get paid to remove it


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## Ozarker (Apr 2, 2008)

I had a sample tested this summer by a forage testing lab. It came back at 11% moisture (89






I had a sample tested this past summer at a forage testing lab. Came back at 11% moisture, 14.8% crude protein, and 62.7% TDN. Mostly fescue/orchard grass with mix of clovers and lespedeza. I mow my yard (1.25 ac) and my neighbor's (1.0 ac)


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## GoddessKristie (Jun 18, 2007)

agmantoo said:


> Maybe this is what you are thinking about. http://texaspinestraw.tamu.edu/baling.html . I have two of these and they work rather good for pine needles. I loan them to folks needing to make some money to tide them over. Provided a person is willing to work and has access to pine needles it is surprising how much money one can make. A bale of pine needles will sell for $4 and I can make a bale using the manual baler in less than 3 minutes. This is not a guess, I have timed myself doing it.


This reminds me a lot of the hand baler we used when I was growing up on a tobacco farm. My father built them from particle board and 2 x 4s. He made a board that was sized to fit inside them to sit on top of the tobacco and we used a jack to pack it down as we went. This made for very heavy, tight bales. One of these would be terrific for your purpose!


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