# small hay equipment.



## travis91 (Jul 26, 2005)

A friend of ours who lives down the street is currently having someone bale is hay for him but wants to invest in his own small scale equipment. he has a kubota tractor i wanna say like 36 hp?. it has a loader and he wants the bales small enough that he can handle them. any suggestions


----------



## Blu3duk (Jun 2, 2002)

An old baler similar to a JD 14T with 4 cylinder Wisconsin engine like my dad baled with for years is doable, he pulled it with a 24 HP 420 JD tractor and covered 1000's of acres over a 15-20 year period until upgrading to pto balers and larger tractor to handle such. I suspect a person could put an engine on a newer baler too if they can find the right belts and hardware, and even use some newer industrial small engines including some of the 20hp diesels available, the worst part of some of those is they are water cooled and not air cooled like the old Wisconsin....

An old #7 mower with cut the hay and a small rake to put it into a windrow [a person can understand quickly why a larger tractor and pull type swather with a conditioner makes sense after running over the same ground 3-5 times to a bale off the field and in the barn] small scale farming is neat but can get spendy in a hurry in terms of fuel and time spent on the field trying to save a buck here or there, but it can be done....

I personally am still thinking of a smaller older combine for taking an oilseed crop off for pressing into fuel for use in the fields too, though i aint got the fields to do it in again ......yet.

William
Idaho


----------



## Old Vet (Oct 15, 2006)

There are several thousand acres that was put in hay with similar style tractor. Some older style balers had a engine on them to run the bailer . I don't think that one will run a PTO bailer if it did you would be beat to death by the bailer. Cutting and raking is beat done by a small tractor unless you get a big cutter and wide swather. It is not cheap to get into bailing but you can do it.


----------



## sammyd (Mar 11, 2007)

There is a small round baler made specifically for those small utility tractors. Hooks up to the 3 pt and PTO. The bales should be easily handled by the loader on the tractor.
Very pricey to start though.
http://www.agriquip.com/star/index.shtml
A smaller older baler like the 14T or a Massey #3 will work behind a smaller tractor but will make you wish for something larger. Hard to find the older engine powered models but that would be a help.


----------



## Bay Mare (Jun 7, 2007)

Is he looking to square bale or round bale???


----------



## PyroDon (Jul 30, 2006)

If hes looking for cheap and small I suppose if he can find one he could use an old allis roto bailer they didnt require alot of pto HP


----------



## travis91 (Jul 26, 2005)

round bale


----------



## FordJunkie (Nov 23, 2007)

If you look at last years calender for month of May there is a picture of my 74 year old nieghbor making round bales with a 40 hp ford tractor he usually uses a 50 HP tractor but it was broken. This is a 630 new Holland round baler that is rated at 35 hp required. That 40 HP tractor had all it wanted with that baler and we had to drop from the normal 4X4 bale down to a 3X4 bale so that the pto clutches wouldn't slip. I would think that a 36 hp kabota would not be heavy enough to stop that baler. The real smalll stuff is pretty pricey but I would say that would be the direction they would want to go or just buy a bigger tractor and then you can pick up the normal equipment at much better used prices.

HTH,
Tony


----------



## PyroDon (Jul 30, 2006)

if your after small equipment meaning low horse power an allis roto baler is likely the cheapest option . they dont require much HP have been around for better than 50 years . you can still find them at farm auctions and still get parts . they are ugly but get the job done


----------



## Darren (May 10, 2002)

I square bale with a L3710 Kubota (30hp @ the pto). Works fine.


----------



## francismilker (Jan 12, 2006)

I've tied many a square bale with a TO-35 (MF) tractor. It rocks and rolls you around a bit, but when the large tractor goes down and the rain's on the way, old faithful gets fired up!


----------

