# Hay Rakes Explained



## Carol K (May 10, 2002)

Could someone help me by explaining the differences in types of rakes. I want a hay rake to use on maybe 10 acres, so not too big of an area, it's flat. Hay will be cut with a 7 foot sickle mower. Hay will be mainly grass, some clover in places but not heavy. 
What are my options? Models, makes etc.? PTO? Ground drive? 

Thanks
Carol K


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## mink (Feb 10, 2005)

most any side -delivery rake would work for you.


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## FarmboyBill (Aug 19, 2005)

As was said above, UNLESS you have horses, than PTO gets harder to use lol.

What makes you think one system is/was better than another. I used 2 steel wheel rakes on 10 acres last year. Worked fine. I could have used one, but as I had 2, both belonging to my dad before me, and my boy was handy and I had the tractors I used both.. There ground drive.


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## HermitJohn (May 10, 2002)

Buy the cheapest side delivery rake that is in good repair. For smaller areas the old steel wheel traction driven ones are perfectly fine. Just make sure you keep gear box with appropriate level of the appropriate fluid, most likely 90wt gear oil.

You will find out quick the modern high speed rakes cost way more than you can ever afford for 10A. You want something functional where the other guy bidding against you wants it for scrap.


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## wwubben (Oct 13, 2004)

I have used all kinds of rakes over the years.I now use a five wheel rake.They work very well and are by far the easiest to maintain.I have a three point wheel rake that I bought about ten years ago for $1000 new.There are used ones around now.I mow with a john deere #5 mower in a 7 foot swath and rake the next day.This rake works well for tipping the windrows also.I am very pleased with it.


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## FreeRanger (Jul 20, 2005)

I have been told a five bar is better than the four bar models. 

I used a ground driven New Holland 256 rake on small acres with much success. I did not have a dolly wheel. Highly recommend that rake, can be pulled by a very small tractor. there are a lot of them around in this area.


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## Carol K (May 10, 2002)

4 bar, 5 bar, dolly wheel? Foreign language to me. So a side delivery, do I have to look at 4 bar 5 bar or is that another style rake?
Thanks for the help so far. 

Carol K


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## rambler (Jan 20, 2004)

Best is a 5 bar New Holland side rake. Also known as 'basket' rakes or 'rollabar' rakes. With 2 rubber wheels in the back.

Will go $400-2500.

An older 4 bar steel wheeled 4-wheel rake will sell for scrap iron price, they don't back up, they don't go sdown the road very well, but if you are right by your 10 acres they will rake some hay.

Bar rakes have 3 or 4 or 5 pipes with the teeth bolted on them, the bars spin creating the raking action. Ground driven works well and is simpler to use, generally prefered tho some folk like a pto powered version for some reason.

Wheel rakes have large round wheels with teeth on the edge, they rake hay, can have 4 or 5 or 8 or whatever wheels, they are not as good as a bar rake unless you get a new very spendy one.

There are fancy European rakes that run like a whirly-bird, gyro I think is the name of them, very spendy & fussy machines, out of your price range.

The old horse rake was a dump rake, works like your garden rake, pull the hay into a pile, if you dump the piles next to each other you can bale it, they aren't hardly used any more just yard art.

--->Paul


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## FarmboyBill (Aug 19, 2005)

The amount of bars are required because of ever more speed wanted in a hay field. I started out with a 3 bar JD steel wheel rake that was ment to be pulled by horses, I raked in low wide open. I was in VERY hilly ground. Now, I pull a 4 bar rake in 2nd gear low, and have no problem unless raking with my 50 Cub Farmall, than its 1st wide open. The 4 bar was ment to be used by tractors, or a fast walking team.

Bars are the hollow rods that hold the rake teeth. Rake teeth are the 1/4in dia rods usually mounted 2 together at a 6in or less spacing with a coil in the rod where it attaches to the rake for each tooth.
Dolly wheels are for hump back rubber tired 2 wheeled rakes that the front rests on the tractors drawbar. For whatever reason some found the weight objectionable, likely on Ford N series tractors, and so they installed a wheel on the front by the hitch, and extended the hitch by a tongue mounted to the dolly wheel, so that, instead of hooking up directly to the rake, you hooked up to the tongue that was fastened to the dolly wheel, which was fastened to the rake, the dolly wheel carrying the weight of the rake. This is not needed on ANY Row crop tractor. and needed by only the smallest of real farm tractors. If you tried raking with a big garden tractor/lawn mower, you would need a dolly wheel attachment.


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## FarmboyBill (Aug 19, 2005)

Anybody can back an old steel wheel bar rake if they really want to. I can do it easily.


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## coolrunnin (Aug 28, 2010)

Come on Bill even a N Ford can pull a rake the dolly is for supposed easier hookup.


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## opportunity (Mar 31, 2012)

I have beed using a 4 wheel rake I can pick it up with my three point and move around easier then I can with the side delivery that I have but it doens't do as nice a job a trade off easy to use or rakes better


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## rambler (Jan 20, 2004)

FarmboyBill said:


> Anybody can back an old steel wheel bar rake if they really want to. I can do it easily.


Not usefully, if you are raking road ditches and hills.

Yes, you can back them, but you need to follow then, you can't aimm them on a hill. This messes up the windrow.

I used the NH 55 rollabar rake with my BiL's 15 hp Kubota, worked great, plenty of power even on hills, but you wre sitting awful close to the dirt & dust. No dolly wheels.

Some prefer the easy hookup of the dolly wheels. I don't like an extra set of wheels running over the hay, mashing it down.

--->Paul


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## sammyd (Mar 11, 2007)

I prefer our dolly wheel rake over the non dolly wheel rake. It does a better job of following the contours, it puts the body of the rake a bit further back and I can turn a bit tighter with it when using the bigger tractor.
It is a bear to back up with though but with perseverance I can get it to go back just enough to park it out of the way when I'm done with it.

For 10 acres anything cheap that doesn't look like it will come apart tomorrow would be fine.
IH 35 JD 640 New Idea 400 series New Holland 56 all decent rakes for smaller acres.
Personally I would stay away from anything with steel wheels or big old skinny rubber tires.


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## lazyBum (Feb 27, 2012)

The dolly wheels also help larger tractors turn the rake sharper without the rake and rear tires colliding. The new holland 55 and 255 rakes are desired less than the 56 and 256. The 56 might conform to uneven ground better than the 55, but not by much. The best set up ive used is my 1958 jd 420s with a 55 rake. I can turn the tractor fully.left or right and never hit the rake with the tires. The 56 can turn just as sharp, but the offset wheels start skidding sideways and the rake stops working in sharp turns.


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## Carol K (May 10, 2002)

Ok so with the side delivery rake, is it able to be altered height wise for the hay on the ground or is it a fixed height? Do the teeth go right to the ground, just above it or...?
I presume the angle of the rake is set by hand? Is that heavy to do? 
Thanks I am getting a better picture with the informative posts. Regarding width of rake, do I go for the same size as the cutter bar, for me that would be 7'?

Carol K


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## Darren (May 10, 2002)

Here's a typical rolabar hay rake, NH 256. They are ground driven. Check the drive shaft and gear boxes for play. Several companies make them. There's two crank adjustments on the front with offset handles that move the entiire rake section up and down to adjust the disance of the teeth from the ground. The width doesn't make a difference for the mower. If you don't have a sickle bar I would suggest considering one of the newer double action machines. Both the guards and the knives move. They don't don't clog as easy and you can run them as fast as you can comfortably run the tractor. For me the only limiting factor for speed is how rough the ground is.


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## FarmboyBill (Aug 19, 2005)

Thats what I call a hump back rake, which is what they were called in the early 60s when they first came out. It dosent have a dolly wheel in the front. ALL old rakes were set to cut a 7ft length area, I think. It dosent matter tho. A V rake could just as easily pick up 4 7ft cuts as any other rake could.

Yes, You can adjust the highth. You want the teeth to barely miss the ground. You DONT want to be rakeing dirt into the hay. You ask about the angle of the rake. Thats set by the factory. The angle of the teeth is set by a lever on my rakes, and no, its easier to do than set the highth


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## Carol K (May 10, 2002)

Ah, ok thanks guys. Learned a lot today and look forward to knowing what I'm looking at when I go to look at some, hate to go looking and be completely green lol.

Carol


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## Ross (May 9, 2002)

We have a NH side delivery rake and its about as good a design as they ever got. We also have Massey Rake that is basically the same idea. It too works just about as well. The difference is the NH rake costs 4-8 times more. A Massey rake usually goes for around 2-300 dollars. 

Do not buy a rotary rake, the cheap ones break easily. Do not buy a hydaulically powered rake. They work great but you need a hydraulic system found on very big or very new tractors. You do not need an inverter. Again they work well but cost and power requiremnts are hard to match up. Do not buy weird stuff. Even if you don't know what you're looking at if there aren't 4 or 5 similar units to compare it with then its weird. Tryh to buy something with local dealer support. Oh yeah ground drive is just fine for your needs


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## FarmboyBill (Aug 19, 2005)

To make sure your looking at a ground drive rake, Look for it to have snow or mud grip tires. Not regular street tires. Look for it to have a flat chain, and maybe rollar chain from a gear at either end of the reel down to a gear on the axle between the wheels. Thatl indicate that its a ground drive rake. IF U see one that has alot of teeth gone or bent, its likely been used in ground as a ground or rock rake while rakeing hay.
Put it in gear and move the reel. There shouldnt be any movement other than to tighten the chain one way or the other. The wheel bearings shouldnt be bad, being on grass and all, BUT if you get the chance, grab it from the side near the rear and shake it sideways. See if the wheels shimmy or not. Make sure the bows are there. If not another indication of hard wear. AND just in case you buy a rake with bows or teeth missing. DONT assume you can rake hay good that way. Look at the number of teeth missing. Look at the number of bows missing, if any, and get a catalog now, and calculate what the teeth are each. I dont know how much a bow costs. I bought one for my JD 30yrs ago and it was $25 from JD.

You make a rake fitted up right, it will be a joy to use. Me and my boy worked on both my steel wheel rakes to get them ready. I had always raked with the JD, But it turned out that he raked with it and his great grandads 34 CC Case, while I used the 48 H Farmall on the Case rake. It was so quiet, that, cause I had a pin dropped in the hitch, I thought that it might have bounced out and I had to look back to see that that steel wheeled 60+yr old rake was working flawlessly behind me. Good luck with yours


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## RonM (Jan 6, 2008)

When I was a kid we had a one horse drawn dump rake, they have long been 'out of style'


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