# Cut hay with bush hog?



## ihedrick (May 15, 2005)

I have access to a tractor with a bush hog for cutting hay. Others I have talked to said the hay cut with it would not be any good. That it gets cut up too small of pieces. I am wondering if they are concerned about the size of the piece as it maybe would fall through a regular baler. I have collected the cuttings after they were dried and the animals ate the stuff. So, does grass cut with a bush hog make acceptable hay? Does it affect the nutritional value over cutting by another method?
I collected up about 500 pounds of "hay" so far using the bush hog method. When stacking hay in a pile and not baling; what is a good way tot estimate how much one has? I made a pile right next to a baled up round bale and the pile is just about the same size. The round bale is approximately 1000 pounds. I was guessing that without it being pressed and tied; my stack would weigh maybe half of the compressed stuff.
Opinions and thoughts please.


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## VALENT (Dec 6, 2004)

I dont think it will weigh half as much. I dont know any reason this way wouldnt work. It will be a lot of work, but I guess you know that by now. You may want to collect and "bale" when the grass has a little more moisture than normal. The hay will be able to dry if a little greener than usual because it is loosely stacked. It will also dry quite a bit faster being that it is shredded into smaller pieces.


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## uncle Will in In. (May 11, 2002)

The hay will be OK, A square baler will bale it but the bales will bust up when they come out of the baler. Knew a farmer who took the side panel off the bush hog, so the hay would fly out the side as soon as the blades cut it. This helped prevent the stems from being chopped so fine. He claimed it worked good. The bush hog will bruise the stems enough to make the hay dry faster.


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## Ken Scharabok (May 11, 2002)

I've done it but the guy who bales for me doesn't like it. Says it doesn't feed into the baler as well as long cut (haybine).


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## Scrounger (Jan 6, 2007)

Yup. Just remove the side of the hog and it will work fine....


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## Ross (May 9, 2002)

Tried it and my Krone with the smaller fast sweep (modern) missed too much, my older tech NH 849 and the 315 square baler liked it OK. Biggest problem is the bush hog knocks off too many leaves unless you cut it a bit early. Step one.... get the weather to co-operate. Haybines treat the hay with care so you have a quality product when you're done, not just waste stems.


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## Up North Louie (Nov 29, 2007)

You'll be baling mulch. Don't do it.

Don


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## tyusclan (Jan 1, 2005)

Scrounger said:


> Yup. Just remove the side of the hog and it will work fine....



Absolutely.

All the old mowers came with a bolt-on side for that very reason. That's all we used when I was growing up. I'd never even heard of a hay cutter till I was a grown man.


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## agmantoo (May 23, 2003)

As tyusclan stated, if the side can be taken off do that. The results will bale and make hay. The yield will be impacted however due to the waste from the manner the hay was cut.


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## haypoint (Oct 4, 2006)

I've run my brush hog over hundreds of acres. I've never seen anything come out of it that I'd want to bale. Maybe if I had a super sharp blade. But even with that, the blades don't make an even cut. You'll have your hay all beat up, valuable leaves whipped off and uneven stubble left that makes raking and drying difficult.
I have put up hay loose. I had an old hay loader hooked to the back of my wagon and I rode the wagon as it went thru the field dumping hay onto the wagon. I was amazed that I could get a huge wagon load of hay in very little time. However, I discovered that I had about 600 pounds of loose hay on a wagon that holds 200 bales of 70 pound bales.


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## Rocky Fields (Jan 24, 2007)

Hey.

Once the hay gets to be around a foot tall or taller, the bushhog will leave cuttings on the ground that can be raked and baled. Haybine is better, but you use what you've got when money is an issue. 

I recommend you do a split with a local farmer if you have enough hay to peak his interest.

RF


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## Lazy J (Jan 2, 2008)

If you want to produce junk hay then use the Rotary Mower, if you want to produce a quality hay that will contain more nutrients for your livestock then use a mower designed to harvest forages like a sickle bar mower, disc mower, or a Mower Conditioner.

Jim


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## junkertyge (Nov 1, 2004)

From my feed dealer calendar: RULE FOR MEASURING HAY
1 HAY IN STACK LESS THAN 20 DAYS 1 TON = 512 CU.FEET
2 HAY IN STACK 20-60 DAYS 1 TON = 422 CU.FEET
3 MORE THAN 60 DAYS 380 CU. FEET
ONLY APPROXIMATE AS YOU CAN IMAGINE


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## tyusclan (Jan 1, 2005)

Lazy J said:


> If you want to produce junk hay then use the Rotary Mower...



It's amazing that we were able to keep a lot of cows fat for over 30 years with junk hay.

If the mower has a removable side, and that side is removed, the rotary mower will work perfectly well.

Does a sickle or disc mower work a little better? Absolutely, but if I had the rotary mower available, I'd use it in a heartbeat as opposed to spending the money for another mower.


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## Jay (Feb 5, 2008)

What are you feeding this "Hay" to?
Horses--I wouldn't. Too short of grass (like lawn clippings) will compact the gut--causing colic.
Cows do best with longer stems....it makes the rumen function more optionally, but the shorter stuff will work.
Goats should be OK with it all.


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## ihedrick (May 15, 2005)

I'll have to check the sides of the bush hog to see if they are removable. I'm trying to harvest this stuff as it is would be free feed. I have access to about ten acres...its just scattered in 1 to 2 acre increments. I also have access to a old tractor with bush hog. I had bought a bar mower, but the tractor can't handle it. I'm trying to make do with what I have until I get better equipment and maybe even able to get one big hayfield instead of a bunch of little ones. But what the heck; its free (minus the gas and time).
The hay is going to calves and goats and whoever else decides to eat out of the stack (rabbits, poultry, etc) and possibly bedding for the critters this winter. It's not intended to be their sole source of hay; but as a secondary source of feed. So far, the truckload I put up has given my animals extra feed for two days now and I guess there is another day or two left in the stack. SO, yes I was grossly over estimated the weight...but that's how we learn isn't it? Thanks for the weight chart. That will definately come in handy.


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## minnikin1 (Feb 3, 2003)

This was our solution : 

cut the hay with brush hog. 
Sell the hay.
Take the profit and buy a sickle bar.

Cut more hay. Sickle bar hay is better so those bales sell
for more $$
Take the profit and buy a haybine. 

Right now we still have the sickle bar. We like it.


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## Bay Mare (Jun 7, 2007)

We just did this last week. My DH cut part of our field with the bush hog to make sure the square baler we bought would really bale. It works fine - the horses and goats ate everything we baled and wanted more. The grass was not short like lawn clippings with a lawn mower. We did not remove the side from the bush hog. 

ihedrick - where in Virginia are you?

Angela


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## HermitJohn (May 10, 2002)

Sickle mower is better and takes little horsepower though you want 7ft bar or less with lower horsepower tractor (horse drawn sickle mowers had like 4 or 5ft bar), but as others said if at least one side of brush hog is removed (unbolted, cut off with torch, whatever...) it will expell it full length. Simular effect if you can run brush hog at very low rpm with very sharp blades. Most brush hogs are run with very blunt blades, few take time to sharpen them as woody brush will dull them quickly.

If you think about it modern hay mowers are nothing but a series of mini "open sided" brush hogs along the bar..... http://www.ccmachinery.com/images/Haymax Mower 014s.jpg


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