As I write this post we (meaning the entire extended family farm) are in the middle of our third crop of alfalfa hay. We usually get four cuttings of hay per year.
We have 24 pivots in alfalfa hay this year, one in Timothy hay, and a smaller pivot in winter wheat. It takes about two weeks (Monday-Saturday) to cut all the hay. The teens do all the swathing, taking shifts as there are nine teens but only three swathers. Swathing is done in the middle of the day starting after all the dew has burned off the fields.
It takes about 2 hours to swath one pivot of hay. Each pivot is about 125 acres.
Swathed hay is raked roughly six days after it is cut. Two swaths of hay get raked together into one windrow.
Raking is done early in the morning when the dew is just right. Depending on how hot it is that means starting at 5:30am or not until 6:30am. There are six raking tractors. It takes about an hour to rake one pivot.
The raked hay is typically baled the next day. All the men and one nephew do the baling, usually right in the middle of the night.
There are five baling tractors. Depending on conditions it takes about an hour to bale one pivot. We use one-ton balers. Each bale is about 1200 pounds (not a true ton).
Each baler has an accumulator on it. In the photo above you can see “wings” on either side of the bale. The accumulators will hold two bales so they can be dumped at specific spots in the field rather than just whenever a bale is done. This makes hauling hay so much faster.
The ideal is to get the bales in rows that spoke out from the center of the pivot. Loaders equipped with ‘forks’ are used to stack the bales three high. Ira wanted to learn to stack hay this year. Joseph taught him how and he’s actually really good at it!
Once the bales are stacked they are loaded onto trucks and taken to the stack yard. Instead of driving all over the field the trucks just drive down one row of bales.
There are four loaders and three trucks. The men and teen boys all help haul the hay.
Once one crop of hay is up there is about a 7 – 10 day break before we start all over again.
I’ve always wondered how haying is done! Thank you so much for this post. I knew it was a lot of work. We have a small hobby farm and really appreciate the people that grow hay that we can buy for our livestock.
Instersting, as Delaney would say!
Great pictures and explanations of what is done at this important time.
Fascinating, thank you. Why do only males bale and haul?
The women and girls could help too. The baling is the most dangerous and is also done in the middle of the night. The loaders and trucks used for hauling do not have air conditioning. Our day time temps get in the 90s-100s in the summer. You could say the men and boys do those as an act of chivalry so the women and girls can get adequate sleep and not have to be in the heat too much. The teen girls will start swathing in the air conditioned swathers while the hauling is taking place.