We ran, still run an H&S 12 wheel, for our custom hay operation. We have run it for at least 23 years that I know, thinking more. At our hay day (pardon the pun :-) we were running two balers, one rake, and one swather, and we would put up around 15000 bales a year, that was for probably 7-10 years, we only raked maybe 25% of that hay, the remaining years dad was down to probably 7-10K bales a year, and raked probably 65% of that total, because he lost all of his help (boys all left the farm).
The last 4-5 years he is down to maybe 1500 bales a day because he is getting out of custom work, and he rakes almost all of that hay. Anyway that is far from a big custom operation, but much larger than most single family farm operations. That rake is still that same rake we ran in the beginning, we have gone through 6 balers, all vermeer, and the third swather is worn out. The only thing we have done to the rake is rebuild the end of the arm that swings out to hold the swing arm on each side. The gauge wheels are shot, but still do their job, we have replace probably 50% of the teeth only once. The only thing I would sugest is if you plan to use it as much as we have go for the hydro fold, don't mess with the manual means, if however you use it on say 200 acres a year you probably won't care, if you don't have hydro fold, we would pull it behind the pickup, and once the baler tractor arrive, just use that power to raise the wheels. All in all, I think you will find both rakes to be superior. We have loved every Vermeer baler we have owned, and they are built tough, at one time I thought about buying a new rake with the hydro fold, and looked at both companies as well, both were built well, and the new H&S were better than the one we had, so they continued to improve, which was good. I think you should get the one with the features you like, either will hold up very well.
Edited by Orange Blood - 24 Feb 2012 at 6:25am
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