I first bought an old Hesston 1090 and it imploded after a year. The reel shaft broke and some of the reel got caught in the conditioning rollers. Total loss. I bought an old ford hay rake and it fell apart after one season. I bought an old Allis rake and it broke after 20 acres. I basically have not had much luck buying cheap hay equipment. I was lucky that I could borrow some equipment after these breakdowns to finish the job. So, I gave up and went after better equipment.
I bought a New Holland 256 dolly wheel rake for $1,500. Nice rake although, I need a v-rake to go faster. Purchased a Kuhn 28GMD disc mower (does not have conditioning rollers). I felt like the conditioning was not cutting down much on the drying time and the cost of the disk mower versus the disc mower conditioner was substantial. I like the disc mower, simple, easy to transport, but it is a pain to hookup. I think I paid around $6,000 for a 2013 model. It is the newest thing I own. I have an cherry JD 1950s 24T for small squares that cost $2,000.00. It still has the original decals on it, so I probably paid a lot for a 24T. However, in 3 years, it has probably missed about 20 bales, and it was mostly because the hay was just too wet. I went 1,000 bales over 2 days and never missed a bale. I bought an M&W 4590 round baler at first, but it was not fast enough and very hard to get a bale started in dry hay, so I sold it and moved to a JD 467 due to a forum member recommendation. Love that baler and I can bale a 4x5 round every 4 minutes. Paid $8,500.
I only have 4 cows now, so you might think all of this equipment is ridiculous, but my son and I did custom baling for about 10 customers and made good money to cost justify the better equipment. Couldn't have done it with the old stuff. Hay has skyrocketed here in Indiana and since I don't have many cows, I am selling my excess.
My take on your hay equipment topic based upon my experience, if you are only doing your hay, then you can buy some cheap stuff and hope it hangs together for a few years. It will break and you can buy more cheap stuff every few years. If you buy better equipment, then you can cost justify the higher expense by custom baling or selling your excess hay (sell some of your cows so you have excess) but you may not want to do that. I couldn't take anymore breakdowns so I went with better equipment.
I am happy I sold most of the cows. I made a lot more money off of hay this year than anything else and a lot less stress in the winter time. Hay profit is far better than cattle profits right now. You have gotten a lot of responses on this topic. Good luck in whatever you do and if you go the old stuff route, hope you have better luck than me.
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allisbred wrote:
