We really like it. It's great for those hard drying days when you can't get the bottom quite dry. Sometimes we run it slow in the afternoon 1-2 hours before bailing and it seems help. I like it because it always flips it, where sometimes a rake puts it right back how it was.

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Not being familiar with the NH 144/166s I looked them up and ... that's a really complicated piece of equipment for rolling hay over. Even the NH 'rolabar' mentioned seems somehow clunky. The 'tedders' I see popular lately (primarily because they are inexpensive) look like they fling all the leaves off the hay.

I haven't done any hay since I was a kid in the 1970s, but I don't remember any issues rolling over windrows to dry out with the antique (even then) windrow rakes we had. We had a pair that looked like the internet picture I found below, I remember 'Case' on the gear box in the front left corner as you look from sitting on the tractor or as it sits in this picture, but the 70s were a long time ago. We'd cut the hay with a WD+sicklebar mower (I had the job sharpening the cutters) then rake with a Ferguson TO35 and bale with the Oliver 880 plus MF or JD baler and hand stack bales on the wagons.

Back in the early and mid 70's when I first remember raking hay, we had I think a JD rake that looked a lot like your picture.  The rollabars are for one thing the angle of attack is a lot more "crossways" to the row, not so much angle like the old ones.  And the weird thing, they seem to speed up every so often.  You're going along, watch the bars rotate, all steady, then "zing" they're going faster for a few revs and it spits the hay out.  If you try to flip it over 1/2 a revolution, it flings the hay out wide and flat.  I've had better luck doing a 1 1/2 revolution, but it is very touchy.  The inverters do an exact flop over very well.  

Exactly!  Ditto on the horse customers too.  The rollabars do great raking up from the mower, but suck trying to do a flop over.

Corners would often bunch up, too.

I've found that usually when the rake speed up or slow down, it's because the teeth are in the dirt, the u-joints have a lot of slop, or the bar bearings are worn.

Meh.....ours has done it since brand new.  Teeth in the dirt will cause it no doubt, but it will do it anyway.  

 

No telling the  feed value lost from hay baled too wet and the man hours spent per ton.  As a nation we tend to be able to keep enough feed made good enough and stored good enough for the herd no matter the year. Sometimes you don't know until you try new things.

We got into round bale silage and the most striking thing is baling straight out of a windrow laid by a mower conditioner how few leaves are on the ground and how the crop and machinery are off the field letting the regrowth begin. The waste in storage is low and the cattle clean the racks with the least refusal. The cost of the wrapper and plastic is recovered easily and there is no barn needed for storage. 

To speed up the process I reluctantly bought a Krone 22 foot rotary side delivery rake. It cost more than I liked but the productivity in wet or dry hay put this operation in a much better position to recover the optimum value out of the standing crop. This rake puts four 11 foot mower passes into one windrow for my 5 x 6 baler. An unexpected benefit has been the  that the dry baled hay seems to keep in the bale better with way less heat damage when compared to our former process using a v wheel rake. I loved the v wheel rake and it was right for us at the time but the rotary rake is better for keeping soil out of the hay or silage. The better dry down and less heat damage was a pleasant surprise.

It was just a "HERE" observation, I see your climate could be a different animal.

    Howdy,

    How about Allis Chalmers hay rake in 1951? No number, just called side delivery rake. Has two raking speeds and reverse tedding speed! Just picked one up. This thing is iron. Any idea what these go for?

    Kurzy

Sorry for your lack of hay management back then !! Like I said, TONS put in the mow "WITHOUT" the machine 

 

One thing to remember, at least you are still farming. He is not, which come to think of it, makes it seem like your invertor did the job. Maybe if he had one, he would be farming instead of just driving by his dads farm.

His "inventor"  did nothing but make himself $$$ without laying 1 hand on a bale of hay 

You do the same thing in the Political Section... NO DATA, NO FACTS... Just like to hear yourself talk..... and keep racking up them 4900 POSTS !!      

Made myself money.....is that a bad thing to do on a farm?

"Without laying a hand on a bale"....that would be entirely wrong.  We still make a good bit of square bales for selling.

Does that dairy farmer still put up small squares, with just a sickle bar mower, and a rake and baler?  Is he still squeezing tits by hand? Doubt it.  

Idiot.

Make the most perfect hay possible, horse people be crazy. Never has the local hay crop looked so short. Already oat, barley wheat mixed hay is at $30 bale (3 string 100 lbs bale) very comparable in price to Timothy, or orchard grass from Oregon or Washington here. Find a guy bring empty container to California port and fill it with hay.$$$$$   

I was thinking of your "economics" last night......4-500 bales of second cutting put up well because you were able to go pays for it!  Pretty quick payback in my opinion.  

No offense TBag, just an observation "here" on 5 dairy farms that I helped put up  (between the 5) 30,000 bales/year  !! No "inverter/tedder" required  !!

BTW, our first cuttings went into the silos  !! Horse farmers were like looked upon "here" as mooches 

No TEA Bagger, SADLY the former "TRUE " dairy farmers have gone by the way of the "DODOO  BIRD"  !! The issue/question is .......  WHY is this "implement" required  ??