Sickle mower cutting for hay question

I've done it. Lots of times. Got to have three really good days though.

Hunt4allis, folks,

Okay thanks all for the great info, I'll try to put a couple days together with no rain then give it a try!

we use a Tedder for every thing except prairie hay whI have dries in half a day.

In the early 70’s when I first remember, we cut with a sickle mower and would leave it lay, rake it when the top was dry, then that would dry but usually the bottom was wet again from the humidity. Rake it again and hopefully bale that time. The number of days gone by by then would vary, and usually the hay was pretty bleached out by then.

Then we got a pull behind conditioner, that helped but was kind of a miserable machine. Finally got our first mower conditioner which was the same drying time but saved a trip around the field.

The issue here is humidity. It’s so late in the day when the dew comes off, you rake it and may not get dry before the dew falls again. So our next machine was an Inverter. It is more gentle than a second raking and even better it flips it EXACTLY over for best drying. Still can be days. Cut it, usually 2 days to rake it, usually another day then invert it and bale a couple hours after inverting. Early in the season when the hay is young and thick it’s almost always 4 days best case. Rain comes and it’s a 2 day reset.

Very frustrating to make good dry hay around here. Pretty sure a tedder would help a lot, but haven’t spent the money yet.   Then would need someone to do it when I’m at work.

The bottom of the row gets wet from the dew and humidity every day. One thing for sure Jay, less trips doesn’t get it done quicker, you have to work it.

Would love to all but give up on dry hay and go to chopping it all or line wrapping. But talk about spending money!

Edited by Tbone95 - 21 Jun 2020 at 9:13am

The least amount of messin with it the more leaves you save. I only mow, rake, bale. and rake with small light tractor. --- saves a lot of the leaves that way. rake before it gets too dry or you will lose all the leaves.

Study at miner institute showed that if it is just grass, mowing with just a sickle bar will dry grass hay faster than mowing and conditioner. Impeller was the fastest. Think conditioning broke the stems so transpiration slowed dow. Might be one of those studies my dad used to tell me when o was at cornell" if that is what they want you to write on the test, great, but leave that crap nonsense at school please "