Roto baler pickup problems

Trying to bail another round of hay with my old Roto baler. Having some trouble with it this around. The pickup chain keeps jumping off the drive gears and binding up. Hay seems to be getting jammed underneath the pickup bars. The roller at the end of the pickup spins pretty easily but that is not rotating so that does not help things. The pick drive belt is new

The hay I’m trying to bale is not great hay to say the least I cut it with an old Mc rotary sycthe and tedded it with that as well so maybe it’s the hay itself?

Any tips to help alleviate this? Gets old shutting the tractor down every bale to pull the hay out and get the pickup tracking.

I think that was the cause tried it out again and had much better luck. I need to practice making my wind rows better that was causing a lot of trouble. And towards the end it started to eject the bale without ever putting the twine on it. Need to read the manual again and keep it lubed up.

While on the subject of hay does anyone have recommendations seed to plant in a small field (5acres or less) that has some well drained gravelly areas but also a lot of low lying clay field in the northeast? I have a of of knapweeed taking over and the field should be limed to improve the ph but I’d like to start getting it in better shape.

500592 wrote: While on the subject of hay does anyone have recommendations seed to plant in a small field (5acres or less) that has some well drained gravelly areas but also a lot of low lying clay field in the northeast? I have a of of knapweeed taking over and the field should be limed to improve the ph but I’d like to start getting it in better shape.

I bet the bales are getting ejected prior to wrapping due to the plants being too tall and the windrows being wrapped. The twine tube drops but the press rollers keep pulling in hay. That makes the bale too big and it forces the bale too eject prematurely. There are other thing it could be but that is the most simple.

As for what hay to plant, my choice would be a modern variety of timothy ( not climax) and if you want add a legume, birdsfoot has done ok for me

The extra day of drying made a big difference. I’ve been using 1st low on a d15 series 2 and when the hay got thinner went to high.

500592 wrote: dr p wrote: I bet the bales are getting ejected prior to wrapping due to the plants being too tall and the windrows being wrapped. The twine tube drops but the press rollers keep pulling in hay. That makes the bale too big and it forces the bale too eject prematurely. There are other thing it could be but that is the most simple. As for what hay to plant, my choice would be a modern variety of timothy ( not climax) and if you want add a legume, birdsfoot has done ok for me That was the strange part the twine tube never dropped the bale would be Almost full size or just a bit smaller when it would eject. It started doing almost every time when I was finishing up.