I can sympathize with you on not being able to find anyone to make hay, yet I can see it from the farmers side of the fence. That said, we make hay on alot of small pain in the *** fields dealing with fences etc. The thing about it is that if you make alot of hay like we do, these type places are time consuming and don't return enough for our time and equipment tie up. The other problem being, as we make more and more hay, in the neighborhood of 300 plus acres, most 2x cutting, a few real good fields we do 3x, we have had to get bigger equipment in order to get it down quicker, and then up quicker.
These smaller places we can barely get the disc bine through the gates, then the fields are small and tight and the turn radius and all makes them a real pain. If you use a smaller width machine then you make more passes and that equates to more time and more fuel. My son is VERY good with manuvering (sp?) equipment in tight spaces. So then once it is down, it can be tedded out with any of the tractors we pull the tedder with, but then the raking is another story. We have a big "wheel rake" that can really get some hay raked quick. It does not work good in small fields where there isn't much turning room at the end. So, these small fields I use the OLD TRUSTY FARMALL H with the side delivery rake. I love the H and do alot of raking with it. But it is not efficient as far as time goes as it only can rake one windrow at a time. Therefore you are traveling around the field ALOT of trips. Now the H is pretty fuel efficient , but it is the time that is the issue. It does turn sharp and is ideal for the little cut up fields, and it can get around and close to things, but again that takes time.
All that said, we still do alot of small places; one place is about 20 acres cut up in 5 fields, and they don't have any two sides that are even. The fences make it hard and we are hoping that when the new owner (has been there about 5 years) comes there to live full time, that he will be making his own or at least pasturing the 3 smaller ones and only making hay on the 2 bigger ones.
A straight sickle bar that was the way everyone used to use to make hay works real good EXCEPT that is doesn't stem crush the hay so it takes longer to dry. And hay nowadays is planted thicker and varieties produce more per acre than ever. That is also a big thing when you have maybe a 4 day window looking at you. No one I know uses a sickle to make hay with anymore. It will not cut through the real thick stuff or stuff that is laying over. We used a haybine for years but went to a discbine as it will pickup the real thick and tangled stuff and will do it at a speed nearly twice as fast as the haybine. Again, getting it down quicker, to be able to take advantage of more drying time.
Sickles are great to clean up a pasture with, and can reach out to the side over a creek bank that the other machines can't since they don't have a wheel on the end of them like the other machines do.
Because we both are still working full time, Mike has to get it down so that I will have time during the day when I am home to get it tedded out to dry or just raked up so that he can do the baling when he gets off work in the evenings. The splitting up of the jobs works good, but time is a factor.
I keep looking for a smallish side cutter...
