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50292 Vienna Line RR2 Aylmer ON N5H 2R2 ca

Making Hay

Cutting

The hay is cut with careful consideration of many different factors. It is difficult to decide when to cut hay as it must have grown to the correct maturity and the weather forecast must be just right.  We need a good stretch of warm, dry, weather so that the hay dries and cures properly. This allows the hay to  maintain its green colour and fresh aroma. We use a self-propelled disc bine that cuts the hay, and then forces it through two sets of steel rollers within the machine. The rollers crush the stems of the plant causing them to open and allow moisture to evaporate faster. This allows the plant to dry faster and creates a softer hay. The cutter can travel at speeds of 15mph which allows us to cut large, thick fields of hay very quickly.

Tedding

Once the hay has been cut, it is allowed to lie in the field in swaths for a day or so to dry. The hay is then spread across the field in a thin layer to allow it to dry faster. This is called tedding. Tedding the hay speeds up drying time which means the hay spends less time bleaching in the sun. This makes the hay more cosmetically appealing. The tedder is pulled behind the tractor, spreading the hay out evenly for a more consistently dry product. There very little to almost no leaf loss at this time because the plants are still somewhat damp and they remain intact. 

Raking

Once the hay is dry enough to be baled, it must be raked into windrows. The amount of time it takes the hay to dry depends on the weather. The hay is raked up into windrows so that the baler can pick it up easily to compress it into tight bales. The dual rotor rake creates two windrows with each pass. The windrows must be the right width so that all of the hay is picked up and baled and none is left in the field. The hay is raked in a way that minimizes leaf loss of the plant to maintain its nutritional value. 

Baling

Our hay is baled either as small square or big square bales. The small square bales are then bundled into groups of 21 and resemble big squares once bundled. To bale the hay into small squares, the tractor straddles the windrow and pulls the baler slowly over the hay. The hay is picked up by the baler and tightly compacted to form the bale. The baler then ties two strings of twin rightly around the bale and pushes it out the back. The small square bale then travels down a small shute directly towards the bundler. The bundler takes in the bales and stacks the bales seven high and three wide. This creates a group of 21 bales. The bales are then tied together tightly with four larger lengths of twine. When complete, the bundle drops into the field. These bundles are then picked up by a loader tractor or telehandler with a special grapple attachment that grabs the bundles and virtually eliminates the need to handle each individual bale by hand. The bundles are then loaded onto wagons or into trailers for transport immediately their destination or back to the shed for storage. 

The big squares bales are made in much the same way that the small squares are, only they are compressed into much larger bales and drop out into the field directly from the baler. Big square bales can be made much more quickly, but not everyone has the equipment necessary to feed this type of bale. The small square bales can be handled by hand once they are freed from the bundle while big square bales require a tractor to move them. Small square bales weigh approximately 40-50lbs where as big square bales where anywhere from 800-1000lbs.