# Equipment sizing - discbine/tedder/rake



## jblydorp (Dec 17, 2012)

How well do the sizes of all these pieces have to match up? We're equipment shopping and trying to figure this all out a bit. Our plan was to go with a 13' discbine and drop the swath as wide as we can. Do we need a 26' tedder and a 26' rake then or can you get away with smaller pieces? It seems quite hard to find a used tedder that size in Ontario. I know the discbine won't drop it 13' wide but ideally you'd like to ted it back that wide right?

Thanks,

Jon


----------



## slowzuki (Mar 8, 2011)

Say your windrow is 9 ft wide out of the 13 ft mower, you need about 22 ft or more of tedder to pick that up cleanly for two swaths per pass. You won't do that with a 4 rotor. 10.5 ft mower is about max for a 18-19 ft 4 basket if mowing into a wide swath.

I don't recommend splitting a windrow with your tedder (ie 1.5 windrows per pass). You end up with thick and thin areas that dry poorly and rake poorly. Should be lots of 6 basket tedders up there, rear fold probably about 4000$ used, hydraulic fold maybe 8000-10000.

Rake doesn't matter if you always ted. Size the rake for your baler and yields.


----------



## slowzuki (Mar 8, 2011)

http://www.agdealer.com/list/view_image.cfm?ID=407393&SearchID=42140474&startrow=1&Act=EQUIPVIEW&listpage=index.cfm

Here a 6 basket Stoll in Ontario under 6000$


----------



## urednecku (Oct 18, 2010)

I'd start with the tractor, do you have one large enough for a 13' discbine? I have a JD mo-co @ 9'9" & don't think my M7040 would pull a 13 footer in anything thick. At least not for long.
Agree with slowsuki on the tedder, but you could get by with a smaller one just taking 1 swath, ya just have to take twice as many trips.
I also agree with him on the rake, IF you always ted you should have a uniform sheet of hay to rake. But IF @ times you'll rake without tedding, like in thin cutting & good dry weather, you would want the rake to kinda match the swath, either 1 or 2 whole swaths.


----------



## jblydorp (Dec 17, 2012)

Yeah tractors are fine, we cash crop a bit of land so we have all that equipment. We're just getting into hay so we need that stuff now. If a 6 basket will do it than that makes life a lot easier! Thanks guys


----------



## gradyjohn (Jul 17, 2012)

urednecku said:


> I'd start with the tractor, do you have one large enough for a 13' discbine? I have a JD mo-co @ 9'9" & don't think my M7040 would pull a 13 footer in anything thick. At least not for long.
> Agree with slowsuki on the tedder, but you could get by with a smaller one just taking 1 swath, ya just have to take twice as many trips.
> I also agree with him on the rake, IF you always ted you should have a uniform sheet of hay to rake. But IF @ times you'll rake without tedding, like in thin cutting & good dry weather, you would want the rake to kinda match the swath, either 1 or 2 whole swaths.


A JD 946 is 13ft and requires 100 hp plus. They reccoment 130-40 and I have both. With the flap down it will lay out 7 ft. I have a 4 basket tedder and it won't do two complete windrows. A 6 basket would be ideal to cover two windrows. Rake 26 would do the same provided your baler could handle it. Sometimes the coastal is so thick my 23' is two wide ... it rakes to the center. I would give my eye teeth to have a double rotor the rakes left or right (not center) so sometimes I could do two separate. With the drought ... I need to put 4 or more together to make the baler interested in going to the field. Can't do that with a center and make it worthwhile.


----------



## jblydorp (Dec 17, 2012)

Yeah we have the horsepower so that's not an issue. There are a few 30' rakes kicking a round and then lots of 21'. Would 21' do it or not? Second cut we might not want to ted it because it's thinner so I guess that's where we'd really want the bigger rake eh


----------



## mlappin (Jun 25, 2009)

I mow with a thirteen footer and Ted with a NH 169 which covers about 22 1/2 feet. Rake with a HT154 rake which covers about 24-25 foot.


----------



## slowzuki (Mar 8, 2011)

Just for reference in the thread thats a 6 basket tedder. I'd like to swap my 162/163 4 basket for one someday!



mlappin said:


> I mow with a thirteen footer and Ted with a NH 169 which covers about 22 1/2 feet. Rake with a HT154 rake which covers about 24-25 foot.


----------



## Shetland Sheepdog (Mar 31, 2011)

I have a small operation, so I mow with a NH 408 discbine (8'3"), ted with a Kuhn GF5001MH (17') & rake with a Kuhn GA300GM (10'). This combination seems to be well suited. Thin hay or 2nd crop I typically double the original swaths by raking in one side of a full tedder pass, and turning around at the center of the field and raking back out to the point of beginning.


----------



## blueridgehay (Dec 25, 2012)

To me a lot depends on how much ground you tryin to cover. Sounds like horsepower is not a problem, and what type of hay are you tryin to produce? You might get by with just a disc and not need a disc bind, which I do agree is better. If money is not a problem, and it always is, my advice is to always go one size bigger than you think you need.


----------



## jblydorp (Dec 17, 2012)

Yeah that's why we're going 13'. I don't think we really need on that big but I'd also like the hydraulic swing. We only want to do in a day what we can also bale the same day, in about 8 hours or so. 30 acres ish maybe?


----------

