# I bought the Kuhn 300GA rotary rake. Rotary vs. rollerbar rakes



## Steve Wilson (Oct 17, 2009)

Well, I went and did it; I bought the slightly used little Kuhn 7 1/2 foot rotary rake afterall. In talking with the dealer this morning, about my concerns that it had too narrow of a raking width for the 7 foot JD 710 mower/conditioner, he suggested that I call the previous owner for his thoughts. I don't know why it hadn't dawned on me sooner that even though the cutter bar is 7 foot wide, it deposits the hay in a much narrower swath. DUH.

I don't run the tedder wide open either; preferring to pretty much gently fluff it up and lay it back down slightly wider than how the mower left it. So, 7 1/2 feet of raking width should be just fine and will follow the rolling ground contours better than a 10 footer.

What I'm really looking forward to is replacing that aggravating old JD rollerbar rake. I hated using it right from the start. Yes, they do a fine job of raking the field cleanly. But the way they roll the windrow into a rope doesn't help any with drying; in fact they hinder the drying. In my opinion.

The other complaint I have with rollerbar rakes is that you get trapped in the center of the field with no way out that won't wreck some of the windrows. With the rotary rake, you simply raise the 3 point and drive out. Same thing when you are doing irregular shaped fields, with those annoying triangles. You have to make room when you rake, or find a way to turn around and not push the windrows together in the turn arounds.

All in all, the rotarys seem a much more logical way to go. I can't wait for next year's hay season to start. Raking is all about drying the hay and leaving it in a pattern the the baler can easily handle. Rotary rakes seem better suited to provide both solutions to me.


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## mlappin (Jun 25, 2009)

Steve Wilson said:


> What I'm really looking forward to is replacing that aggravating old JD rollerbar rake. I hated using it right from the start. Yes, they do a fine job of raking the field cleanly. But the way they roll the windrow into a rope doesn't help any with drying; in fact they hinder the drying. In my opinion.
> 
> The other complaint I have with rollerbar rakes is that you get trapped in the center of the field with no way out that won't wreck some of the windrows. With the rotary rake, you simply raise the 3 point and drive out. Same thing when you are doing irregular shaped fields, with those annoying triangles. You have to make room when you rake, or find a way to turn around and not push the windrows together in the turn arounds.


Yup, always said the rollabars if just the perfect driving spot could be found would get the wet hay on top, but what didn't end on top of the row wasn't going to dry just because they do rope it up so bad. My cousin still uses rollabar rakes and I've baled for him a few times, the alarm for a full bale goes off, I stop and the baler pulls all the hay from under the tractor in because its roped up so tight.

On your second point, I LOVE my wheel rake for that. Rake the rows and do the ends dead last. Doing it that way I don't mess any of the rows up and also don't drive on the ends after they are raked. I remember with the tandem rollabar rakes making all those extra circles around the outside pushing the rows as far out as they'd go just to get room to turn around. Did a lot of mow one field, then go and mow jsut the outside rounds on the next and so on just to get rid of the d*mn endrows so I would have to actually deal with them while raking the rest of the field.


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## hay wilson in TX (Jan 28, 2009)

When I used a NH pull type ground drive I put a hydraulic cylinder on it to lift the basket, then I put a bar on between the 3 point lift arms and could lift the hitch a good ways. The two combined would clear a windrow. I could make fine raking adjustments on the rake clearance with the 3 pt control.

I switched to pto powered rotory rake that left real nice windrows, no roping and no new wet slugs. It is obvious the working width they talk about is not the ground coverage width. Those long arms turned out to be a little tender and also shucked teeth regularly.

Now I have a NH pto powered 3 pt hitch roll bar rake as well as a NH rake tedder. Now that is a rean handy machine.

The thing is you can put a hormone laden teenage boy on a roll bar rake and get the job done. A rotory rake wants a real operator to attend to the minor adjustments.

Any new rake will be one that works a little wider than the NH 254, can rake to one side as well as to the middle. Three machines in one. One that can build a windrow suited to round baling as well as square baling.


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## grouchy (Sep 19, 2009)

Your rake probaly has a wider raking width than 7-1/2 foot. You measure a rotary rake from the outside of the rotor tip to the curtain in raking position. You probably have a 7-1/2 foot wide rotor and will slide the curtain out 18 to 24 inches. The 300 probably means 3.0 meters (app 10 ft.) You can't make quality hay without a rotary rake.

Grouch


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## Rodney R (Jun 11, 2008)

We had a Kuhn 300GA, I think. It had 9 arms, 3 teeth per arm. Ran the crap out of that thing. That rake raked a LOT of hay. You'll have to put liberal amounts of grease on the arms where they come apart for transport - they stick easily. We would rake the hay that came out of a 12ft haybine. I just sized the swath for the rake.

Rodney


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## MENCA (Oct 26, 2009)

the kuhn 300 is a great rake and if you are careful you can rake windrows taller than they are wide...haven't found a rake that can do as good a job....to speed things up we have a couple kuhn speedrakes (wheel rakes) and since we lay our grass hay flat and do not windrow it 90% drys in 24 hours, and we rake at 24 hours and have not had problems with roping with the speed rake., bale at 48 hours almost every time.


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