# The joy of Custom Baling work...ugh



## downtownjr

I have had some maddening things happen when cutting somebody's hay...but this one takes the cake...re-bar in the field...owner said...oops...he had his boys take some scrap out to a hole at the edge of the woods after the first cut and they must have drove the pickup through the middle of the field...took me awhile to fix it up...luckily only lost some knife blades and guards...but the first look sure scared me...see the pic...


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## kshayharvester

LOL !! I know how you feel I found a pile of old fence post, wooden ones to top it off!! I had to cut them out with a chain saw! I was pretty upset by the end of the day!! Guy said he forgot to haul them off after he built his new fence. Oooooh! What a day makes me mad just thinking about it now!!


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## rank

what do you guys charge for that? parts + labor?


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## Lazy J

Definitely need to be reimbursed for the parts and for the time it took to fix to problem. This was not something "natural" like a limb that fell on the ground, it was as a result of the land owner and you should not pay for it.

Jim


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## Blue Duck

A few years ago a guy asked me to cut his hay because his disc mower was broke down so I started cutting and made it 100 ft into the field and hit a t-post. Then I ran into some wire and that took a half hour to dig out. Then I ran a life jacket and a piece of garden hose through. I decided if there is that much junk in the first round I wasn't going to see what else was out there. I was turning around to head back to the gate and hit a old bag of concrete. He did pay me for my time and repairs


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## NCSteveH

Ah, junk in the fields, something that didn't cross my mind yet, absolutely needs to be addressed in contract paperwork.


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## bunchgrass1

I agree although I've never hit anything like a sack of concrete or rebar! I did have a neighbor swear up and down that they had cleared all wire and other fence debris out of a field I was cutting for them and then spent 5 times what it should have taken time-wise to cut that field. Why? Because I was crawling along speed wise and dodging piles of wire etc that weren't visible until right before you hit them! Apparently two things happened: the guarantee came second hand - not from the person who actually moved the wire etc AND whoever "cleared" that field just gathered stuff into piles here and there so it was like a minefield. And they just don't understand why I won't cut for them again.

Also, baling one time I busted a shear pin and went to clear the hay from the feeder and found the tine off of an old dump rake in there - must have been almost 3' long and 1/4" to 3/8" diameter! How that thing made it through swathing and raking I'll never know but thank god for shear pins!


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## kfarm_EC_IL

How about this. The guy I was round baling for was using his tractor to move bales with loader prong. He got hit by a limb and drove the prong into the back tire of the my raking tractor. $1600 I'm still having a hard time with that one.
Mark


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## kshayharvester

I ended up charging him for down time and repairs, he was upset but it was his first year renting that patch of brome. I did not return the next year and we have parted ways for other reasons. LOL


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## chadl

Well last year was my first disaster with objects. My 12 Year old was baling and in the windrow picked up a spool of barb wire in the bale chamber of my inline hesston. Other than aggravation didnt break any more than shear bolts. It actually came out easy even though it looked like a disaster.


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## mlappin

Ouch...reading all these stories just makes me want to plant more of my own hay so I never have time for custom work.









I've done a few where if I hadn't got lucky and seen it before I drove into them, I would have drove right into a set of ruts bad enough it could have snapped a front spindle off the tractor. Why some folks think driving thru the hayfield is a good ideal because the lane is too muddy is beyond me.

We did have a hay field once next to a government housing project in town, after the first bicycle frame didn't make it thru the rollers on the haybine, it became a practice to get off the tractor and walk along the fence row looking for crap. Why a hayfield is a good place to throw old tires, bicycle frames and even an old microwave when the complex has at least a half a dozen dumpsters around is also beyond me. Did learn something from that though, it is possible to transplant posion ivy into a property line. Works very well once the trespassers figure out what it is.


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## JoshA

I've been fortunate enough to never find anything interesting in my rented fields nor any custom fields I've done. Which is good, because you don't want to hit something when cutting at 15mph!

I had one rule when it came to the custom work. "This is the height I'm cutting at. If you want it cut lower, you will pay for any broken parts, as well as the dealer's time to come out and replace it."

This was mainly because of fear of rock damage (I run a discbine).

The response was always "no no, that's fine, that's low enough!"


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## gwillie44

We had just got a tire repaired by our local tire man on our grain cart during wheat harvest. We started to small square the wheat straw later that day. We sheared a pin on the baler, cleaned it out and found a tire iron. Easy fix, then baled a yard or two, bang.......sheared one more pin. Clean out the baler, tire iron number 2!!


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## NDVA HAYMAN

Bought 2 quarters of land 5 or 6 years ago and sowed into alfalfa with oats as a cover crop.When I started swathing it down, I had got to about the middle of one field when all hell broke loose. Stopped the swather to see what I had picked up and found an old cast iron seat from some implement of long ago . It was all intact and did not break. It had the words " HOOSIER " in the seat. Would be fun to know the life history of that seat. Still have it. They don't make em like that anymore.


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## anokes

The best one i have had so far was railroad ties in the field. Three years ago we had above average rain fall in the spring and the railroad didn't think it was necessary to pick up the old ties. So the water washed the ties off the side of the tracks and carried them out into one of the alfalfa fields that we were green chopping. It was very nice to see an 8 foot tie bouncing around in the header of the swather. Got it shut down before any damage was done. It took 2 hours to pick them all up and they filled the back of a long bed pick-up. I was not happy at all.


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## jpritchett

A couple years ago we were mowing some CRP with are macdon windrower and i picked up a huge pulley. It knocked out 3 guards. I dont know what it was used for. But i was guessing it was off of a caterpillar.

Last year i was mowing some alfalfa with are JD 4995 diskmower and i almost run a momma deer in the mower. She was all but in. Lucky i got it stopped in time. I dont know if i got her back legs but she picked up one of the flip ups underneath on the mower when she was trying to get out of it. I was glad to see her go because i've run alot of turkeys threw the crimper but a full grown deer i think woulda made a mess.


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## BCFENCE

The guy who works for me ran a deer through the discbine last year, He didnt even notice, I saw it while i was raking hay.
THOMAS


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## NDVA HAYMAN

Unfortunately, we hit a lot of deer here. Most are fawns. You cannot see them in a stand of timothy. If you see the doe run out of the field and stand there looking at you, you have to stop and start looking. That is the worse thing about cutting hay! There are also a lot of turkey nest, but we always retrieve the eggs and incubate them. Mike


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## haybaler101

We use our disc mower for population control here. Deer and turkey's are both abundant and quite a problem.


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## johndeere

have a nieghbour who ran a golf driver though his SP forage harvester (JD 5400). Destoryed the harvester. Broke all the knives and the large castings that hold the knives on. He had just changed all the knives on the machine when this happened. He only pick-ed up about 100 feet of hay when everything broke. It turn out the employees son was practicing his golf swing and left the club in the windrow of hay. I think the insurance bill was around $10,000.

PS The harvester didn't even put a mark on the driver head.


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## swmnhay

Ran a roll of barbwire into my NH 116 in Interstate ditch that the fencing crew left lay:mad:

Previous renter threw some knoted up lg baler twine along fence.It ended up between cutter bar and under turtle on Disc cutter.Locked up tight.









Usually get a fawn every yr when they are small and hiding.Ducks sitting on nests,pheasent chicks,possums,racoons and skunks:eek:

Usually never notice anything going thru except a big racoon will go KaWuump


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## BCFENCE

SWM i didnt do it, I swear.


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## barnrope

Last June I had a brand new New Holland 1431 with less than 50 acres on it. I found a 3/4" steel cable about 10" long. It wrapped under the turtle and popped the whole gear case apart. That was a learning experience!!


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## kailhay

Hi everyone, I'm new here. Have enjoyed reading the past two days! I run a 1270 Hesston and previously an 1160. Old hedge posts and petrified timber don't go through the double augers and conditioners very well. I've used chainsaws, prybars, etc. for hours on end to unplug.

Noisiest thing that went through (no damage) was and armidillo. Looked back to see what looked like a bowling ball in the windrow. Coming back on next pass it was gone. Just never know what you will find. It's nice to have established customers and know their fields.


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## Edster

Ever see what a base ball bat does to a set of knives in a JD square baler. Lets just say there were less that 150 bales thru this brand new baler. We don't do that field any more.

We do our best to help manage the turkey population. Most times you don't even feel it running thur the discbine. Usually the guy running the tedder finds them.


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## hay king

I did a guys field for 3 years went all well then on year 3 he fixed some fenceing can you guess where this is going?? any how picked up barbed wire and a fence post with my mower fail conditioner. well let me tell you 50 feet of barbed wire wrapped around the conditioner was shear hell to remove and the post broke 1/3 of the tines plus put a huge dent in the hood. wost of all he wont even pay for part of the repairs needless to say I wouldnt go back there and that field now hasnt been done since


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## hayman568

knock on wood i have not ran anything in that I have noticed on any customers fields, but my dad took out fence one spring and forgot one roll of barbed wire, somehow it made it through the 499 we had at that time, the rake and the baler and found it in the bottom of the hay feeder. Last year I rented a new piece of ground that I took bedding off of and found an implement jack in the cornstalks while bedding cattle one day. And this year I got lots of experiences with skunks, ran 4 of them through in one night on a 50 acre field, then caught the fifth one when I was baling it, somehow it ran in the baler just as i started to wrap so it was stuck just underneath the netwrap got a great pic on my phone but not sure how to post it on here for u guys to see.


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## vhaby

I applaud you guys for doing custom baling. To reverse the trend of this thread just a bit, there is one guy I know who, after a wind storm, went through his hay field picking up limbs and branches, some as far out as 200 yds from the forest edge before the custom hay balers arrived to do his hay.


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## bigdan87

I think the worst I've done yet was when I was swathing crab grass in wheat straw and picked up a 20' combine sickle that was laying on the ground. Wrapped it right around the auger and took a few bites out of the flighting in the process. Needed a cutting torch to get it out.
On the other hand, we do our best to develop and keep good relationships with our customers and most of them will bend over backwards to help us out if we run into problems


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## RockmartGA

One year, we had a tornado pass by one of our hay fields. The next spring, we started picking up roofing nails in our tires. Apparently, one of my neighbors about a mile away had a box of them in a shed that got destroyed by the tornado. I fixed over 50 flats that year and finally bought a metal detector and walked an entire 20 acre field with it. Found over 400 nails with the detector. Luckily, the lugs on the rear tractor tires were tall enough that the nails didn't penetrate far enough to give me a flat on them.


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## lpfd778

yeah I made a special point to put in all my contracts now that if any damage is caused to my equipment from neglect of there field that they are have to pay for repairs to equipment parts and labor of dealer of my choice and they have to pay for my down time at the rate of $75/hr


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## CockrellHillFarms

I love reading this thread. It makes me feel better about my bad experiences. Lol, its nice to be able to laugh about these things after the fact. I was trying to think of the most interesting things I have hit. Been close to deer, never got one. Hit a few turkeys. Hit a few tires. I think the most painful was a 10' wooden post that wiped out a disc mower before they had individual units (mower wasnt even paid off yet). A few weeks ago I was loaded a semi to haul round bales. I had stacked the hay along the out of the field up against the fence. With one bale on the front and one on the back I headed across the 80 acre field from one end to the other. I managed to hit the only thing in the whole field. I left a 100 gal fuel drum with pump in the field. I managed to place it perfectly in between the two front tires. Now how in the world I managed that or the chances of doing that are I have no idea! Great thing is, it didnt damage a thing on the tractor. Did crush the barrel though. But thats cheap to replace. Came out lucky.


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## RockmartGA

One year, I had a tornado pass over one corner of my field. The next season, I began picking up roofing nails in my tires. Apparently, about a half mile away, this tornado demolished an out building that must have had an entire box of nails in it and then dumps it on my field. I had over twenty or so flat tires because of this and finally bought a metal detector and walked the field with it. Picked up over 400 nails that year.


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## TheFastMan

WE have a small field next to a sub-division. The first year cutting it, my brother hit a door jam, mattress springs, a small wheelbarrow and couple other things I believe. The "neighbors" in the sub-division just piled their crap into the field. It hadn't been cut before that for many years. Also, piles of grass clippings and golf balls were another headache. The property owners (they let us cut the field for free), got after the sub-division and made the residents move all their crap out of their property. That whole first year when raking, I'd stop the tractor about every five feet and pick up handfuls of loose paper. It got to be very aggravating. Lesson learned though, always check out any new fields for yourself!


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## Iowa hay guy

about a month ago we mowed some crp and somehow scooped up metal siding from a house after it cot conditioned it looked like corrugated roofing metal then in another field for the same customer he put some small squares of old straw in a ditch to stop the erosion and i hit one with my disc mower all i saw was a cloud of dust no noise or anything


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