# cleaning weeds from baler?



## haygal (Aug 25, 2009)

Just had my square baler returned to me with a couple of bales still in the chamber, and it turns out the field they were baled in had a fair bit of absinth in it. My land has no absinth, and I'd like to keep it that way. How much do I need to worry about cleaning out my baler before it goes back in my field and what is the best way to clean it out?


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## hayray (Feb 23, 2009)

air gun is the best way I like to clean my baler. And also a pair of gloves with my hands pulling out all the loose hay. I never power wash my square baler.


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## nwfarmer (Jun 16, 2009)

I remove all bales and use air to spray everything out of the baler after I bale any field. If a moist bale were to ever freeze in the chamber you will have real problems.


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## stevemsinger (Jul 8, 2009)

I do use a power washer on all of my hay equipment. It does a good job and we have not seen any adverse effects from doing it.


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## kfarm_EC_IL (Aug 5, 2008)

Use Leaf blower before leaving fields. It is a good habit. Same thing for a combine.

Never let the baler be borrowed. Learned that again this year. I don't care how care a person tries to be, they will not run the baler as you have been. They are not going to be using it long enough to know the sounds it is making good or bad.

We try to get all mature weeds and seeds into a garbage bag and then burn it. TRY is the key word.

Good Luck
Mark k


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## Heyhay..eh (Aug 7, 2009)

I agree with blowing the baler with air to get out the weeds that way you don't get any moist alfalfa leaves that seem to eat away at the paint. I only power wash at the end of the season and then it is a thorough washing with a full grease after.

My practice is to bring the baler home and blow it out on a patch of lawn. As it gets cut at lease once per week the weeds never amount to much.

To get out partial bale I have a pickaroon (get an old one from a forester) Cut the twines and pick out the bale, especially the last on being made which always seems to want to stay with the baler.

Not loaning your equipment is a good policy. Having said that I do coop on some pieces but we do communicate and have a system of maintenance and renovation for those pieces. Actually I would rather a person use the equipment a lot so they know it like I do rather than once in a while.

Take care


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## mlappin (Jun 25, 2009)

If I have something like wild oats that I don't want to spread I'll take a leaf blower to all the equipment while its in the field then I also have air hookups on the straight trucks and a four foot wand will get the last of the chaff, leaves and weed seeds off that the leaf blower left behind. The round baler comes home every night and gets blown off with a wand and the chains oiled before its parked.

I power wash our hay equipment as well, but never at the end of the season. Too many nooks and cranny's that just don't dry out towards the end of the year when the temperatures start to drop. Least around here that's what happens. I'll power wash stuff right before I start another cutting, so its gets plenty of use before it's stored for the winter. Keep a good coat of wax on everything and after blowing off with the air hose from the shop it practically looks washed anyways as the wax keeps the dust from sticking so bad. We only power wash our combines as well before we start using them, when done in the fall we take all shields of and spend hours blowing each one off with compressed air. Like I said, around here when we are done with each piece of equipment, its late enough in the year and temps are low enough that if we washed them before parking them, they would not dry out and would just sit and rust instead.

We have a circular main driveway and in the middle of the circle is where the old bank barn stood, when it burned down 50 years ago, grandfather had them shove the remains into the basement of it, then covered it up. Never could get grass to grow on part of it and from years of blowing chaff off the hay equipment in those spots, finally got enough organic matter built up to get something to grow on it besides weeds.


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