HAY MAKING NEW WAY

Press, Volume CXIII, Issue 33360, 19 October 1973, Page 8

HAY MAKING NEW WAY

A new generation of hay making machines was now coming on the market, Mr J. S. Dunn, of the New Zealand Agricultural Engineering Institute, told farmers at the Ashley Dene field day this week when they saw one of them at work.

Mr Dunn said that the modern baler was efficient but the bale that it produced did not seem capable of being fitted into a fully mechanised system. Many bales were handled five times before they were finally fed to the animal. Now it seemed that they had to look at a much larger package than the traditional bale. The machines now coming on the market are from Canada, the United States and the United Kingdom.

The one seen in action at the field day was the smallest of three Hesston units. This loader picks up hay out of the windrow and forms a stack, with the roof section occasionally compressing the load, weighing one ton and a quarter. The other Hesston units make stacks weighing three and six tons respectively. These stacks are deposited on the ground from the loader and can be picked up again with a stack mover, and a feeding attachment enables the hay to be fed out in the winter. According to a programme issued for the field day the small Hesston loader costs $7400 and the mover $1315. The largest unit of this series costs either $21,604 or $19,761, according to type of pickup, with the mover costing $5920 and the feeder $5287. It was noted that there might be remission of duty on some of these prices.

The McKee machines were mobile barns, into which the hay was blown and settled down under its own weight, said Mr Dunn. According to the unit used, stacks of four to five tons or 10 tons were made. They could also be picked up again and moved around the paddock and there was a feeder attachment. The prices quoted for these units are $ll,BOO and $14,200, with the feeder attachment estimated to cost about $3550. Mr Dunn said the Howard big baler had been developed by two farmers in the United Kingdom. It made bales sft square and Bft long and weighing about half a ton, which were tied with polypropylene rope and could be moved by a front-end loader with gripper attachment. The estimated cost of the

baler and gripper attachment is $6500. Discussing handling costs from swath to animal with these machines, Mr D. C. Jamieson, of the institute, said that the operation of said that the big machines became very cheap when they handled large quantities. Answering a question

about who would own these large units, Mr Dunn said that there was a place for contractors with this specialised equipment, and it was likely that farmer co-operative or syndicate ownership would also come with these machines. The accompanying photograph shows the Hesston machine at the field day.