GON
$175 Site Donor 2026
What a workout the men had in the past stacking hay.
Hay stacking, past and present
- Thread starter GON
- Start date
Both of my grandfathers farmed with horses and moved hay by hand. I heard the stories, but of course, we didn't farm with horses. They were both amazed at how much we could accomplish in an hour with modern machinery. Just in my lifetime, we used to put up mostly small square bales by hand, but now you'll be hard pressed to find hay in small hand thrown bales, instead you'll only find large round bales that weigh 2,000 pounds.
Oh my, it goes much further than that now-a-days Gon. I "made hay" a number of times in my younger years: Ride on the wagon behind the baler and stack the hay/straw. Then hand stack the hay in the barn off a hay elevator. The work was always done on the sunniest, hotest days. The barn was like an oven. I absolutely loath it and will never volunteer again.
These are my preferred methods today: skip forward thru the sections
I was always intrigued by the twine knot maker on hay balers.
These are my preferred methods today: skip forward thru the sections
I was always intrigued by the twine knot maker on hay balers.
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OP reminds me of my youth, substance farming with horses. Not a great life, but hard work becomes a way of life. Yes it was the job of the young folks to be at the top, we bounced higher
GON
$175 Site Donor 2026
I never knew you were thatI never knew you were that strong sir
I am sure you meant to say old instead of strong
Square bales when I was a kid, we threw them up in a loft by hand off the wagon.
We loaded them on the wagon by hand also.
Look around 55 seconds when the the tractor "salutes" the passerby!!
We farmed hay in Western Washington up through 2011. It is hard work and we retired from it at the end of that summer. We made the 50 pound bales because we were doing it for very small farms and horse owners. It was great for my kids to learn hard work from age 5 on.
BTW, the hay was not already there. We cut the grass and made it into hay. It had to cure properly before it could be baled.
BTW, the hay was not already there. We cut the grass and made it into hay. It had to cure properly before it could be baled.
I did small squares, hay and straw for a few years, age 13-16, for a farmer whose business was selling hay and straw to horse folks... I should have paid more attention to the numbers but I think we unloaded around 16-20 wagons of 200 bales on an average day, and with 3 in mow we'd handle just over half them. We'd fill a barn to the roof in a few days and go onto the next... I think he had 7 or 8 barns. He had a thrower on the baler and would have a few wagons full sitting at the barn in the morning. He would go bale once the dew had dried and he have one guy running wagons back and forth from barn to field all day. We were having a good day when we could out pace the baler and wagons showing up at the barn in the afternoon. I used to ride about 8 miles to work on the back roads on my yamaha IT200. Cops stopped me once crossing the highway but let me go after I told him why I was riding my dirtbike at 7:30 in the morning, he said push it across the highway in the future so I did without a problem.
Anyways I was a pretty good 1st year rower in university! Maybe slinging those couple hundred thousand bales helped?
Anyways I was a pretty good 1st year rower in university! Maybe slinging those couple hundred thousand bales helped?
GON
$175 Site Donor 2026
Great story, and great character building for a young man. Thanks for taking the time to share your story. And kudos to the law enforcement using critical thinking in not writing a ticket.
Brings back so many memories of my youth. We worked our rear ends off, then went home and did all of the usual work with a thousand head of hogs and a few cattle, oh and 1,500 acres of row crop. The rule was you didn't take any pay, you helped your neighbor, but they did feed us. Did you ever notice the adults never went into the haymow, only the kids?
I rode a three wheeler.
I can assure you, when you went to bed you didn't get to the first sheep.
This brings back a lot of memories from my youth. During my early high school summers, I hauled hay and straw for farmers. Most farmers hired a crew of 3-5 teenage boys to haul and stack their hay. Most of the time we bucked hay up onto the truck bed, where another kid would take the bale and stack it. Sometimes we were fortunate, and the farmer had a bale lift, that mounted on the side of the truck. Then the kid on the ground would just have to line up the bales so they would feed onto the lift, and the kids on the back of the truck would grab them off the lift and stack them.
I remember one job where one of the other teen boys was kind of clever. Since we were getting paid by the bale, we wanted to make the best use of the 4 boys on our crew. Instead of having one just drive the truck, we tied a rope around the steering wheel, pulled the throttle out on the dash, and put it is gear. Every once in a while the kid lining up bales for the lift would jump up on the running board, reach through the window and make a little steering correction. Towards the end of the field, he would have to jump in, undo the rope, make a U-turn, and tie the rope back up. We made good money that week.
One farmer I worked for liked chopped hay instead of baled. Stacking chopped hay involved blowing the chopped hay into a round hay stack. Then a kid (me) would walk around the perimeter, created by a fence about 25' in diameter, to compress the hay so the hay stack would keep shape. What a dirty, miserable job. But it paid well for a 16 year old kid.
I haven't seen any farmers around here that use the rolled round bales. Most all do the large square bales. Horse owners still like the small 50-70# bales, so a few farmers will bale these. It's my understanding that, although it is a limited market size, there is good money in it.
I also don't think many farmers use the automated loading/stacking equipment around here. A lot of it was seen when it was first introduced, but I heard that these constantly break down, and are high maintenance. I can't recall the last time I've seen one of the local farmers using the automated hay loading/stacking equipment.
I remember one job where one of the other teen boys was kind of clever. Since we were getting paid by the bale, we wanted to make the best use of the 4 boys on our crew. Instead of having one just drive the truck, we tied a rope around the steering wheel, pulled the throttle out on the dash, and put it is gear. Every once in a while the kid lining up bales for the lift would jump up on the running board, reach through the window and make a little steering correction. Towards the end of the field, he would have to jump in, undo the rope, make a U-turn, and tie the rope back up. We made good money that week.
One farmer I worked for liked chopped hay instead of baled. Stacking chopped hay involved blowing the chopped hay into a round hay stack. Then a kid (me) would walk around the perimeter, created by a fence about 25' in diameter, to compress the hay so the hay stack would keep shape. What a dirty, miserable job. But it paid well for a 16 year old kid.
I haven't seen any farmers around here that use the rolled round bales. Most all do the large square bales. Horse owners still like the small 50-70# bales, so a few farmers will bale these. It's my understanding that, although it is a limited market size, there is good money in it.
I also don't think many farmers use the automated loading/stacking equipment around here. A lot of it was seen when it was first introduced, but I heard that these constantly break down, and are high maintenance. I can't recall the last time I've seen one of the local farmers using the automated hay loading/stacking equipment.
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And as an adult now I can see why! I wouldn't be able to climb down out of there after a few loads!
We had one of the older guys unload the wagons, which was always out in the sun... I remember he got sunburnt through his shirt the one day! Mike could unload a wagon himself and load the elevator with bales nearly end to end until the last few at each end of the wagon... The most fun was when the hay was getting near the roof and and above the end of the elevator and you had to throw up to your head level if you were on the elevator... Sometime you'd just chuck them off not to get buried... Anyways it was good work but unfortunately the farmer had too short a temper for longer term employment for me and almost all other jobs were easier money!
Except maybe cleaning out a chicken barn by hand... No surprise that barn burnt down after the nephews and friends got our of high school! No one else would do that job...
Depends how tight they were packed, some weigh little, some are way more than 50 pounds... the hardest packed ones you don't throw very far...
JTK
$100 Site Donor 2025
Rectangular bales for me as well many moons ago when I was ~14 thru maybe 18. They could be fairly light, or heavy depending on the consistency and moisture content.
The farmer I worked for didn't have a kick bailer, so you had to pick the bails up in the field, stack them on tractor drawn wagons, then unload the wagons by electric conveyor into the hay mow. I'm not even sure that's how it's spelled, but they referred to the upper hay storage area as a 'mao' in his huge barn. You'd be waaay up there towards the barn roof after the last cutting of the year. When we completed a layer of hay, we sprinkled down some salt on the completed layer. I miss those days and wish my boys had the opportunity. The place I worked is now a fancy subdivision.
The farmer I worked for didn't have a kick bailer, so you had to pick the bails up in the field, stack them on tractor drawn wagons, then unload the wagons by electric conveyor into the hay mow. I'm not even sure that's how it's spelled, but they referred to the upper hay storage area as a 'mao' in his huge barn. You'd be waaay up there towards the barn roof after the last cutting of the year. When we completed a layer of hay, we sprinkled down some salt on the completed layer. I miss those days and wish my boys had the opportunity. The place I worked is now a fancy subdivision.
The hay mow was where you stored the loose hay back in the days before balers became routinely available. The word comes from a German root word meaning "heap." With pto driven balers a modified barn designed for loose hay still worked for baled hay. You had to modify the barn because the door was well above the floor since the loose hay would be hoisted up with a hay hook and then dropped into the mow. You will see old barns with a beam sticking out over the door high up in the side. That was for getting the hay hook over the wagon load of hay. Here is a video of it being done from inside the barn:
My kids and I made 50 pound square bales. We carried a scale in each baler to try to get it right. Hay not properly cured would have too much moisture and make a heavy bale.
My kids and I made 50 pound square bales. We carried a scale in each baler to try to get it right. Hay not properly cured would have too much moisture and make a heavy bale.
Sometimes they were packed so tight we had trouble getting our hand under the wire. But yes, curing is important too, the moisture left will cause mould growth too.
Other (other bailer) were packed so loose they hardly stayed square.
Other (other bailer) were packed so loose they hardly stayed square.
