So for you hay croppers out there a moment of your time please.


Currently I use an old new Holland roll bar rake. It works fine enough. Just slow.  We’ll be cutting more hay later this year and next year. Almost 80 acres total now.

I went rotary rake shopping the other day. I found a Kuhn 3pt rotary rake within my budget.

I don’t know anything about 3pt hitch rakes. It does have a front wheel too, however.  

Slightly above my budget I found a sequia one that is a bit wider, but is a trailer mounted.

I’ve read briefly trailer mounted are better for uneven ground. All my fields are mostly very flat, besides one field that is pretty bumpy from ruts. Needs reset and some drainage done to it, but it’s only 9 acres.

Rest are all flat with only a few holes we avoid anyways. No major ruts. The biggest field is extremely flat. 30 acres of super flat as we just re did it.

Anyone have any experience with a 3pt rotary rake?

As you get older more equipment becomes draw bar mounted because of easy hook up. If you have a tractor dedicated to the 3pt rake I would consider it. But if you’re swapping equipment a lot I would go draw bar.

I am just getting started trying to hay some property, and everything I've read online the consensus seems to be trailer rake is the way to go.

But I've got a neighbor with a 3pt wheel rake, and he absolutely loves it and swears by it. He has some cows, so he puts up a bit of ditch hay for them, and he says there is nothing better than the 3pt rake for that. So that complicates the question a bit.

I find a lot of cheap 3 pt wheel rakes for sale around me and they seem like a good way to get started. No tires to worry about, no gear box, if anything replace some of the wheels and go rake. But the consensus is against that idea so it's hard to tell.

Not really swapping. We use one tractor to cut and bale.


One tractor to run the Tedder and rake.


But we don’t swap like the Tedder for the rake mid day or anything like that. When it’s on there, it’s on there for the day.

I mean we also have enough tractors that I could dedicate it to live on all the time.  

We technically have more tractors than we do hay equipment lol…

So I did more research and these are the pros and cons:


Cons:
Harder to hook up.
Not good on uneven ground. (Flows with tractor, not independently)
Smaller size typically.
Most of the time more expensive vs size.  


Pros:
can be lifted at the end of rows to make neater rows.
Better on smaller fields due to lifting and turning.
Less risk of breakage via backing up and such.

Another thing I think of all the time is: couldn't you just unhook the top link and let the rake follow the ground? You'd lose the ability to lift it, but it seems to me the rake should flow a lot nicer over the ground if that's a concern.

The tractor I intend to put it on has 3pt float.  


The trailer type just tilts a bit more side to side. Due to the play in the pins, plus not being attached on 2 sides.

Well.  I bought the Kuhn 3pt rotary rake.

Coming in Wednesday.

A hydraulic fold drawbar pulled rake can be lifted to make turns. Put it in float when raking so it floats over the ground and lift at the ends.

Yeah.  Missing from that picture is a fully functional partially restored IH 806 with a 1206 turbo, a 1952 farmall super C, and my 2305 Deere.

That’s not including heavy equipment…

We have too much shit

Darf is the answer to a rake question, although probably too much rake for 80 acres.

I have several three point rakes.
I use them as spare parts for my pull type rake.
Have fun haying.

You never have to many tractors when you ruin a tire on the weekend and another tractor goes down with a hydraulic leak. Just hook up the spare then fix when your done haying. I looked really hard at the little Kuhn rotary rake. But my wife and mom decided we needed a new all in one silage wrapper. But it was so wet we weren’t able to use it for our first cutting this year. But I’m planting some hay grazer to make hayledge. We have an eight wheel wheel rake that’s trailered. So now we have two basket or bar rakes just sitting. I will admit the basket rake is still much nicer for flipping a windrow.

Forgot to take pictures because I wasn’t running it.

Raked and baled 20 acres today. As we got another few to do. The 3 point really is nice in the smaller fields with odd angles. Being able to lift it up is amazing.

Worked super well. The baler loved it.  Really gets the air in the rows.

We baled five two to three acre food plots yesterday and my wife would have killed to have had a three point rake. Planted 22 acres of hay grazer yesterday for a total of 72 acres. Now I just need rain.

If you are worried about the end of your windrows you may try a different technique for raking. Do you run 2 tractors at the same time? 1 raking right in front of the baler?

Come into the field and make long straight passes. Once that’s done you come back around the field 2 or 3 times and it cleans up your ends. Baler comes into the field and picks up the edge passes and then has room to turn around on the straight windrows. If you run a baler right behind the rake you make your passes around first and then long straight passes.

We rake 3-4 hours ahead of the baler. Gives it a little more time to dry especially first cut. Thick Timothy grass.