It’s amazing how hay-making has changed since I was a boy growing up 60 years ago.
I often wonder what my father and the farmers of his generation would think if they could see how farmers speedily cut down entire fields of hay with the modern discbines. Discbines can zip forages down fast, even when it’s wet, something you didn’t see 20 years ago when haybines were the popular machine of the day. Farmers back then would cut what they could bale in one or two days. It meant cutting 10-20 swaths around a large field. The remainder was cut on two or three days provided the weather looked promising.
I’m guessing it was 55 years ago that haybines first appeared on area farms. The New Holland haybine was a great invention. There was a seven and a nine-foot cut. Later 12-foot models were made. Forage was cut, crimped and swathed in one trip over the field. Looking back now they were slow machines, they plugged easily and were a pain in the neck. Pain in the back, too – the operator was always twisted in the seat looking over the right shoulder.
Prior to the haybine, farmers cut hay with a mower. Alfalfa hay was then crimped by a crimper or commonly referred to as a conditioner. That meant two trips over the field before the hay was raked.
This generation of young (dairy) farmers is different from their fathers and grandfathers. They have larger acreages to work and they don’t want to be haying all summer. They also want to get the first cut off early and get a second and a third cut. Second and third cut hay is high in protein.
Many dairy farm operations get their haylage done by a custom operator. They cut down 100 acres or more at one time. A huge rake puts three swaths together and a powerful, self-propelled forage harvester and a few dump trucks clean it up in a day.
If they’re not making haylage they make round or large square silage bales and wrap them. It is also a fast and efficient way of putting away winter feed for the cattle.
Gone from the landscape are the automatic stookers. You may see one occasionally. They were a common sight before the round balers came on the scene. The stooker was bolted on the back of a baler and stooked six bales, which were later picked up with a stooker fork on a front-end loader. The (Allied) stookers didn’t always place the top bale in the right position. That was bad if it rained. Small square balers and the bale thrower wagons will soon be relics of the past, just as the mowers and steel-wheeled hay loaders that preceded them.
The once popular hayfield for fodder is also becoming a relic, especially in places where there are no livestock farms or riding horses. Hay and pasture fields (almost everywhere) have been taken over by corn and soybeans – particularly soybeans. Many small and odd size fields are now in soybeans or grain corn. That’s no wonder. With beef cattle numbers down considerably in eastern Ontario, the landscape is not dotted with round bales like it was 20 years ago. You have to drive all the way to the New Liskeard and Temiskaming area of northern Ontario to see large numbers of cattle grazing in pasture fields.
