Best way to cut a very small hay field?

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OK folks you are dealing with a complete novice.

We have a small field just loaded with good red clover and grass that we want to cut for hay for our dairy goats. The field is only 1 acre. Last year, we found someone to cut the field and were able to get 90 bales from the first cutting alone. We have no tractor or equiptment and we were unable to find anyone willing to cut such a small field for us this year. We found a tractor to borrow, but couldn't find a hay mower. Then we found a mower but no rake. By the time the mower is avialable, the tractor won't be.

We have a sye (spelling?) and we are thinking of cutting and raking this field by hand and storing the hay loose in the barn. Is this an insane idea? How long will this take?

Does anyone have any other ideas for how we might cut the field without equiptment?

-- Tiffani Cappello (cappello@alltel.net), June 13, 2001

Answers

A sythe and a rake fed a lot of animals in the past, and it is a good way to work off those big mac,s & fries that equal a cup of crisco per each.

-- mitch hearn (moopups1@aol.com), June 13, 2001.

We have been getting so much rain up here in Wisconsin, you can't even begin to think of cutting hay. We have a couple horses that needed fed and I refused to buy any more hay!! My brother took the hay mower, made one sweep of one side of a 2 acre field. The girls and I over the last couple of days, took the hay rakes and raked them into a pile, then throwing it on the back of a flat bed truck. We fed it out to them in one of those feeders. As for how long it will take, remember, just like making hay the real way, you're gonna want it to dry on the field before you store it in the barn. I'd say tackle half of it first if you can, unless you have several people over to help with the job. Blisters are bound to appear!!

-- Pat (mikulptrc@aol.com), June 13, 2001.

Forty years ago that's how my brother and I had a three acre field that we took care of for four years. We had three Jersey milk cows that we provided the hay for a year. I know it can be done and it was honest HARD work but if your sythe is sharp and you get the hang of it, the sythe will work for you and not for it. Keep a good rythem and stick to it. I still use my sythe. Not of three acres but aolng some of the fences.GO FOR IT!

-- Herb Miller (hwmil@aol.com), June 13, 2001.

Working one acre is not so bad, get up earliy cut until your tired, then gaither it up to dry, tied in loose bundles or spread in a loft. then go do the other things you need to do. When the shadows begin to streach out and the strongest heat of the day has passed cut again 'til your tired and stack it to dry. Two people can get alot done by trading off cutting and stacking. If you can put a 'cradle' on your sythe it save alot of gathering, the cradle clamps on to the back of the blade and to the handle with a net to catch the hay as it is cut, at the end of the swing it dumps the hay in a pile. I've seen some old heavy sythes that had dowel like extentions over the blade up the length of the shaft,(something like the rungs of a ladder with one leg) these caught the hay as the net does on a modern sythe. You can use a few long pieces of green hay twisted together for a cord, wind it around and tuck in the ends. If you ever use a loft the hay should be loose and layed in thin layers, if you must stack bundles in a loft or indoors to protect from rain they must be turned daily until dry. Once dry they can be stacked in a manner that sheds rain (like a thatched roof) out doors. As it is packed down 'firmly enough to stand on' the stalks work together and only the strongest winds will knock it down. A neat thing about bundles is that you can tie it in 'meal time' sizes that are easy to handle at feeding time with no stings to cut and remove before feeding. You'll soon work out the other fine details for yourself. Good Luck.

-- Thumper (slrldr@aol.com), June 13, 2001.

Well...we just weed-whacked about a quarter acre a week or so ago. I let it dry for a few days (turned it a bit...we didn't make windrows but turning it helped.) I made a medium sized stack, maybe 7 feet high by seven feet wide with a hay fork, and when rain threatened, I covered it with a tarp and some 4 x 8 sheets of 1/4 inch plywood to anchor it. My goats are eating it up. By the time it's gone, it will be time for a second cutting.

The weedwhacker is noisy and uses gas. If I had a way to do it as easily as this without the noise and pollution, I would. But I don't!

-- sheepish (the_original_sheepish@hotmail.com), June 13, 2001.



One acre isn't too large to consider tackling with a lawnmower - rider preferred. Just wait until you are looking at several good, sunny, dry days in a row. Putting hay up loose was standard practice not all that many years ago. Just make sure you have good ventilation, such as putting the stack on wood pallets. Loose will take up several times the area of baled.

Now OSHA isn't going to approve of this: To cut high grasses I took a push mower with high back wheels and cut a crescent shape out of the front, essentially taking off most of the front guard. This way it cuts before knocking over.

-- Ken S. in WC TN (scharabo@aol.com), June 14, 2001.


Tiffani, we put up about 4 acres with a scythe for a number of years. We stacked it up loose in the barn and then "rolled" on it to pack it down. If you are in a humid climate you really need to do that or it will gather moisture from the air and get tough. Just one acre shouldn't take you all that much time, we could do almost 1 acre a day, and we didn't really "push". GL

-- diane (gardiacaprine@yahoo.com), June 14, 2001.

I still have my great-grandparents scythe that they used for cutting grass to make hay for their milk cow. I don't know how much of the original acreage they cut with it, but that seems to have been the method they used, and as already mentioned, it's really important that the blade be kept sharp. We were still using it for weed control before the advent of weed whackers and such.

Another thought might be something along the line of one of those DR Brush trimmers that cut it off without chewing it up. Our local hardware store rents them out by the day so you don't even have to buy/maintain one. Long slow drying with overcast days and low humidity are better than hot blistering sun that can bleach out the hay and lessen quality.

I like Sheepish's idea for protecting with the tarp in inclement weather. You can also dry hay on tripods, made out of 6' tall hardwood poles wired together, with the base about 2' apart. You pile well wilted hay up onto it, allowing for airflow through the pile. When it is stacked, it looks a lot like some kind of an evergreen bush in the field. Dries in a couple of days, and if the weather turns on you, then you can throw the tarp over like Sheepish mentioned.

Hay was stored loose in the barns for generations and still is on a lot of small farms. Why not?

-- julie f. (rumplefrogskin@excite.com), June 14, 2001.


Pat, you mentioned blisters, don,t want 'em, don,t need 'em, wouldn't be prudent. To prevent them, scrape the shiney off your tools handles with a sharp knife. Blisters are caused by sweat buildup on the tool handle, more sweat and you have a vacuum between your hand and the handle, the vacuum pulls your outer layer of skin away from the inter layer, scraping the handle allows air to prevent the vacuum.

-- mitch hearn (moopups1@aol.com), June 14, 2001.

Pat, Mitch, I don't want blisters either. As far as I'm concerned, one of the most essential tools for physical work is a GOOD QUALITY pair of leather work gloves. It's not worth saving a few dollars here - even the best are inexpensive, but the cheapest are just plain cheap. No blisters, no splinters, no thistles (which you can also get from pasture hay), no skinned knuckles, no bruised thumbs, no metal slivers, et cet era et cet era etc.

-- Don Armstrong (darmst@yahoo.com.au), June 14, 2001.


How about motorised hedge trimmers? The kind that look like a saw fish's bill? This might be a hands-and-knees job or you could amaze the neighbours by mounting it on your old golf trundler!

-- john hill (john@cnd.co.nz), June 15, 2001.

I've been considering buying a scythe myself for just this sort of purpose. Had a fellow give me a lesson in their use once but it was about twenty years ago. There's a bit more to it than first meets the eye, mostly in keeping the blade properly sharpened.

I haven't ordered my copy yet but there is a book on scythe use and you can order from Lehman's Hardware

The Scythe Book

There's even a fellow with a business devoted to scythes that you might find worth investigating.

Scythe Supply

I'm told a new edition of that scythe book is supposed to be forthcoming in the near future.

={(Oak)-

-- Live Oak (oneliveoak@yahoo.com), June 15, 2001.


Ken in Tenn,

I'm glad you posted because I've been at a loss to judge how much hay a man could cut in a day. You said y'all cut nearly an acre a day, was that a dawn to dusk day and how many were actually cutting? I'm trying to get a feel for whether using a scythe to cut hay for two dairy goats to get through a Florida winter would be a practical proposition or not. Thanks much.

={(Oak)-

-- Live Oak (oneliveoak@yahoo.com), June 15, 2001.


Live Oak:

That was Diane, not me. I've never used a scythe. I have helped to rake and load hay after it was cut with a garden tractor. In reading old farming books, it is noted cutting crews carried a type of whetstone to periodically sharpen their scythes.

-- Ken S. in WC TN (scharabo@aol.com), June 15, 2001.


Good book live oak, we used that to get started "The Scythe book" and ordered our scythe from the people who advertise in the CS mag. we had whetstones that attach to belt and stoped frequently to sharpen. It really varies greatly how much you can cut in a day depending on what you are cutting, the temp. (like how often do you Need to break) and your personal condition. My husband happened to be in wonderful condition so he cut far more than I could. I would guess one person would do about a 1/2 acre a day or more. That would be maybe an 8 hour day?? Just not sure, it has been a few years.

-- diane (gardiacaprine@yahoo.com), June 15, 2001.


I read an extract from a UK farmers' manual of 19th century on the subject of 'mowing'. As I recall it said the scythe is sharpened with a dry stone of quite coarse grain. For some reason the stone must be kept thoroughly dry and the writer recommended placing it on your coat, which of course you took off when starting work. I know that a scythe stone is a cigar shaped stone, gray in colour, and about 8 inches long.

-- john hill (john@cnd.co.nz), June 16, 2001.

john, do you think the new ones are made of a different metal??? The people we bought ours from sold us and encouraged the whetstone.

-- diane (gardiacaprine@yahoo.com), June 16, 2001.

Hi Tiff. I answered a question very similar to this that was asked just a few days before yours. If you check with troybuilt, they have a little pushmower type sickle mower that is for small jobs and will save you a lot of money compared to buying a tractor, mower, rake, and bailer. The sickle runs all the way across the front of the machine. All you would have to do is rake it and stack it loose buy hand.

-- Russell Hays (rhays@sstelco.com), June 17, 2001.

I really don't know Diane. I think a whetstone would give a smooth, sharp edge like on a razor blade while the stone that I remember was quite coarse and would have given the blade a much rougher edge.

-- john hill (john@cnd.co.nz), June 17, 2001.

My grandfathers sythe stone is right here, its very coarse, six sided about 9 inches long and about broom handle diameter. Whetstones are for razors or knives, think of whisker size compared the hay or straw size. Sharp edges do not cut, they tear with tiny teeth; the smaller the object being cut the tinyer the teeth. Look at a straight razor with a magnifing glass, it looks like a hand saw. The sythes teeth should be visible, unaided, but tiny.

-- mitch hearn (moopups1@aol.com), June 20, 2001.

In "The Scythe Book" by David Tresemer, which we purchased years back from The Marugg Company in Tracy City, Tennessee when we purchased our scythe, it says that whetting gives the blade its even razor- sharpness. Obviously there are two different schools of thought here, but I know that there are several different kinds of scythes, some for brush and others for grasses. Ours that we use for hay is for grasses and unless it is "razor sharp" it requires a lot more "swinging" and tires you out rather rapidly, plus it doesn't lay it down nicely but kind of tosses it when the blade is not really sharp. The whetstone-holder is worn on the belt with a little water and vinegar in it to keep the stone clean of the tiny peices of metal that will clog the stones pores during "whetting".

-- diane (gardiacaprines@yahoo.com), June 20, 2001.

At this point all I can relate is from what I've read but it seems to me that some of us might be talking about two different kinds of scythes.

As I understand it the American scythe has a thicker blade and cutting edge and the European scythe has a thinner blade and cutting edge.

It may be that the American scythe isn't sharpened to the same extent the European type is. From what I've read of their respective sharpening practices the European blade has its cutting edge peened quite thin rather like a hollow ground straight razor and will take a very fine edge. Properly sharpened such a blade would literally cut through green grass and/or hay like a razor through hair.

The thicker blade of the American type scythe may benefit from having a bit of coarseness to the cutting edge the better to catch the individual grass stems against it and cut them.

At least this is how I understand it anways.

={(Oak)-

-- Live Oak (oneliveoak@yahoo.com), June 20, 2001.


Live Oak, YES!!! that is it, I should have thought of that.

-- diane (gardiacaprines@yahoo.com), June 20, 2001.

We invite anyone with an interest in the European scythe to spend some time at: http://www.scythesupply.com/

This site is dedicated to the promotion of the scythe as a relevant and useful tool. It is maintained by an enthusiastic scythe user who is available to answer questions and give advice. They sell equipment found nowhere else and offer instruction and information. (http://www.scythesupply.com/workshop.html). There is even a gallery section with examples of antique blades and scythe related ephemera.

Good mowing, elliot fishbein

-- elliot fishbein (info@scythesupply.com), July 26, 2001.


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