Ride Along: Small Square Baler with Rick's Custom Baling

Neil rides with Jacob as he runs a New Holland Small Square Baler for a second hay cutting in East Berlin, Pennsylvania.
Rick's Custom Baling - / rickscustombalingllc
Timecodes
0:00 Intro
1:22 A little bit about Jacob
2:20 Powering a Small Square Baler
2:56 Do you need to weave?
3:44 How Fast to Drive?
5:09 Hard work of Baling Hay
5:34 Controls
6:46 Moisture Monitoring
7:19 Camera Trick for Connecting Wagons
7:44 Heavy vs Light Windrows
8:45 Feeling the Surge of the Baler
9:16 Conclusion
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[@bladewiper]

Back in the 80's and 90's when small squares were still common, the guys would tow two wagons and throw bales over the first wagon and into the second, then drop it and fill the first one. Nothing beats hands on field knowledge when diagnosing a customer complaint.

[@toddrabideau5576]

Back in the day when you had to ride on an open hay wagon placing bales that “surge” just added to the “ fun”. Oh, the good ole days…. Btw, great job Jacob!

[@DLTJR1959]

We ran squares back in the 50's-70's. Never had a kicker but pulled a wagon and stacked. Later when Pop got around 55 years old we switched to a round baler. A whole lot less labor. Thanks for the videos. My Pop sold New Holland and we took a vacation to New Holland and toured the plant in 74. Great memories.

[@northeasterndirtandpropert7974]

Living rural southern ontario.there was no whining at 14 yrs old.My dad had us working part time for dairy farmers.We earned a great appreciation for hard work and a dollar bill.it was hard work but i would'nt change a thing.it taught us real life skills and respect.I sometimes complained,but i know now he was prepping us for the real world and success in our own lives,it worked well.

[@unclebuck5051]

I hope your taking good care of Jacob, he’s a good worker and smart too.

[@JackOSUrulz]

No kidding. What he says in the first seconds of the video regarding experience....and then when Jacob talks about his “education” to get to where he is....throwback to when guys learned their trade this way, working from youth. We are gonna need more guys like him in the future. The future of farming is going to be a lot of smaller farms over time with the way the land is getting chopped up. Here in my hometown, my home state.

[@jaxturner7288]

Nice to see two men shake hands like actual grown men.

[@deborahbaker1935]

I absolutely love your videos neil. My husband watched them all the time before he bought his kubuto. Since then we've tried to watch all of your videos. Thank you for sharing your knowledge!!! Keep it up.

[@MessicksEquip]

That is awesome! Thank you.

[@paullambert2668]

Really enjoying this series, nice to see the machinery running. My brother in law is a spraying contractor, used to run a tractor with booms, now has a couple of dedicated spray trucks. Always super interesting to ride with him, see all the calculations and processes involved in what you might otherwise think is pretty straightforward. Same with this hay series - I had no idea how many processes were involved.

[@dwayneloftice2326]

A WHOLE lot more automated than it was when I was a kid on my grandfather's farm...loading and stacking every bale by hand! But then, that was 65 years ago too!

[@eosjoe565]

I worked for a summer on a hay wagon where the baler just discharged out the back and you had to grab the bale and throw it back to your helper who would stack it on a flat wagon. As soon as you got comfortable with the speed the tractor operator would throttle it up a bit. Quite frankly I don't even know how I was able to stay on my feet across that bumpy field.

[@rapomnam]

We were still doing this the old fashioned way back in the 1990s. Grandpa would drive the tractor, my aunt would drive the pickup pulling the hay trailer. Mom, myself and my cousins would pick up bales, throw em on the trailer and stack them. Then we would all go to the hay barn to unload and stack them again.

[@Ringele5574]

I remember when I was just a young pup back around '84 and '85 me and two other guys would split 25 cents a bale to load the hay from the field and stack on a wagon and then stack in a very short chicken barn. Work was hard, but the money was good and the land owner was very happy to have us 14 and 15 year olds. Good times.

[@kennethheern4896]

Can’t get many young men to do that nowadays. I went to $20/hr about 10 years ago. It was still next to impossible to get help and when you did most never came back the second time. That was just loading in the field. I usually unlocked in the barn by myself. We use a stacker wagon now to get it out of the field.

[@hphillips7425]

Good video. This series has been educational

[@ryanlynch2259]

Nice video. Cool Watching those bails get tossed!

[@randthompson5716]

Nice way to "keep it real" content Neil! 👍👍

[@DJC995]

Hi Neil Nice seeing the how the bale kicker works don't see them in England Thanks Again

[@tommybounds3220]

Thank you for the video

[@jimcox6687]

very educational.

[@keithbeynon3878]

I remember as a 14 year old picking up those bales on my uncles farm, his just got placed on the ground.

[@John1911]

That’s what we had to do on my grandpa’s farm in the 80’s.

[@waynegalvin4639]

That kicker is hilarious!

[@MARKE911]

I need a square bailer like this. This would be great

[@earlyriser8998]

very interesting to see how a service guy runs his equipment

[@MustangsTrainsMowers]

Some of the bales thrown by a bale kicker would break the twine. My family’s dairy farm did all small square bales but we did buy a New Holland bale wagon in the 1970’s. We should have bought a truck to pickup the stacks from the bale wagon. The dairy farm was sold in 1981.

[@SlackerU]

I currently have the latest version of Kubota's bagger but am thinking I might save time & labor by switching to a pine-needle rake when grass is taller than two-weeks-old. Double mowing to mulch thatch with a side-discharge just isn't good for the sharpness of my blades.

[@acdii]

I hooked my B2410 to a NH 273 and baled some hay with it in my field a couple months ago. I found myself sitting here, rocking in my chair to the time of the engine in this video and busted out laughing when it was mentioned about how the baler moves the tractor. Hopefully next year I will have the L4060 to bale the hay, even with the brakes on the baler was moving the B2410. One thing I question is how sharp a turn can be done with the PTO turning? I noticed the windrows were gradual, but there must be times when a turn is 90* or so.

[@davidrobertson376]

Great video. You should never drive a hay rake unless you have operated a baler first.

[@larrymoore6640]

I never ran a square baler but I was involved in stacking them. Question was is the tank with green liquid used for????

[@MessicksEquip]

Buffered acid AKA crop saver. Allows bailing at higher moisture levels.

[@Nillu_bhaliya_18]

Hy sir which baler name , new holland, 5060, 5070 , 5080 ??? 😢🤔🤔 answer please "

[@stewartwaters1778]

Neal you didn't go over the equipment he was using. NH hp? Min hp needed to run everything? You did say three remotes. What gear is he normally in 2nd?

[@memyselfandifarmer]

Scott from north texas hay always said 18 strokes of hay per bale. makes a great bale. RIP Scott.

[@CDROM-lq9iz]

tbh the "optimal" number of strokes per bale is something you could probably ask 3 farmers about and get 3 different answers. It depends on a lot of things

[@JCWren]

Sounds like the saying about dog trainers. "The only thing two dog trainers can agree on is the third one is doing it wrong" :)

[@kennethheern4896]

Most of our bales are 13-14 strokes.

[@brucealvarez9263]

Did Jacob get paid both for baling and teaching Neil how balers work? :D

[@Patty-qh3lm]

How's your neck feel after a day of doing that???

[@oxford821]

How in the world is “hay” profitable? All that equipment must cost over $200,000?

[@MessicksEquip]

They put thousands, and thousands of bales though the equipment.

[@jimcox6687]

NH balers are one of the best long lasting balers on the market

[@inthedarkwoods2022]

Is Neil pregnant?

[@ingomennenga5291]

yes, it must be a baby elephant, the trunk is already sticking out ;-)

[@jimcox6687]

I hate any model of a baler that has a thrower. there nothing but a pain in the butt. Throwers are so outdated.