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Double "Reconditioner" Speeds Hay Drying
"A couple of years ago, we read in FARM SHOW about a fellow in Texas who had designed a double hitch for pulling square balers. We contacted him and he helped us build our own double hitch," says Jerry Hodge, Westlock, Alberta. "But, instead of balers, we decided to take two discbines and turn them into an extra wide h
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Double "Reconditioner" Speeds Hay Drying HAY & FORAGE HARVESTING Miscellaneous 25-1-39 "A couple of years ago, we read in FARM SHOW about a fellow in Texas who had designed a double hitch for pulling square balers. We contacted him and he helped us build our own double hitch," says Jerry Hodge, Westlock, Alberta. "But, instead of balers, we decided to take two discbines and turn them into an extra wide hay æreconditioner'."
Hodge removed the cutter bars from two New Holland 411 discbines, leaving the conditioning rollers in place. He uses the double wide conditioner to recondition wet windrows to dry hay faster.
Hodge uses the rig to re-crimp timothy hay the day after it is cut with an ordinary discbine,.
"When it is first conditioned as it's cut, the hay is wet and limp, but when it begins to dry down, it starts to become brittle," Hodge explains. "If you crimp it again, it fluffs up and stands so that the wind blows through it. The reconditioning process also leaves more places on the stem for moisture to get out."
Hodge grows timothy for export and, to be saleable, the moisture content of bales must be 12 per cent or less.
Hodge worked with Texan Larry Robinson of the"Making Hay Hitch Co." to build his hydraulic double hitch, which hooks onto the tractor's 3-pt. hitch. Standing behind the rig, the left side of the hitch is stationery (pulls straight behind) and the reconditioner straddles the swath with the tractor. The right side has a hydraulic arm that allows the unit to adjust in and out as needed to pick up the swath.
There are four hydraulic controls in the tractor to operate the rig. One lever operates the arm that moves the right unit in and out, two levers can put the reconditioners in and out of transport mode, and the up and down control for both units is hooked into the loader joystick.
There's a pto-driven hydraulic pump on the hitch that drives two 50 hp orbit motors, which power the 411s.
Hodge also put a set of wheels on the hitch to support its weight and the tongue weight of the reconditioners.
The rig can cover about 15 acres per hour, according to Hodge.
Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Jerry Hodge, Sun West Forage, Box 5538, Westlock, Alberta, Canada T7P 2P5 (ph 780 349-4329; fax 780 349-5160), E-mail: corner1@telusplanet.net. For information on the double hitch, contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Larry Robinson, Making Hay Hitch Co. Inc., Texas (ph 806 373-5891).
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