Farm Equipment - Haybine

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Haybine

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Category: Allis Chalmers
Forum Name: Farm Equipment
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URL: https://www.allischalmers.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=16811
Printed Date: 06 Jul 2025 at 5:09am
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Topic: Haybine

Posted By: LouSWPA
Subject: Haybine
Date Posted: 18 Aug 2010 at 10:19pm

when i was growing up and working on local farms, the guys I worked for refused to "condition" the hay, unless forced to because of weather ( in fact, only one had any kind of conditioner). They said that squeezing the hay to get it to dry faster squeezed nutrients out of it. Yet, today using a haybine seems almost universal. Am I missing something?

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I am still confident of this;
I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.
Wait for the Lord;
be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord. Ps 27

Replies:

Posted By: clovis
Date Posted: 19 Aug 2010 at 2:02am

Lou,

I've wondered about the very same thing for years!!!!!!

Posted By: Lars(wi)
Date Posted: 19 Aug 2010 at 5:46am

part may be 'old wives tale' but remember way back when, you never started cutting hay before the field was 1/4 in bloom, by the time you were done with all the fields it was usually in full bloom if not past that, the alfalfa was a lot less juicer then. Nowaday's everyone seems to want to get done with each cutting before a single bloom is visible, the plant's are a lot more tender and juicer and require conditioning this way.

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I tried to follow the science, but it was not there. I then followed the money, and that’s where I found the science.

Posted By: Jack(Ky)
Date Posted: 19 Aug 2010 at 6:05am

A good conditioner just bends the stems and doesn't squeeze all the juice out. If you look close at the stem it has little spots a few inches apart. Most people around here that have modern discbines don't use the conditioning rolls they get them with beater bars. These bars mostly just bend the stems and lets the hay stand up a little in the field so air can flow through it instead of just laying flat on the ground. These bars are also supposed to brake the waxey film on the stems to allow for better drieing the way I understand it. I still use a haybine and the rollers are not supposed to be adjusted to where they touch each other.JP

Posted By: firebrick43
Date Posted: 19 Aug 2010 at 6:22am

Conditioning squeezing the juices out is an old wives tale, plain and simple. On the other hand conditioning is really only good for hay that is a majority of alfalfa. Grass hay does not benifit from conditioning and may even slow it down in some circumstances do to the way the windrows are made.

Posted By: LouSWPA
Date Posted: 19 Aug 2010 at 3:35pm

wouldn't that then be an "old farmers tale"? sorry, I can't help myself!

I didn't know that a haybine just wrinkled it, not squeezed. thanks for the replies

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I am still confident of this;
I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.
Wait for the Lord;
be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord. Ps 27

Posted By: AllisFreak MN
Date Posted: 19 Aug 2010 at 10:07pm

If you left the juices in the stem it would never get dry enough to bale. The rollers should be far apart enough to just crack the stems.

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'49 A-C WD, '51 A-C WD, '63 A-C D17 Series III, 1968 A-C One-Seventy, '82 A-C 6060, '75 A-C 7040, A-C #3 sickle mower, 2 A-C 701 wagons, '78 Gleaner M2

Posted By: joshjohndeere
Date Posted: 19 Aug 2010 at 10:15pm

these guys are all correct on the way a conditioner works. the one conditioner i didnt see mentioned is the impeller conditioner that many of the new machines have and instead of breaking the stem they give it a rug burn to let the moisture "weep" out and also retain valuable proteins and feed values.