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Pasco WA. | Local dealr is bringing me a Kuhn 7301 rake to demo in 3rd cutting alfalfa this week. He is making some pretty wild claims so we well see. Currently I run NH 216 rakes and cut with 16' swathers. Right now my rake of choice would be the Twin Star 2030. What should I look out for with the rotary rake? |
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Little River, TX | Hopefully the dealer will know how to adjust the rake. With a rotary rake there are more adjustments than with a roll bar rake. The height of the of the gauge wheels is an obvious one. Then there is the pitch of the rotor itself. It wants to have a slight pitch toward the front. With mine I can adjust the top link as well as the tilt of the rotor on the machine.
Too fast a RPM is not all that great. I like to run the PTO at 300 to 350 RPM, and adjust the ground speed with gears or hydro drive.
Regardless of rake type I try to handle hay when the humidity is too high to bale. |
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| What kind of claims is your dealer making? Dry hay faster? More gentle handling? Our dealer here promised that his kuhn would do just about anything. I bought a 7301 a year ago and found most of his claims to be BS. The only thing I like it for is grass, where it really makes a nice windrow. In alfalfa I find that More often than not the hay it rakes is a couple points wetter than behind my vermeer R23A. And in most conditions the vermeer will do a better job raking. Also, this rake has been a maintenance and repair nightmare...don't have near enough time to detail all of that for you. If you are really determined to go with a rotary rake check out Claas before you buy. My neighbor has one that seems to be a lot more trouble free than my kuhn. I would gladly sell you the POS for a reasonable price, but we are too far apart to make it work with freight. Hope to have it traded before next year for sure for another Vermeer. |
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| I'm not knocking any of the rake Mfg's, but as I have been researching if I want to buy the machnery to get into the hay business (currently doing it on shares), I have seen quite a few rotary rakes sitting in dealers yards through out the haying areas of central Mn. They don't look very used, but have not asked the dealers why so may used rakes on your lots. By far the biggest sellers are the wheel rakes ~ but the down fall aspect with a wheel rake is they add dirt, dust and small stones to the alfalfa or hay. The basket rakes seem to be a dead horse, and some of the large dairys are going after the big rotary rakes (very spendy). There is a Mfg (circle?) out your way that makes "depth fingers" for their wheel rakes that claim it's the cats meow and the best to help elemenate stones and dirt in the windrow. Personally from what I have research (if money is no object), I'd look at Krone rotary rakes. I like their rakes better due to their design, even though more Kuhn rotarys are sold then other brands rotary rakes in our area.
Good luck . . . . |
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Sunnyside, WA | Jay,
Just got done raking sudax with our Fella twin rotor this morning. Had an old used and abused NH 216 and it couldn't handle the tall grass we chop. This sudax was 6-8' tall throughout most of the field and I was raking 8.5 mph with the Fella. If it was too wet on the bottom, I'd slow down but I like it better than any other type of rake for grass. It makes a very nice, high, open windrow that dries well. No roping. Not sure what you will think of it in alfalfa. We run either a JD 6420 or 5225 and either will handle it fine.
One of the biggest down sides to it is greasing. LOTS of grease zerks. Not so sure about the longevity of the rake either, but its the only way to move the triticale and grass.
Fella is sold by the NH dealer in your area. If your interested, I would also look at Krone (JRJ sells them). I tried a 23 or 24' rake and you really need a 27' behind a 15'+ cutter. Kuhn gets expensive when you go that wide. Krone looks like a well built machine.
http://www.krone-northamerica.com/
http://www.fella-werke.de/images/englisch/pdf/ts7.pdf
Jason |
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SE PA | Jay,
I don't think you'll be inpressed. We have a 7302 (the side-delivery version, also does single rows) and we added a 216 to the line-up to *just* rake alfalfa. I like the way the 216 moves the hay in, and leaves a lot of stems pointing outward.... The Kuhn will work, but the rotary will tend to make little 'piles' of hay each time an arm delivers it's load of hay. If you rake with any amount of moisture, it will make a tighter roll than your 216, and I think it was Mike in idaho (?) that said he didn't like how a rotary rake 'drags' the hay across the ground as it goes to the roll.
I like the kuhn machinery - heavier built than a lot of the other stuff I've seen on lots here, and over the years we've had 0 (zero) downtime on 2 tedders and 3 rakes, cept for flat tires......
Rodney |
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| I really like the miller pro rakes I would say they were one of the best. I would only buy a rotary rake in my opionion but every operation is different. Like seeing the hay making post, hope everything is going well for everyone. We are finishing up on 2md cutting and trying to get straw finished need about 2 days but weather man is calling for rain. How is everyone else getting along? |
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Wyoming | Jay, I'd guess I'd be mighty skeptical of tall claims for a rotary rake in anything but grass. That's all they're used for here is the big grass crops, and then they're not wholly convincing over the classic Vermeer, Allen or Twinstar. When I look at how they move the crop across the ground, I can't help but believe that they're going to turn alfalfa leaves to dust in the process.
My choice, if I were made of money and wishes were dollars, would be the same as yours: that Twinstar. And the reason why is that those of us who have used basket rakes have seen them evolve from the Vermeer R-23/NH-216, to the Allen, to the Twinstar. When I look at a Twinstar now, I see they're selling solutions to issues I know exist on all the previous rakes -- and since we have a Vermeer R-23 and a Allen 8827, I have some "experience" with rakes now -- "experience" being defined as "What you got when you didn't get what you wanted."
The rotaries -- every time I look at them, I can't help but get the feeling that I'd gain a whole lot more "experience" if I bought one. I'd look at the frame, the bearings, the tires, etc. You know -- all the stuff that breaks on rakes as they're bouncing across a field. Find some deeper wheel ruts on your place and drag it across those and see what happens while the dealer is there watching. |
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Pasco WA. | I am very skeptical. He is claiming faster drydown, however I have to rake sooner than normal. Where I am at I often have a problem with heavy dews. If I rake too soon or too wet the bottom of the row will not dry out. The best method for me has been to rake in the morning and bale that evening. Also hit the field with lots of raking power. I just bought another tractor today so that I can do my daily raking in 2 hours instead of 3. Trying to hit the ideal window better.
I see lots of limitations to the rotary. Sometimes in poor drying I like to turn two single rows and come back and rake them together. Sometimes I have to turn a double windrow. None of that looks to fit the rotary. I also see a lot of fragile moving parts to fix.
Tomorow morning is going to be tough for the rotary. We had a hot dry wind today and the hay dried way faster than I expected. Not what I normally get but it happens. |
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| My hay experience is from a different climate and on a different scale but I like my Pequea rotary rake and would never go back to a rolabar, wheel or whatever. In the humid east the rotary rakes make a light fluffy windrow that allows the hay to dry in the windrow. With a rolabar I'd only rake the morning before baling when the hay was almost ready and loose a fair amount of leaves. With the rotary I can rake the evening before. The Pequea is well built but the biggest they make is a 15 ft single rotor. It also appears that the Miller Pro rakes and most other Miller Pro equipment is well built. Miller Pro does make a double rake. I have a JD 4 basket tedder made by Kuhn which is a POS. Just from this experience I'll never own another Kuhn implement. |
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Pasco WA. | Not much dew this morning so it was not good conditions for the rotary rake. The rotary needs lots more dew than the basket rake and is also slower. I am going to try it again tomorow in much wetter hay. |
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| Agreed. One few miles away had a two-wheel rotary rake for a couple of years and traded it off for a V-wheel rake. Too fragile for rough fields with too small bouncy dolly wheels.
May I ask what wrong with your R-23 rake. I think a R-24 is heavier built with bigger bearings all around. Don't see a Twinstar for 30-mile all round here so it is not worth to justify to have a Twinstar.
blueman |
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| That is how many acres my Allen's have to rake each year on a 4 cut system.
The rotary that I demo'ed a few yrs. back was not for me. I does not lift hay into the windrow like the bar rakes do, but just drags the hay over to the windrow. Dealer tried to adjust, but to no avail. Lots of leaves across the ground. The Allen, raking next to it, left no leaves.
Durability was also a big question, as they look real fragile.
Comes down to what you do and where you do it. Us Western hay producers live in a totally different envoriment than the producers back in the midwest and east.
All said and done, my Allens are on their 4th year and are taking some repairs, more than I would like. Next rakes will be the Twinstar.
Raking hay is an art and I have always said that it is the most critical part of make quality hay. I have my best workers on the rakes, and the "flunkies" do the cutting. |
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SW KS, near Dodge City | Just joking:)
Edited by pknoeber 7/18/2006 13:45
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Wyoming | I agree that raking requires real talent. And I fully admit that I'm not that good at raking. My solution is to try to avoid raking at all. The more leaves I keep, the higher the test. The downside is that drying takes longer. |
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| I like the Twin Star rakes but we bought a NH 230 which has a similar layout. The Vermeer is fine but it appeared it would have a very tough time crossing our terraces. Vermeer has tires on each end of the basket and will end up with the tooth bars digging in and being damaged.
The Twin Star and NH have small castors on the basket ends and tires in the center of the basket that allow it to go up and over. The NH is very versatile and easy to operate. It does a great job raking but there are computers involved and I mean expensive computers. Twin Star has switches and lots of wire, the NH has a very small cord to the tractor. Our control box quit and I spent some time before deciding the problem was a very small plug-in on the circuit board. I zip tied it sideways to maintain contact and so far everything is good! |
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Rotary Hay Rakes
