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| I went through the same line of questioning last year when upgrading to a different rake. Here is the long and short of what i came up with. The neighbor has a nice twin rotary rake that will put two swaths together. He loves the rake and feels it does an excellent job but discouraged me buying one as when it breaks down, which he said with all the cams and pivots and gearboxes it does, he is down and his hay is not getting raked. In our area anyway, no one stocks any parts for these rakes and it is always a wait to get the unit fixed. I have some college buddies that do custom hay out west, running 5 rakes and 4 sp windrowers, and they were twin rakes all the way. I went that route because I thought i could match my basket speed with the conditions and have a little more reliability. I got a vermeer R2800 and so far like it. I think that if the hydraulic switching block were to go out it would be very expensive however. a used unit like this would sell now for about $17000. it has a 28' reach and seems really well built. Regrets..... no option for center kicker wheel - so putting three swaths together is not an option if you want to lift center swath. there is a learning curve to unfolding and using the switching console, so just throwing the wife or unintelligent help in the cab is out. the wheel rakes might be a better bet because of ease of use, parts availability, cost, and speed. if you're down a tractor you can pull a wheel rake with a pickup =) I didn't like how the wheel rake i had rolled the hay but in reality they all do. I definetly have less ash (sand) content with the basket, but i sell the hay and there are no rfv tests that show ash content, let alone anybody looking for that figure. So... looking back i might just go with the wheel rake - you can get a brand spanking new one for considerably less than you'll end up spending for a nice basket and WAy less than the rotarys. My two cents brother. | |
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Basket rakes vs rotary rakes?
