Old haying methods.

Sickle bar mower, dump rake or side delivery rake. With horses the windrows were raked into piles and then gathered with a sweep [ skids on the ground with long forks to pick up the hay] The sweep then went to the stacker were it was pulled up vertically by the horses and then dumped. As the pile got to high the stacker was moved forward. The hay was then loaded by hand onto a hayrack and used as required. This was the hardest part of the job but still much easier than the first baler operations.

Next came what is called a "Farmhand". Esentially a loader with long arms for height that had a long toothed 8/10 ft forks. It would pick up the hay and drop it into a portable pipe oblong container with one end open. Then a stackmover was used to transport the small haystacks to the feedlot area. For feeding a movable steel pipe gate could be used to regulate the amount of hay the cattle could access. Another method on larger lots had the entire stack loaded and pulled forward where a sickle bar and conveyor belt would dispense the hay to a trough or on the ground.

All these old methods involved less manual work than the small square or round bales. Only when the large bales came into exsitence did this change.

For 10 acres makeing hay with a small tractor and loader altered to accept long forks there should be no problem.

Forgot to mention a buckpole for making stacks and the horse operated grapple forks used to transfer hay to the barn loft.

Egon