7 Baling Hay With A Small Tractor Methods On a Homestead Budget

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Assessing Your Acreage and Hay Needs First

Before you even look at a single piece of equipment, you need to do the math. Running out to buy a baler because you have a few acres of grass is a classic rookie mistake. The first step is a brutally honest assessment of how much hay your animals actually require to get through the winter.

A few goats or sheep might only need a ton of hay, while a single milk cow could require three or four times that amount. Calculate your daily feed rate per animal and multiply it by the number of days you’ll be feeding hay. This number, your total winter hay requirement, is your north star. It dictates everything that follows.

Now, look at your land. A good field might yield two tons per acre on the first cutting, but a rough, unfertilized pasture might only give you half that. You need to know if your land can even produce the hay you need. If you need four tons of hay but your five acres can only produce three, you’ll still be buying hay, which completely changes the financial justification for owning baling equipment.

Stacking Loose Hay with a Tractor Loader

The oldest method of haymaking is often the most budget-friendly. Stacking loose hay requires no specialized baling equipment, relying instead on a tool most homesteaders with a small tractor already have: a front-end loader. After cutting, drying, and raking the hay into windrows, you simply use your loader to scoop it up and move it to a designated storage area.

The key to success is in the stack itself. A well-built haystack is an art form designed to shed water and minimize spoilage. You start with a base to keep it off the damp ground—a layer of pallets or gravel works well. Then, you build the stack layer by layer, keeping the middle higher than the edges so that rain runs off instead of soaking in.

This method has clear tradeoffs. It is incredibly labor-intensive and inefficient compared to baling. You will also experience more hay loss, as the outer six to twelve inches of the stack are often lost to weather. However, for a homesteader with more time than money and a good, dry place to build a stack (like the inside of a barn), it’s a perfectly viable way to put up winter feed without buying a baler.

Using a Mini Round Baler for Small Tractors

For those with a bigger budget, the mini round baler is a game-changer. These machines are specifically engineered to be pulled by compact and sub-compact tractors, often requiring as little as 15-20 PTO horsepower. They create small, manageable round bales that typically weigh between 40 and 60 pounds, making them easy to move by hand.

The primary advantage is efficiency and bale quality. Mini balers produce dense, well-formed bales that shed water effectively and are easy to store. The process is streamlined and can be a one-person operation from start to finish. This modern equipment brings the convenience of round baling to a scale that was previously ignored by manufacturers.

The significant downside is the cost. A new mini round baler is a serious capital investment, often costing more than the small tractor pulling it. This option only makes financial sense if you have a consistent need for a significant amount of hay each year, perhaps ten acres or more. For the homesteader with just a couple of acres, the return on investment would be measured in decades.

Sourcing and Running an Older Square Baler

This is the quintessential image of small-farm haymaking: an old, faded square baler chugging along behind a vintage tractor. You can often find these balers from brands like New Holland, John Deere, or Massey Ferguson at auctions or farm sales for a very reasonable price. For many, this seems like the perfect solution.

The reality, however, can be a mechanical headache. These machines are often decades old and have seen hard use. The single biggest point of failure is the knotter assembly, a complex mechanism that is famously finicky. If you are not mechanically inclined and willing to spend hours tinkering, reading manuals, and sourcing rare parts, an old square baler will become a permanent fixture in your fencerow.

Before buying, you must also confirm your tractor is up to the task. Square balers are heavy and require a surprising amount of power. You’ll need:

• Adequate PTO Horsepower: Check the baler’s manual, but 30-35 HP is a safe minimum for most older models.
• Sufficient Weight: A light tractor can be "pushed around" by the baler’s plunger action, which is both inefficient and unsafe.
• Live PTO: This allows you to stop the tractor’s forward motion without stopping the baler, which is critical for preventing plugs in heavy windrows.

Hiring a Local Farmer for Custom Baling

Sometimes the smartest tool to use is the telephone. For many small homesteads, hiring a local farmer to do the baling is by far the most practical and cost-effective option. You can handle the cutting and raking with your small tractor, then pay someone with the right equipment to come in and bale it for you.

The economics are hard to beat. You pay a set fee per bale, avoiding the massive upfront cost of a baler, not to mention the ongoing costs of maintenance, repairs, fuel, and storage. This approach frees you from the stress of equipment breakdowns during a critical weather window. You get professionally made bales without the ownership headaches.

The main challenge is scheduling. When the hay is ready, it’s ready, and a 24-hour delay waiting for the custom operator can mean the difference between quality feed and moldy compost. You are on their schedule, and they will rightly prioritize their own fields and larger clients first. Building a good relationship with a reliable local farmer is absolutely essential to making this method work.

Bartering or Co-Owning Baling Equipment

You don’t have to carry the entire burden of haymaking yourself. Partnering with neighbors is a time-honored rural tradition that can solve the equipment dilemma. Pooling your resources to buy and maintain a baler can put better equipment within financial reach for everyone involved.

Co-ownership requires a solid, written agreement. Who stores the baler? How are maintenance costs split? Most importantly, how is scheduling handled when everyone’s hay is ready at the same time? This works best with neighbors you trust implicitly and who share a similar work ethic.

Bartering is another powerful tool. Perhaps you don’t have the money for a baler, but you have other skills or resources. You could trade your labor, a share of your garden’s produce, or even a portion of the hay itself in exchange for the use of a neighbor’s baler. This approach builds community and creates a support network that is more resilient than any single piece of equipment.

Stationary Baling with a Box Baler Press

This is an old-school method that decouples the baling process from the field work. Instead of pulling a baler through the field, you bring the loose, dry hay to a stationary baler, often set up near the barn. This allows you to use much smaller equipment for the entire process.

The process involves cutting and raking as usual. Then, you use a buck rake on your tractor’s loader, or even a simple wagon, to transport the loose hay to the baling site. The stationary baler, which can be an old PTO-driven machine or even a manual press, is then fed by hand.

This is undeniably slow and labor-intensive. However, it’s a fantastic option for very small or irregularly shaped fields where maneuvering a traditional baler would be impossible. It also means you can power the baler with a stationary engine or a tractor that might be too small to pull it in the field, making it a flexible choice for those with limited horsepower.

Building a Bale Sledge for Easy Collection

While not a baling method itself, using a bale sledge is a technique that makes square baling with a small crew manageable. A bale sledge, or stooker, is a simple platform or chute that you drag behind your square baler. The bales drop from the baler directly onto the sledge instead of onto the ground.

The design is simple, often a wooden platform on skis. When the sledge is full (holding anywhere from 5 to 10 bales), the tractor driver pulls a rope, which trips a latch and allows the collected bales to slide off in a neat pile. This consolidates the bales into a few locations in the field, rather than scattering them every 20 feet.

The impact on labor is immense. It transforms bale collection from a back-breaking walk across the entire field into a simple drive-and-load operation. One person can drive the tractor and loader to a pile, load the bales onto a wagon, and move to the next pile. For a homesteader working alone or with minimal help, a homemade bale sledge is one of the best time-saving investments you can make.

Making your own hay is a rewarding step toward self-sufficiency, and it doesn’t require an industrial-sized operation. Whether you choose a low-tech, labor-intensive method or a strategic partnership with a neighbor, the right solution is about matching your land, your budget, and your skills. The key is to think creatively and recognize that the best piece of equipment is often the one that gets the job done without breaking your back or your bank account.