To the west of our driveway, we have a few acres of pasture, not really enough for my sister and family to move their cows through for grazing to keep it short.

But what about making hay for our pigs?

So, the menfolk of the family dragged out the old hayloader to collect loose hay.

Let’s back up for a little farming history…

A hayloader was a machine from many decades ago, originally designed to be pulled by a horse, to collect cut hay lying on the ground. The “gathering” mechanism was activated by the wheels turning, so there was no need for the hydraulics of today’s machines.

To compare, in today’s world, we have small square balers and large round balers, much better suited for stacking and storing or moving out to large numbers of cattle, sheep or goats in other places on the farm.

Long ago, the loose hay collected by the hayloader was kept in barn lofts of all the huge dairy barns. Daily, the hay would be forked to the milking cows down below for their meals.

Because the hay was loose and air could move in the stack, it could be collected wetter and not rot or mold. Alfalfa leaves would also be more likely to stay on the plant up until feeding because it didn’t go through the rigorous mechanisms of the balers. Alfalfa is the most common type of grass/legume harvested for hay because of it’s high nutritional value to livestock.

To compare today, hay has to be baled very dry or it gets moldy in the tightly wound bales. Or, worst case, the rotting hay causes heat and combustion and the bales start on fire and burn down storage buildings. Also, the dryer the hay, the more of the alfalfa leaves would come off and the hay nutritional value goes way down.

Here’s a video of the hayloader moving.

It’s pretty amazing, really….look at the simple way it picks up the hay and slowly moves it up, kicking it over the top and onto a waiting hayrack on the other side.

So, why are we using a piece of archaic machinery to bring in our hay??

Several reasons.

1. Our modern small baler isn’t working right now and the amount of time and cost needed to fix it didn’t justify for the small number of acres of hay.
2. We have a large old dairy barn with room to put loose hay.
3. We don’t have hundreds of cattle to feed everyday…a few armfuls a week for the pigs is just fine and completely do-able for our family and children able to help out without running large machinery.
4. But most importantly, Lindsey has a soft spot for old farm machinery and likes to see it working again after decades of non-use. 😀

Here’s what they did to get it running:

Prior to this working as you see it, they had to replace the wooden pieces, rotted away from sitting for a number of years since the last time we used it.

The hay also needed to be able to get from the hay rack up into the barn.

That involved repairing/buying new ropes.

There’s also a metal pulley contraption that the ropes move through to bring the hay up. We have several of these collected from various places over the years, rusted tight, so Lindsey and Arthur spent some time taking them apart, oiling them, and putting them back together again.

A detail-oriented person’s metal puzzle. 😀

Finally it was time to give it a try.

It worked pretty well as they got the hang of forking it and piling it just right and layering the ropes for unloading later.

Then came the time to get it up into the barn.

Here’s a video of those ropes and that pulley doing their jobs.

Or still pictures if you like those better.

Hard at work up in the loft pulling the ropes.

It’s ALWAYS hot on hay making days.

But all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy….here’s what they did later on. 😀

So now we have many loads of hay, safe up in the barn to feed to the pigs all winter.

It’ll go in as bedding, but pigs will eat all their bedding, so it’s really dual purpose.

It’s already being put to good use…

Here are the most recent 3 litters of piglets, snuggling in with their mothers in soft hay.

Want to come watch next summer?

This was just so interesting to watch. I hope in the future we can make a field day out of this, inviting anyone who wants to come to see a piece of farming history reinacted.

As a last minute thought, we actually did call an older couple we know from church and they were able to come for awhile one evening and catch a piece of the action.

It was so interesting to talk to them and watch their reactions….they had both used this equipment back in the day when they had a dairy farm. They were taken back to decades previous and hot summer days in the field and in the loft getting that hay up for their dairy cows.

I doubt the modern farming world will ever go back to using these exclusively, but old or new, livestock need that feed brought in for winter feed.

Making hay while the sun shines….some things never change.