When it comes to farm machinery, there are at least two immutable facts. First, over time and with regular use, every piece of equipment you have will break down, if not fail catastrophically. The second is that breakdowns do not occur while the equipment is sitting in the shed.
Breakdowns occur generally at the most inopportune times. It is also true that some of the toughest conditions for man, beast and machine exist during the course of a farming season.
Think about it: The weather brings blazing hot, stinging cold, dusty dryness and corroding dampness, and our use introduces more heat, vibrations, exposures to acids and bases, and the scouring abrasiveness of soil and stone contact. Our mower-conditioners get exposure to all of these.
Add in the fact that mower-conditioner has been advertised for years as being able to handle the highest of field speeds, and now we are pulling a breakdown time bomb through our hay crops.
Why does that matter? Well, hay crop harvest is the epitome of opportunity costs on the farm. We are already battling weather windows to make hay at its optimal nutrient feed value. Add in a few days to a few weeks wait on parts and repairs, and our opportunity to harvest high-quality forages has evaporated.
Again, why is that important? Time and time again, research proves the fact that the greatest measure of profitability among animal agriculture enterprises hinges on the ability to harvest and feed high-quality forages.
High-quality forages promote higher daily gains, increased feed consumption and lower total feed costs; conversely, poor-quality forages lower rates of gain because animals simply cannot eat enough to meet requirements, so high-priced supplements must be added to the herd’s diet.
Therefore, keeping our forage harvesting equipment – all that equipment – in good shape makes us money. Hay equipment is in a special category because it affects the number of cuttings and the total acreage covered – some like your mower-conditioner’s skid shoes with ground contact.
I had a friend post on Facebook a video of him chopping wood he had lined up in a row with no chopping block underneath. As he split each piece, he buried his ax (a very nice expensive ax) head in the ground to almost its entire length.
Many commented how impressed they were with his ax prowess, but I felt the need to weigh in with the fact that if Dad had seen me do that, I would have taken a raking from him and rightfully so.
My friend just could not believe how much soil can wear on steel. Comparing his ax, your mower-conditioner skid shoes and moldboard plow shares – soil has a tremendous impact on all of them.
While the moldboard plow’s exposure is a bit different, my bet is that the number of acres we mow and the speed at which we mow, skid shoes are one of our first checks on wear and tear. Mostly because they are a good indicator of when the mower-conditioner was last inspected.
The next steps involve inspecting the machine in the direction hay travels through it. Checking and changing the cutterbar oil may be more of a seasonal deal, but checking for leaks is a good idea.
A sidebar to cutterbar oil – do you use your mower-conditioner on a slope for any length of time? I know that most of you do not mow land that we mountain, hill and holler people describe as “steeper than a horse’s face,” but I had a friend who used his disc mower to trim a considerable amount of road banks.
As he mowed those banks, the cutterbar oil followed the slope by gravity and starved the highest gears, causing a very expensive failure of the cutterbar. Leaks reduce levels, and levels are important to maintain.
Speaking of the cutterbar, are our “tortoise shells” at 90-degree angles to each other? Maintaining this setting keeps the knives of the machine in balance and cutting at peak efficiency.
Next, are the knives bent, broken or missing? Finding knives damaged or missing may be an indicator that you are running the machine too low. If this is the case, I recommend replacing the entire set of knives and adjusting the cutterhead to leave at least 4 inches of stubble in its wake.
Next, inspect the conditioner rolls themselves and look for signs of wear or damage. Don’t ask me how I know, but running a pile of locust fence posts through your machine is not good for the rubber tread attached to steel rolls.
Keep the rolls clean and free of debris. Adjust the roll pressure to the manufacturer’s recommendations.
Lastly, check the simple things – or at least the ones easiest to see. Are your tires in good shape, and is the hydraulic lift or pivot point where it’s supposed to be and leak‑free?
Remember to never use your bare hand to feel for hydraulic leaks; a piece of paper will suffice to identify a leak without running the chance that you give yourself an injection of hydraulic fluid.
Finally, speaking of personal safety, are all the shields and curtains in place to protect you from flying debris? It’s been 30 years ago, but I still remember the rock.
I was mowing alfalfa at a neighboring farm we leased. I was coming downhill across a piece of clay bank that had its fair share of pebbles and stones. The alfalfa there was pretty thin, and the curtain did not cover all the way to the ground and even left space between the standing hay’s top and the screen’s bottom.
I saw it coming. I was looking back over my shoulder at how poor the ground was there; then out of the corner of my eye, I saw a golf-ball- sized rock get kicked up and then out by the cutterbar.
It was like I was watching it in slow motion, but of course it wasn’t. I turned my head just quick enough for it to peg me right under my right ear. I saw stars for a bit, and the impact brought back a whiplash I suffered earlier that year in a fall on black ice.
At least I wasn’t covered in glass from a cab tractor, but again, after 30 years I can still feel that rock hitting me in the neck.
As we mentioned, there are all kinds of costs involved in not doing equipment inspections – some hurt more than others.
