How to HAY SWEEP instead of baling hay (day 2)

[Jefferdaughter]

When just dumped into a pile like that, what keeps if from just rotting? The old style haystacks (as others have described) were set up so they shed most of the rain, with the top basically doing the job of a thatch roof.

[oldtimeway1]

What's that little tractor gonna be when it grows up?

[Jefferdaughter]

@oldtimeway1 - It will rust and depreciate at the same rate as a larger tractor, and cost the owner less.

[hotrod5670]

last year the last ranch in our valley switched to round bales (sad day)

[Graebarde]

This is the only way we put up hay when I was a kid, Used horses to rake, another tractor  to sweep, and had a tractor with loader, cage type farmall or farmhand that put it into the stack. First field job I had when I was nine was to sit on the dump rake behind a team of Percherons that were 18-20 years old and rid up and down the hay field.. if Dad could have figured a way to have the horses trip the rake I'd of been out of a job.. LOL

[heienzpinez]

I worked for an old fella 40 years ago, and he called it a hay buck

[jda1961]

the old timers did this except they used a horse drawn sled to get the hay to the stack. and they had a very tall post maybe 20 feet or so high and piled the hay around it, that was so as the pile settled it would'nt fall over and the wind would'nt knock it over too. after it was piled up, they'd build a split rail fence around it to keep the stock out of it.