mower condtioner

Landys

Hi

Going buying a second hand 8 foot condtioner. Thinking of an 8foot Kuhn trailed (Kuhn 250). Most people seem to think the trailed are a better job than mounted ones and easier pulled (have around 90 Hp to pull it). Just wondering anyone any experience on this.

Also have to decide between one on the drawbar or one with swivel head. Apparently the swivel head are harder driven which would make sense with the extra gears involved. The drawer bar ones might not be as easy to manouver but wide angle pto shaft will hopefully take care of that.

Any experiences or comments welcome.

agrostar

I suppose it would depend how many acres you would be hoping to cut in the year but if it were me i would definitely go for the trailed swivel head option:) They may be slightly more expensive and marginally harder to drive but i would prefer to mow 100acres with the trailed rather than 10acre with the mounted. Saying that though if its only for occasional use the mounted option would def do the job as good. 90hp should be plenty to drive an 8ft mower conditioner

Pacoa

Thing about 8ft mower conditioners is that it can be difficult to pick up the grass properly with a 2m+ pickup. I've just been to see a secondhand one and the guy is selling it cause his contractor won't do it for him if he mows. He's got a fusion and i can understand as you do need space between rows to make a good bale.

pajero12

Pacoa wrote: »

Thing about 8ft mower conditioners is that it can be difficult to pick up the grass properly with a 2m+ pickup. I've just been to see a secondhand one and the guy is selling it cause his contractor won't do it for him if he mows. He's got a fusion and i can understand as you do need space between rows to make a good bale.

Actually its the opposite.The wider the swarth the better the bale.More space means smaller swarths meaning barrel shaped bales

denis086

we used run a kuhn 10ft mo-co fc302mn trailed mower ona mf 3085 which only has 82hp or something maybe a little more on the shaft but its rated as a 100hp tractor and it handled it ok for about 7 seasons once you werent pushing it on too much or else it used warm up and you would have to let it cool down every once in a while and you usually managed to do more if you took it handy anyway in second cut you would have no problem pushing on though we have got a case mxu135 thats putting out 145 on the shaft and she hardly breaks a sweat and burns very little diesel we were thinking about a front mower for her i wouldnt be too concerned about manouverability we have a few fields with only 3 corners which are a bit of a bugger to mow but the wide angle shaft makes it easy but it depend what size fields were talking about

Pacoa

Actually its the opposite.The wider the swarth the better the bale.More space means smaller swarths meaning barrel shaped bales

Yeah i agree with that but what i meant was that you need room to weave so that you can pack the sides of the bale. You don't have that much room with an 8ft cut and a wide pickup. I've bale with a 9ft cut and wouldn't want to go any narrower.

vanderbadger

Pacoa wrote: »

Yeah i agree with that but what i meant was that you need room to weave so that you can pack the sides of the bale. You don't have that much room with an 8ft cut and a wide pickup. I've bale with a 9ft cut and wouldn't want to go any narrower.

ya agree, also have an 8ft mower, disaster for baling especially if crop light and weaving is a pain in the ass

agrostar

Yeah a narrow swarth is a serious pain when baling, Would it not be possible to widen the swarting boards to 1.2m wide:rolleyes: for the size of the bale being formed in the chamber. We used a Taarup 4032 and had no problem getting a perfectly evenly formed bale without weaving just driving straight down the swarth:D. In my experience though John Deere mowers:mad: tend to leave a narrow swarth and require weavin:(

Pacoa

You can widen the boards to 5ft if you want but you'll still have less room to manouver with only an 8ft cut. You'll be catching the swarth next door and ending up with grass around the cam bearings.

maidhc

When baling you shouldn't weave if you are hoping to make a decent bale. You set the swarth are 4ft or slightly wider if you have a wide pickup on your baler.

I have a Krone 8ft mounted and wounldn't wish it on my worst enemy to be honest. Hard to cut the headlands, very weak, and the cut is only very average. It is heavy enough too that even with a TS115 it feels a little unbalanced.

I had a Kuhn FC300 about 10 years ago and that was a superior machine. It could even be driven by an 80hp tractor if you took it handy...

agrostar

Pacoa wrote: »

You can widen the boards to 5ft if you want but you'll still have less room to manouver with only an 8ft cut. You'll be catching the swarth next door and ending up with grass around the cam bearings.

Should the pickup bands and covers not keep the grass out of the bearing? If the swarth was narrowed to 4ft as most baler chambers are 4X4 then you would have 4ft between the swarths:) There would be little r no need to manouver as you would only be driving straight down the swarth. When i used work for my last employer, at grass he ran both Welger Rp235 and Claas 255's and we never had an issue picking up from an 8ft mower conditioner unless the f###ing farmer cut with an ordinary disc or rotary mower himself and decided to rank it in with a haybob driving all the grass into the centre of the swarth and making lumps, so uneven lumpy bales and chokes galour:rolleyes: I would have loved to get the cutting torch to many of these machines but as with many machines it was mostly the operators who were at fault driving too fast and revved as hard as she'll go:D:D

Casinoking

Pacoa wrote: »

Thing about 8ft mower conditioners is that it can be difficult to pick up the grass properly with a 2m+ pickup. I've just been to see a secondhand one and the guy is selling it cause his contractor won't do it for him if he mows. He's got a fusion and i can understand as you do need space between rows to make a good bale.

I'd say there's an ulterior motive to that yarn anyway. Either the contractor wants to get paid for the mowing as well or the farmer can't drive in straight lines. I've baled after 8ft mowers with no problems, even baled after 8ft disc mowers with no conditioners on occasion. A good wide swarth is a lot better than weaving around to pick up a narrow one. The problems start when the mower driver doesn't know what he's at; running swarths into one another, getting them wrapped up in knots at the headlands, leaving short ground everywhere because they can't open parallel sets. Often saw the same problems baling hay, we had a couple of customers we ended up having to rake for because they kept driving around and around in circles without lifting the machine. A nightmare to bale after, and it's always the baler drivers fault when there's loose hay everywhere on the corners that was never raked in the first place.

Landys

Thanks lads for all the replies. Most people seem to think the mounted conditioners are not great job. Wahtever about the baler men I will be going for an 8 foot as with 90 hp it is best job. Think a lot of contractors just want to get the mowing for themselves so start complaining about swaths. If one contractor wont lift grass after an 8 foot condtioner i am sure there are others that will !!

Pacoa

I'd say there's an ulterior motive to that yarn anyway

You could be right there, i don't know the contractor in this case or who does the baling for him. He could be using young fellas and we all know how carefull they are with someone eleses machinery :-)

even baled after 8ft disc mowers with no conditioners on occasion

Done that meself and ended up with a few cones.

My advice to Landys would be to ask the contractor first and clear it with him, that way he can't turn around later on and insist on using his own mower.