Blog

After more than a decade of helping small-farm operators meet their haying needs, Tractor Tools Direct has narrowed down its inventory to two types of hay rakes–wheel rakes and belt rakes. There are several practical reasons for this including these machines’:Ease of useEase of maintenance and repairAvailability of replacement partsAbility to be sized to specific farm/tractor requirementsAffordabilityRead on to determine which of these rakes best meets the needs of your small-farm haying operati …

Drum mowers, as a general category, are sturdy, low-maintenance machines designed for the compact tractors so popular on today’s small farms. Simple and durable, they are manufactured with fewer moving parts and cut faster and with fewer problems than other types of hay mowers. These mowers are designed with two large counter-rotating drums which are powered from above by a simple gearbox and fitted with 3 to 4 blades each. Their performance is unbeatable in the tough conditions of a hay field.I …

Here at Tractor Tools Direct, we have narrowed our hay mower inventory to exclusively drum mowers. Here’s why…..For more than a decade we have provided small-acreage farmers with the hay equipment they need for their farms, and we have learned a thing or two. During this time, we sold both sickle bar mowers and disc mowers. We found the occurrences of operator error to be greater, the cost of parts replacement to be higher, and the incidents of breakage to be more frequent with these two types o …

There are several ways to bind hay bales. These include twine, net wrap, and wire. Wire is rarely applicable to small farm hay production since it is used mainly for large, high compression bales typically found on large farm and hay marketing operations. Net wrap was addressed in a previous blog. Therefore, let’s delve into the different types of twine and their advantages/disadvantages.There are two basic types of twine--synthetic and natural. Polypropylene is the most common type of synthetic …

When baling hay, one of the decisions a producer must make is what type of bale binding to use. Hay binding materials include hemp twine, polypropylene twine, sisal twine, net wrap and others. This blog will discuss hemp twine. What is hemp? Hemp is a plant with thin stalks and compound palmate leaves. Its flowers are small and greenish yellow. Though hemp originated in central Asia, it is now grown in temperate regions throughout the world. Not to be confused with cannabis, the source of …