Hay Rakes for Farming: Complete Operational Guide for All Farm Types

A hay rake is one of the most operationally critical implements in a hay production system. Between the mower and the baler, it determines windrow density, windrow consistency, and the physical condition of the forage entering the baler. A poorly raked windrow forces the baler to compensate through operator speed adjustment and creates uneven bale density — problems that do not correct themselves and that compound across an entire season’s production.

Raking well is not just about having the right machine. It requires understanding when to rake relative to crop moisture content, how to set the machine for the crop and baler in use, and what the common mistakes are that cost farms dry matter and end product quality year after year. This guide covers the complete operational picture: machine selection, seasonal timing, field technique, crop-specific adjustments, and the practical integration of raking into a full hay production system on different farm types.

The Role of the Hay Rake in the Production System

In conventional hay production, the sequence is: mow → tedder (optional) → rake → bale. The rake’s function is to consolidate the swath — the flat, wide strip of cut material left by the mower — into a windrow of defined width and density for the baler to process. The windrow must be: consistent in width and density across its full length; centred on the mower’s cut lines to avoid leaving unraked strips; and formed without picking up excessive soil, which contaminates forage and causes abrasive wear in the baler pickup mechanism.

A suboptimal windrow affects the baler directly. A windrow that is too narrow for the baler’s pickup forces the operator to zigzag to capture full coverage — increasing field time and fuel. A windrow that is too dense clogs the pickup reel and causes chamber blockages, particularly in tight weather windows when operating speed is pushed. A windrow with excessive soil content increases bale weight (reducing the economic yield per bale), shortens pickup tine life, and introduces spoilage-promoting minerals into the bale core at high moisture. None of these problems are visible at the rake — they manifest at the baler or in the shed six months later when bale quality is evaluated.

The hay rake is also the last point in the field where forage physical condition can be managed before baling. Leaf shatter at the rake — dry leaf fraction physically separated from the stem and left in the field — is direct dry matter and nutritional value loss. In dry alfalfa hay, leaf fraction constitutes 50–60% of total crude protein and 60–70% of digestible energy by dry matter basis. A 10% leaf shatter loss on alfalfa is not a 10% total yield loss — it is a 5–6% crude protein loss and a proportionally higher energy loss, because the most nutritionally dense fraction is disproportionately concentrated in the leaf. Managing rake timing and speed to minimise this loss is directly measurable in final hay analysis results.

Hay Rake Selection for Different Farm Types

Grain and livestock mixed farms: These operations typically rake once or twice per year — cereal straw after grain harvest plus one grass hay cut. Raking volume is moderate (50–200 ha annually) and is secondary to the primary grain enterprise. Equipment selection should minimise capital investment while providing adequate throughput for the available window. A ground-driven finger wheel rake at 6.0–9.0 m width on the farm’s existing mid-range utility tractor is the standard solution. No PTO, no hydraulic complexity — just reliable field capacity at low maintenance cost. The 9LZ-6.0 finger wheel rake represents this category — straightforward, ground-driven, compatible with 30–55 HP tractors.

Specialist hay farms: Farms where hay is the primary revenue product — alfalfa operations, certified organic hay producers, premium horse hay growers — face a different calculus. Equipment specification directly affects product quality, which affects per-tonne price. These operations need to minimise leaf shatter, maximise windrow consistency, and keep field operations within narrow moisture management windows. Ground-driven wheel rakes at 6.0–9.0 m working width are the industry standard for premium legume hay; the 9LZY-9.0 and 9LZD-9.0 at 9.0 m provide the combination of throughput and leaf preservation required by this sector.

Dairy and beef silage operations: These farms rake predominantly grass silage at high moisture (40–65% DM), prioritising consistent windrow formation and throughput over leaf loss management. PTO-driven rotary rakes or mower-rake combination equipment is more appropriate than ground-driven wheel rakes for the heavy, wet material typical of silage grass production. The 9GL-5.0/5.6 mower-windrower cuts and windrrows in a single pass — the most operationally efficient approach for silage operations where field time is the primary constraint and narrow wilting periods before raking are standard.

Custom hay contractors: Contractors rake for multiple clients across a region and need equipment that is reliable across diverse paddock conditions, tractors, and crop types. A 9.0 m ground-driven wheel rake is the contractor’s standard because it handles hay, straw, and light silage grass; is compatible with the range of 55–100 HP tractors in the client fleet; and has low enough maintenance complexity that the contractor can self-service between jobs without requiring dealer support. Transport width in folded position — essential for road travel between properties — must be under 3.0 m (Australian road regulations).

Seasonal Timing: When to Rake Relative to Crop Moisture

Raking timing is a direct quality management decision. The optimal raking window varies by crop type and the intended end use of the bale.

Dry hay (target bale moisture <18% DM basis): Rake when crop moisture is in the 35–50% range. At this moisture level, stems are flexible enough to displace without shattering, but the crop is dry enough that further drying in the windrow is rapid. Raking at above 50% moisture is rarely necessary and packs a dense, slow-drying windrow that extends the total field curing time. Raking at below 25% moisture in legumes risks leaf shatter losses of 15–20% in alfalfa during warm, dry afternoon conditions.

Silage (target bale moisture 55–70% DM basis, to be wrapped): Rake at 55–65% DM moisture — typically 4–8 hours after mowing in warm, sunny conditions with moderate airflow. Raking too early (above 70% DM moisture) forms a dense, waterlogged windrow that wilts slowly and risks butyric acid fermentation in the clamp or wrap. Raking too late (below 45% DM moisture) for silage increases aerobic instability during fermentation.

Straw: Rake when windrow moisture is above 25% — typically the morning after mowing in combine-harvest conditions. Raking bone-dry straw causes excessive stem breakage and fine material generation that contaminates bedding and reduces bale integrity. Early morning raking of straw, when residual dew provides slight moisture to the stems, produces a more cohesive windrow with less breakage.

Time of day matters for crop quality management. Legume leaf moisture follows a diurnal cycle — lowest in the early afternoon (2–4 PM), highest in the early morning before dew has fully dried (8–10 AM). Leaf shatter is highest when leaf moisture is lowest. Scheduling legume hay raking for early morning in conditions where leaf is still at 20–30% moisture reduces shatter losses by 5–12% compared to afternoon raking on the same crop at the same stage of drying. On a commercial hay farm, shifting raking operations 4–5 hours earlier in the day to coincide with morning leaf moisture levels is one of the highest-return quality management practices available without any equipment change.

Field Technique: Operating the Rake Correctly

Correct raking technique begins with machine setup. Before the first pass of the season, verify: wheel angle (all wheels at the same setting, adjusted for target windrow width); ground clearance (minimum 50–80 mm in standard conditions; 80–120 mm in rough or stony paddocks); and tine condition (all tines present, undamaged, and correctly seated in hub clips).

Working direction should follow the mower’s swath direction. Raking across the swath direction — at 90° to the mow lines — picks up material unevenly and produces a windrow of variable density. Raking parallel to and slightly wider than the mow lines ensures all material is captured in a consistent row. On paddocks with multiple mow lines, the standard approach is: rake two swath widths into one windrow per pass. At 6.0 m rake width with a 3.0 m mower, each rake pass covers two mower swaths, doubling material density in the windrow relative to the single-pass swath.

Headland management affects windrow continuity and field efficiency significantly. Raise the rake early enough before the headland — at least 5–10 m from the boundary — to prevent tines dragging soil at the turn. Begin the next pass with the rake lowered before the first material is reached. A common error is lowering the rake too early or too late, creating a gap or a soil-scraped section at the start of each pass that accumulates across the windrow length as the field is worked.

Working speed must be calibrated to the crop volume and condition. In light, dry hay: 10–12 km/h is appropriate on most ground-driven wheel rakes. In heavy or tangled material, or on rougher ground: 7–9 km/h to maintain windrow consistency. The test is windrow uniformity — walk 100 m along a formed windrow and assess density variation. Gaps or thin sections indicate the rake is moving too fast or the wheel clearance is too high. Excessive soil incorporation indicates clearance too low or speed excessive for ground surface roughness.

Raking in High Capacity Situations

High capacity hay production — farms processing 400+ ha per cut — presents raking challenges that smaller operations do not encounter: the balance between mower, rake, and baler throughput becomes critical, and a machine breakdown at any stage has cascading effects on the season’s harvest plan.

At high production volumes, the 9.0 m finger wheel rake range — the 9LZY-9.0 and 9LZD-9.0 — provides the throughput balance for operations running one to two commercial round or square balers. At 7–8 ha/h effective output, a 9.0 m rake stays ahead of a single baler’s material demand with margin for headland and refuelling time. When two balers are operating simultaneously — common on 500+ ha operations during peak conditions — consider running two 9.0 m rakes or upgrading to the 9LH-12 at 12.0 m and 6–12 ha/h, which can feed two balers operating on adjacent windrows in an open paddock.

Hay runner rake setups — multiple windrow rows combined into a single high-density windrow ahead of the baler — are used in light crop situations where the baler cannot fill its chamber adequately from a standard single-rake windrow. This requires a second rake pass over formed windrows to combine two or three into one denser row. The practice adds a tractor hour per hectare to the operation cost and only makes sense where initial crop yield is genuinely below the baler’s minimum chamber fill requirement — typically below 3 t/ha yield in short spring growth situations.

Integrating the Mower-Rake Combination in Farming Systems

The mower-rake combination — cutting and windrowing in a single pass — changes the operational structure of hay production fundamentally. Instead of sequencing mow, then waiting for the swath to wilt, then raking, the mower-windrower delivers a windrow directly from the fresh-cut crop. This is operationally efficient but agronomically constrained: the crop does not wilt in the swath before being windrowed, which means final curing time in the windrow is extended by 4–8 hours compared to a separately mowed and windrowed crop in the same conditions.

The mower-windrower approach makes most sense in operations where: (a) weather windows are very short and eliminating one field operation is worth the extended windrow curing time; (b) the crop is a grass species that wilts rapidly regardless of whether it is in a swath or windrow (dense swards of perennial ryegrass, for example, reach baling moisture in the windrow without requiring the open-swath wilting period); or (c) the operation is producing silage, where full field drying is not the target and the windrow curing time saving is not relevant to the quality outcome.

For dry hay from legumes — alfalfa, clover, lucerne — the separate mow-wilt-rake sequence is generally preferred over the mower-rake combination because the open-swath wilting period produces faster initial moisture loss and better leaf condition at the time of raking. The 9GL-2.5/2.9 and 9GL-5.0/5.6 are best matched to grass or mixed grass operations and silage production rather than to premium legume dry hay systems.

Common Raking Mistakes on Farm and How to Avoid Them

Raking too dry: The most common cause of excess leaf shatter losses in legume hay. The field test: grab a handful of material before raking and compress it firmly. If stems snap rather than bend, moisture is too low. If stems bend without snapping but do not feel wet, moisture is in the optimal raking range. Schedule raking for early morning on days following dry afternoons.

Incorrect windrow width: Setting windrow too wide relative to baler pickup causes material to overflow the pickup edges, leaving unprocessed forage in the field. Setting too narrow leaves the baler underfed. Set windrow width by measuring the baler pickup width and setting the rake to produce a windrow at 60–70% of pickup width. Do not set by eye alone — measure with a tape on the first pass and verify against the baler’s feed pattern.

Soil contamination: Visible soil in the windrow indicates either ground clearance set too low, working speed too high for the ground roughness, or wheel angle set too aggressively (wheels pushing material downward rather than sideways). Adjust clearance first, then speed, before modifying wheel angle — angle adjustment has the largest effect on windrow density and should be changed conservatively.

Inconsistent windrow height: Varies across the paddock, typically caused by the rake following ground contour irregularities while the reference height setting was calibrated for flat ground. On rolling terrain, check that the ground clearance mechanism follows ground variation — machines with rigid frame geometry produce inconsistent clearance on slopes. Ground-driven wheel rakes with independently floating wheel assemblies follow terrain more accurately than fixed-frame designs.

Double-raking unnecessarily: A second rake pass over already-formed windrows to increase density is sometimes necessary in light crops, but on medium-to-high yielding crops it adds leaf shatter losses equivalent to a full first rake pass — double the shatter exposure for the same material. Evaluate whether windrow density is genuinely insufficient for baler performance before scheduling a second pass. If the issue is bale density rather than windrow density, adjust the baler’s density setting before adding a second raking operation.

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When is the best time to rake hay?

Early morning, when crop moisture is above 20% for legume crops — typically 2–4 hours after sunrise before leaf moisture drops through the afternoon minimum. For grass hay, timing is less critical, but avoiding peak afternoon heat (1–4 PM) in hot, dry conditions reduces the small risk of leaf shatter in higher-legume-fraction mixed swards. Raking should not begin when leaf is wet with dew — wait until surface moisture has dried from stem and leaf surfaces before starting.

How does a hay rake improve farming efficiency?

By consolidating multiple mower swath widths into a single consistent windrow at the baler’s optimal pickup width, the rake reduces baler field time (fewer passes, consistent chamber feed rate), reduces bale density variation, and allows the baler to operate at maximum speed without pickup overflow or chamber blockage. A well-formed windrow from a well-operated rake can increase baler daily output by 15–25% versus a baler working an unraked field or a poorly-formed windrow.

How many times should hay be raked?

In standard dry hay production: once, after sufficient field wilting. A second rake pass (double raking) is only warranted when initial crop yield is too low to form a windrow dense enough for efficient baler operation — typically when crop yield is below 2.5–3 t/ha and the baler chamber is not filling adequately on a single-pass windrow. Double raking on adequate-yield crops adds leaf shatter losses without improving bale quality.

What is the correct hay rake speed for farm use?

Ground-driven wheel rakes on standard hay crops (grass, mixed sward): 10–12 km/h. Legume crops with leaf shatter risk: 7–9 km/h, especially in morning conditions when leaf is partially rehydrated and most susceptible to shatter. Straw raking: 8–10 km/h. Wet or heavy silage grass: 8–10 km/h. Adjust by observing windrow consistency — speed is correct when the windrow density is even and no material is thrown ahead of the wheels.

Can I use one rake for both hay and silage on the same farm?

Yes. A ground-driven finger wheel rake handles both dry hay and silage grass raking with setting adjustments — lower ground clearance and slightly reduced speed for dry hay quality management; standard clearance and operating speed for silage grass where windrow consistency matters more than leaf shatter. The machine does not need to change between uses. For operations where silage grass volume significantly exceeds dry hay volume, a PTO rotary rake may better suit the high-moisture silage work, but most mixed operations manage adequately with a single well-specified wheel rake.