I have never seen this before, a pickup instead of a tractor, pulling a hay rake. He was hauling ass, 25-30 mph, but the rake was still doing it's thing just fine. I bet this guy feels pretty smug about his solution, I'm curious how he came up with it. Maybe the tractor broke down and this was a temp thing that turned out permanent?

We've done that before too, tractor is busy pulling a baler or the MOCO. Just have to hook up the tractor hydraulics to unfold it, after that it can be pulled by anything.

I’ve seen this frequently around here. I imagine the transmission gets a bit hot if it’s an automatic. Old farm truck. Easily replaced. Maybe the A/C works in the truck, but not in the tractor.

Edit. Looks like a fifth wheel hitch connection. Purpose built? Yup. Quick google search finds they are available, and have 12V powered hydraulics.

He was hauling ass, 25-30 mph

Stoked a memory .. I'd get chewed out pulling a dual rake with John Deere 2030 if my farmer-neighbor-boss caught me motoring any faster than walking pace. "You're gonna break the leaves off that alfalfa going that fast, you blankety so and so, slow down!"

Doggone hay raking. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kEi3r_KJ4Sg

GranitePants wrote:"You're gonna break the leaves off that alfalfa going that fast, you blankety so and so, slow down!"

Most alfalfa around here is junk because of this. It doesn't test out, and you leave 15% to 20% of the dollar value of the cut as dust in the field if the buyer is paying any attention at all. Total waste of time.

Leaves can yield 25% protein. The entire cut is 12% to 15% protein for a decent harvest, and as little as 6% to 8% when it's been thrashed. But if it's going to get rained on for lack of time, who knows.

There's also custom hay crews that use trucks for everything because it makes everything faster and easier to move down the road. If you look at a small square baler it has v-belt grooves on the flywheel, that's so you can mount an engine on the tongue to turn the thing, and pull that baler with whatever you have. In Amish country they'll then pull that baler with a horse team, custom hay crews pull it with a pickup, often with an offset hitch for field pulling.