Best cheaper swather for flat cereals on clay soil?

[poorboy]

Have a lot of flat barley and wheat now with the 8" of wet snow. Lots of hills and all of it is wet sticky soil. The type of stuff you can walk anywhere you like when it is raining, but your size 10 boots turn into size 20 boots once it drys a little and gets sticky.

Had a little go flat last year and swathed some with a 35' MacDon M155. It struggled to follow the ground and not get all jammed up with mud. Thinking of purchasing another used swather to cut the crop this year and wondering what is the best one for cutting on the ground? Would a 30' cut better or even maybe I should be looking at a 25' and double swath. I normally just cut canola with the 35' MacDon and I am not sure if the machine is just that bad cutting on the ground or if it is the width of the header?

Would like to keep the price between $50 and $100K.

Close to me I see these options:

MacDon or Deere branded M100 or M150 with 30 or 35 headers.
Massey 9420, 9430, 9435, 9740 and 9760 models with 25, 30 or 36 headers
New Holland and Deere models with Honeybee Headers in 30 or 36'.

Had a Massey 9435 years ago with a 30' header and loved that thing, but mainly cut canola with it and that is much different than lodged cereals right on the ground.

Every time I have tried to just combine the lodged grain it seems to cost me a lot more combine hours and repairs from the rocks than if I just swath it and put up with the extra grain loss from under the swath that does not get picked up by the combine. Swathers sure don't follow the ground like the MacDon FD75 does on the combine.

[Partners]

Do you have skid shoes on your 35ft m155?
We never have issues.
We have 2 in the middle. 1 on each end..

[poorboy]

Do you have skid shoes on your 35ft m155?
We never have issues.
We have 2 in the middle. 1 on each end..

Yes I have the 6 skid shoes. Operator may have not had the float adjusted properly. Not sure if it was an operator issue or a machine issue. He struggled to cut 60 acres in a 12 hour day until the ground dried out a lot. Seemed the knife would keep jamming with mud and wet crop material. It has the double knife drive. Would take an hour to clean all the guards out with a screwdriver before it would cut again. Machine has only 350 hours and all the components look like new. Had to cut real low to get under the lodged crop as it fell down in every direction possible. Not all pushed the one way like you get from a driving wind.

[jazz]

Only thing that can skim this mud is probably a flex head. My Premier cuts great but not on the ground. I think most swathers are similar. Or wait until the ground freezes. Guys have done that with flat canary around here.

[mcfarms]

That Macdon should have been way better than that, biggest mistake is improper float or header angle . But if its that sticky it could be trouble.

[furrowtickler]

Our Massey with a 35Ft head worked way better than a New Holland , an older challenger or a new Mac Don 205 with the 40 ft .
Actually it was not even close .
We had all four types out last year trying to swath flat wheat .

The Massey followed the ground way better and had far less issues at the cutter bar .
The 40 ft Mac Don was simply too wide on uneven ground . Even on perfect flat ground the Massey did a better job .
The New Holland left way too much
The challenger was ok but an older one that did not float on the ground nearly as good as the Massey.
I know the Massey and challenger are both made in the same factory before anyone gets all up in arms , but the Massey is newer and has a much better hydraulic float system over that older challenger one we tried .

[foragefarmer]

If you rolled your crop after seeding the Mcdon should do the trick, but in wet conditions on uneven ground, mud and wet crop will plug you knife in heavy soil. Even with a good operator it's tough going.

Adjusting the angle of your table is very important, but I'm sure you all ready knew that.

[furrowtickler]

End of the day any swather may work ok as long as the float pressure is set as light as possible
Swathing at an angle to the flat crop helped as well, especially if you have any type of a seed furrow .
Problem is very few farmers land roll every acre .
So these additional issues become big problems when cutting flat on the ground with a header or swather .

Also our wheat was so flat last year , crop lifters were a must . It kept the table off the ground a bit but still got 99% of the crop without skidding too much mud .
And yes as foragefarmer pointed out , header angle is very important as well
This was on heavy wet sticky clay soil

Also take the time now to replace any worn sickle sections , even remotely worn ones lol. And also make sure your reel drive sprockets and chains are in very good shape , the reel will take a bit of a beating.
May save you some frustration and downtime none of us can afford going forward.

[SASKFARMER]

Massey

[the big wheel]

Biggest issue is how dry the ground will be when cutting if you can hit the dirt and not drag a blob of mud and just go through it with the lifter then most swathers do a good job. A little slow but going at an angle is best but one year I went only facing the crop yes I had to go the half mile back empty and then cut it was rhe only way since crop went down in the seed furrow.

It seems the steeper rhe angle of the header the better it seems to work also.

[furrowtickler]

Massey

Yup 👍, we just found the Massey floated on the wet ground far better than anything else we tried.

[the big wheel]

Yup 👍, we just found the Massey floated on the wet ground far better than anything else we tried.

They are a good machine all the time!!

[SASKFARMER]

The bearings for the new reals get a work out and you need a couple on the swather. Easy change and only $8.00 apiece

[Guest]

Yup 👍, we just found the Massey floated on the wet ground far better than anything else we tried.

they're a little lighter too , and that helps

[poorboy]

What model Massey swathers seem to be working? Is the massey 5200 header good enough or is the 5300 header way better? Massey swathers are the cheapest, so would be great if they worked.