Thats why older equipment last longer built better and taking extremely good care of your investments.May you and your family continue to be blessed and have great success .
Your attention to detail when using and caring for your equipment is excellent. I have been on scores of farms over my almost 50 years working with farmers. Some people make their own problems by not doing the things you do. It was always a part of my decision making process to see how a farmer managed the resources he had to work with. 👍
It's very obvious you take good care of all of your equipment. It will serve you well for many more years. I remember doing maintenance with my grandpa. Thank you for sharing another great video and bringing back memories. Stay safe and God bless.
I liked chopping. Haven't done it in quite a few years. We had a John Deere 3970 that we ran on a 4450. Later we got an 8100 and that had enough power for a three row head. The unluckiest guy was the one packing the bunker. We used a 2350 John Deere with a loader but no cab. The chopper was setup to run anhydrous for non protein nitrogen.
You do a excellent job of maintaining your equipment. I used to switch the hay and corn heads on my harvest too. Then one of our older neighbours had a clearing auction, and I was able to purchase their NH harvester, which he had bought new, but only chopped about 200 acres before advancing age forced him to quit keeping livestock. After 5 years he sold his equipment and rented out the land. So I was fortunate to buy the harvester for $5,500.00 with corn head. So I had 2 harvesters, one for corn and one for hay.
I enjoy watching your videos. I've retired from farming. I don't have anyone to take over. I loved dairying with my dad 40 years, we had 80 cows in a small barn. Glad to see families out there working together making it work. God bless your family!
Thanks for filming, Dad!! I know it is an extra thing to do and slows down the whole process but your videos always put a smile on my face and a joy in my heart. Still miss my cows. Have a great weekend!!
It is just so great to see and listen to some one that cares about his equipment. So much knowledge as well about the machine. I enjoy your videos as you are a person that likes to keep the old machines working. Thanks so much for showing how you take care of old machines that still work.
Excellent review of your maintenance procedures on the chopper. Yes, it requires time & effort but the long-term savings of money and quality reliable equipment is year-round peace of mind. The large workshop facility is impressive allowing you to store, service, repair & protect tools and equipment from the elements year-round!
Thanks for this very informative video. Your ability to explain simply and in detail is impressive. My Dad had two different Gehl field choppers. The first had a hay head and a corn head (the kind with vertical augers). The second had a corn head only as I recall. This newer head had no augers and looked more like yours but was only a one row. By then he was only baling hay and chopping maybe 175 acres of corn. Both of them had the knives on the blower wheel. This cut the corn much more coarsely; you could find complete slices of a corn cob in the silage. There were at least 6 knives, could have been 8 but I'm not sure. Silage season was mostly while I was back in school, so I never saw all the prep work done on the chopper, but he took good care of his equipment. Later on, we had Gehl self-unloading wagons and a Gehl blower with a four-foot drum. Gehl advertised you could unload their wagons in three minutes. I thought I was hot stuff because I could get it done in that time. 😁
You take a lot of pride in your equipment, and your farm and business in general, and it really shows. It also seems like you guys take a lot of pride in these videos, and because of that they are very enjoyable. Thank you for taking the time
Your success is in the details and you do such a good job taking care of your equipment. I don't understand when driving through the country side and see nice equipment sitting in the field over the winter and expecting it to work well the next season. You would do well in whatever you chose to do for a living. Nice job.
You do a wonderful job explaining everything in simple terms that everyone can understand. Thank You so so much for sharing your family videos with us all 👍😊
Great video and great explanation of the workings of the chopper. Also a good job in cleanup and greasing and oiling in preparation for and longevity of the equipment.
Dear Gierok Farms, I can’t thank you enough for sharing your farm and life with us. I think something Mr G stated is the single best philosophy for life and happiness in farming or in any other type business. He said something like this, “by keeping costs down and not trying to grow too large it keeps it manageable and it means you aren’t forced to make more money to service the investments”. Extremely wise. Demonstrating that old perfectly good tractors, pickers and choppers that are cared for and serviced properly can still make the farm profitable. It just takes time, planning and some know how. I am curious about tires you’re using on the older tractors. Is there a particular brand you like for your pre 1970 tractors? I’m looking to get a set of new 18.4 x 30’s for an old Case and curious what you do for tires? Thanks again! God Bless GA
Do you guys have a neighbor who has a self-propelled chopper to open up the corn field for you. Some people I know do that so that they don't run over a bunch of corn and not wreck the machine with the deep grader ditches the will have some come and open the field up. Keep up the great work on the video.
Non-farmer poeple really don't get how having a nice warm sunny day to do jobs like this makes the work go so much nicer to do.Fall can have some nice days.It would not be fun to do this job today. The weather poeple say we are getting 4 to8 in of snow today.(Nov 29) here in western Wisconsin.Hope the milk truck makes it over the hills to get your milk tomorrow!! Thanks 🥶.
Didn’t realize you could take the processor out. Guess it has to come out to chop haylage or not? My old 900 NH just take a deflection shield out and ready to go for grass😮. Thanks
Like the way you take care of your equipment, nothing irritates me more than to see machinery left out and left just the way they got done with it, and right where they got done with it! We'd take a paint brush and brush used oil on the tin inside! Hand crank on the shut, a rope to the tractor for the flapper! I told you about putting a shear bar thru my NH717!
Soak everything down with old oil here..............Dirt floor sheds are the worst for rust. Coat it down with an old undercoating gun and the oil, let it sit in the sun all day and then put it away. Works good.
You're going to spend the time at some point either fixing or maintaining. Maintaining at your convenience is so much less stressful and saves big money in the long run. I always have to chuckle at an uncle of mine. He gets the machine out that he needs the day he needs it and then gets mad when it isn't ready to go or when he can't get parts immediately.
We never took our picker off because we had it on an older tractor and we didn't need the tractor so we just left the Picker on we had to take the elevator off to get it in the shed though but that saved a lot of work not taking the Picker off
I got to ask a dumb question I never heard of a processor so can you tell me what it does I'm an Old Farm Boy and everything but I've never like I said heard of the processor
good job and video. i use to do it just like you wash it down, grease it and oil it down. we cut corn one year that water had went over in july it rained and washed off all the sand you could see but it worn out the bearing, shear bar and knives so don't cut corn water has been over. take care, be safe and well. are you ready to be a grandpa yet?
Now when you're sharpening them knives you run that backwards right you take that drive shaft and put it on a different shaft so the knives run backwards right like they did in the Heston Chopper the guy that I worked for on the beef farm he had a Heston and he just run the hell out of that Chopper he took out bearings that you would have never took out if you had a brain but he had to go so fast he could fill a wagon in less than 7 minutes with a three row I think I was a 2000 Heston Chopper that's been 40 years ago since I worked on that
