Combines Flex head for oatsIJ

I only tried straight cutting oats once and found the base of the straw stays wet untill the oats just about shells on its own. Just my experience. As long as the straw is wet it wouldn't feed at all.

Depends on your crop. If you have nice, clean, tall oats and cut them fairly low you will probably be ok. But you and I both know that won't happen every year! Short oats will build up behind the cutterbar as will anything green or tough. Grass in with the oats will be a killer. Oats that are down will be more of a challenge too with a flex head vs a direct cut. My advice would be to find a fairly decent direct cut head to do the oats with. You should be able to pick one up pretty reasonable even if you have to do some work on it. You will save yourself a lot of frustration if you have very many acres to cut. We have been using an 800 series flex for oats for several years now and have been getting along ok. There is a lot shorter distance between the cutterbar and auger on these head compared to the 300 series flex though. We also spray them to keep weeds out and don't use any N to keep them from going down as much as possible. About the only trouble we really run into anymore is custom work where there is a lot of green stuff. Green stuff still won't feed, even on the 800 series.