Home-built round bale feeders

[ejb]

Anyone have suggestions/plans for a decent home-made round bale feeder? I am thinking along the lines of a combination of PT 4x4 and some sheep/goat panels with 4x4 openings...maybe even a fence line feeder so I can load from one side and they feed from the other.

Barring that, besides tractor-supply, and good sources for purchase feeders (for sheep).

 

[MMM]

I've seen both polypro pipe (black water line) and pvc pipe for cattle round here. Can't speak for the durability, but looked like easier and cheaper alternative to steel.

 

[DaveNay]

</font><font color="blue" class="small">( I've seen both polypro pipe (black water line) and pvc pipe for cattle round here. Can't speak for the durability, but looked like easier and cheaper alternative to steel. )</font>

Anything other than steel will be quickly eaten, chewed, twisted, mutilated, bent, folded and generally broken.

Dave

 

[slowrev]

Anything other than steel will be quickly eaten, chewed, twisted, mutilated, bent, folded and generally broken.
//

Yeah, with cattle steel even gets beat up pretty quickly /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif

Ben

 

[FL_Cracker]

I used a steel ring from the feed stoor but added this roof to keep the water off.

Hay Shed

I now have a tin roof and water collection off the roof to the water tub.

 

[FL_Cracker]

It's set up right on the fence line so I can load it from outside the fence without driving on the grass or opening any gates.

 

[kensfarm]

Looks good.. I want to have something similiar.. being able to feed w/out having to get into the muck.. right now I'm just setting the rounds on the ground. They love rubbing on it.. it wastes some hay.. but it entertains them some while I'm finishing there permanent fenced fields.

 

[ejb]

I like the concept, but wouldn't work for sheep with that feeder, plus I'd like to be able to have feeder space for 80-100 head at a time.

I am picturing something with a roof (I like the rain collection idea), feeder space on three sides, and the ability to load round bales into a slanted "chute" ,maybe 3 deep so that as they eat the hay the next roll automatically (or with a little push) is ready to go. If its 6-8 bales wide, the feeder could hold uptp 24 bales at a time; really cut down on my feeding chores in the winter. If I come up with an great plans I'll post some pics when they are done.

 

[FL_Cracker]

That sounds like a good plan. I am only covering three horses so one round bale does the trick.

I didn't talk about it before but I made a large round PT pallet to go under the hay so the hay doesn't sit on the ground. Works great.

The water collection works great. With a tin roof the water moves easy and stays clean. I just run a gutter across the end and drop the down spout into a water tub using a gutter flexible tube.

First rain and the tank is full. If it rains once a week or so the horses never need water. They do have a year round spring as a back up but they don't care for it too much because the mud is deep near the edges.