Picking up sqaure hay

[jwcinpk]

I am looking into getting set up to handle sqaure bales of hay by myself in large numbers. I am challenged by a couple of things. The first is money. It would have to be something that would be cheap enough to warrant purchase. After all why even bother if there is no profit? Second is height. My barns are not really barns. They are old modified chickenhouses. The clearance is only 8 ft on one and the other has been modified just enough to allow my hay roller in. I have seen contraptions such as bale sport, bale bandit, etc. Do these things really work in the feild?
I come from an area where most people that sqaure hay pick it up by hand, but help is almost impossible to find anymore. What type of heights am I looking at dealing with if I used stack wagons? My baler is an old IH, so no kicker. I'm not crazy about what I have seen from them in the way of bent and busted bales anyway. I wouldn't care to be the one to ride the wagon and stack them, but lately I can't even find someone that wants to work enough to drive the tractor.

 

[slowzuki]

Stack wagon is way too tall for your setup, needs like 12 -14 ft clearance overhead.

Sounds like a bale accumulator and some grabs are needed. You will need a skidsteer with a qt grab that can be swapped to the tractor.

The grab and skidsteer can pile well in a low barn.

The accumlator tows behind the baler and leaves piles of like 8 or so around the field, the grab on the tractor squeezes and picks em up to load wagons like rounds.

Here is one brand http://www.abcgroff.com/ag/hoel1.htm

another, I don't know how the bales aren't torn up in this brand http://www.netherexe.com/accumulator.htm

 

[Cliff_Johns]

</font><font color="blue" class="small">( Stack wagon is way too tall for your setup, needs like 12 -14 ft clearance overhead. )</font>

Only if you want to stack it in the barn directly from the stacker.

The problem is two-fold. Picking it up from the field, here one of the stackers as shown in DaveNay's photo galery would be quite effective. One person can get the hay stacked on a wagon and back to the barn,

The second problem is getting the hay off the stacker and into the barn. My impression is that there are stackers that will remove the hay one bale at a time too. Here, you have it drop the hay onto a conveyor that's laying almost horazontal which feeds it to the person in the barn who stacks it.

Sounds a bit Rube Goldberg, but I suppose it could be made to work with one person, or better, one strong person and one helper. You should never be using machinery like that completely by yourself.

Cliff

 

[slowzuki]

A stack wagon can work but chicken barns and hog barns are typically low and really long. To stack in the back would require long conveyor runs.

As soon as a conveyor becomes involved in a low building you can't do anything on your own as the bales can't fall anywhere and will soon be caught in the conveyor.

BTW a bale bandit costs a fortune. Unless you handle a lot of hay it isn't really an option.

 

[Robert_in_NY]

Your problem is simple, the NH stack wagon is the best way to do hay. However you are in no position to be able to use one. Most wagons need 14' of height to unload (larger wagons need up to 17'). Your other problem is that your baler does not make good bales which is a big issue with the NH stack wagons. It likes nice square bales of even length. Banana bales will make things fun.

The other accumlators work well, the bale basket is nice but you have limited storage and some people say it is hard on the baler as it has to push all those bales up the chute till they drop in so it puts more stress on your plunger. Of all the choices I would go with the bale basket for your setup unless you consider buying a new baler or putting some money into yours.

In my situation, I want a NH bale wagon but I sell a lot of hay to horse farmers direct from the field so it would not be feasible for me to run the wagon to each of their barns. Instead the kicker wagons work best for me on these fields as the buyers come and take the wagons and bring them back empty with very little down time on my part if things run smoothly. If my plans go right I will get a NH bale wagon for the base fields near my barn I will build next spring and put a quarter turn on an old Case baler and go at it with that setup till I decide to buy a new/newer second baler. Then I can run both setups depending where I am baling and where the hay is going. But like I said, for you the bale basket is the best way to go.

 

[rambler]

Could you tell us what 'large numbers' is? To some that is 2000 bales, to others that is 15,000 bales a year....

If you want one-man deal and little handling go with the accumulator & a skid loader stacker as mentioned. You will have to pay for some machinery, but you will not have to pay any labor - you will come out good in a few years.

Forget the NH bale wagons - they will not work out with your low ceilings. Also they like very uniform bales, not with your baler...

If you are looking at a lower number of bales, you can do it with a bale basket or 2 for less investment. They are like a bale-thrower setup, but the baler pushed the bale up a ramp & into the basket - much easier on the bales. You can do all the work with 1 person, but you will be stacking by hand. They are tall - mine is 11' high, & the bales can stick over another couple of feet, so you won't get inside with them (can you modify the doors to make it higher down the middle?), I don't know how long your barns are, it is work carrying the bales in might need a convayor & then you need 2 people to stack.

--->Paul

 

[Robert_in_NY]

Either way he is going to have to stack his barns by hand. I wouldn't think you could get a skid loader with grabs into a low barn and be able to stack to high. Might be his best investment would be a suitable hay barn to fit the hay he wants to store. Build it for his future plans and if it is a NH bale wagon or a accumulator build the barn to suit it. Of course if he is talking only 2-3k bales then stack them by hand. We put 1000 bales of clover in one of our barns as we ran out of room. The barn is 8' high by 16' wide and 64' long. The best thing was with every wagon load the trip was a lot shorter. In the end I remember someone saying if haying was easy then everyone would do it /forums/images/graemlins/crazy.gif My favorite part of haying is running the baler (cutting is a close second) but I do enjoy stacking hay also (I think it was from growing up playing with building blocks /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif). The only thing I don't like is when I am stacking by myself and I get up 10 tiers it gets real tiresome moving hay up the stack. Ideally we would stack as it goes in the barn but labor shortages (read, people don't like hard work) force us to dump the hay in piles and stack later. So far this year I have done just under 11k small squares and 400 rounds. If weather permits I might get another 3-4k smalls put up but it don't look like that will happen.

How has your hay season been going? The weather has finally started to let up now that the days are so short and cool.

 

[slowzuki]

The skidsteer should stack to 6 feet in the 8 ft barn depending on brand (type of lift arms)and type of grab. Some grabs pinch from the side, some from the top.

I'm assuming there is a lot more barn than needed for the hay?

A friend had his hog operation go down the tubes and he had 2 low barn left, 8 ft ceiling, 60 ft wide by like 200 ft long. He ended up using them for storing trucks/boats/cars.

A new building and a balewagon would be best but given the circumstances I keep my accumulator / grab vote.
Ken

 

[jwcinpk]

We plan to build a building in the future so I geuss I'll pick them up myself til then. If the accumulators really work it seems they would be a good route to go. Anyone have any personal experience with these? I want to do 5000 a year to start.

 

[Robert_in_NY]

My farmer friends up north who run the two NH bale wagons use the grabs to stack semis. The grabs they have work well as they can take a tier from the stack wagon all at once. If you look at an accumulator try to size it out to the NH bale wagon so if you decide to go this route you can still use your grabs to make loading easy. A lot of people use accumulators. Post this question at these boards and you will get a lot of information and some real experienced people will tell you the pros and cons of the different brands available. New Ag talk Successful farming