Worth doing hay?

[CH4Ohio]

Everyone around here is going to accumulators and grapples for small square bales. I still think the absolute best is having a couple teenagers on a wagon behind the baler -- and then to unload in the barn. But if you can't find kids to work when you need them, or you want to eliminate that worry . . . accumulators are a pretty good option. Also allows you to load onto any flatbed trailer instead of just being tied to using traditional hay wagons.

Pretty handy if a customer drops their trailer off so you can just load onto their trailer instead of putting it in the barn and handling it a couple extra times.

 

[LHF2019]

Everyone around here is going to accumulators and grapples for small square bales. I still think the absolute best is having a couple teenagers on a wagon behind the baler -- and then to unload in the barn. But if you can't find kids to work when you need them, or you want to eliminate that worry . . . accumulators are a pretty good option. Also allows you to load onto any flatbed trailer instead of just being tied to using traditional hay wagons.

Pretty handy if a customer drops their trailer off so you can just load onto their trailer instead of putting it in the barn and handling it a couple extra times.

We use accumulator and grapple and will not load customers. We stack in groups for them to load themselves. We have actually gotten where we do not assist customers even at the barn. Load it on a wagon and they come and load their trailer or truck at their convenience. No more waiting around for them to show up or get there early

 

[LouNY]

When we were putting up 10-12,000 bales a year we very seldom would ride and stack in the wagons.
The only exception would be on a day with short manpower and only 3-400 bales to go with weather coming in. The kicker racks would hold about 120 bales, when hand stacked depending on the wagon it would easily be 150-200 bales back then we could usually only get 3-4 wagons under cover when loaded. So stacking made more sense then not. Now days we don't do but around a 1000 bales a year and many years when stacked in the wagon we just leave the last few hundred in wagons untill needed.
The bale baskets are nice on flat or gently sloped fields. We have always had to both on bale and forage wagons to the uphill side then finish of the load in other parts of the fields. It was always nice to chop or bale on our flatter fields. Also you would need several of those bale carts to stay ahead of a baler when hauling 2-4 miles from a field to the barn