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TractorChic

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Pastures are nice and green now ... but soon it will be winter, folks! :( Hay prices are going to be frightening, so we are considering going with round bales instead of square. The only problem is ... we have no way to move them. Or do we? Steak dinner to the first guy or gal who can tell me how I can move all the round bales I need with my 16 HP ... Steve72 is buying! Here is your tool:
[img]https://fbcdn-photos-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/283676_10100911383686704_949734511_a.jpg[/img]
Would something like this work??? [url]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fr8Dh_iEKDI&feature=player_embedded#! [/url] Hay dolly, plywood sled ... what can move these things (I've heard 400-1,000 pounds!) from the storage shed to the animals?
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Something like that would work, if your willing to roll the bales around. Bear in mind, he made it look easy, but that was straw, about half the weight of good hay. How are the bales going to get into the storage shed? Will they all be floor level or stacked? Also, the longer they stay in the shed, the flatter the bottom will get and that much harder to roll. I think I would stick with small square bales and a wagon or trailer. The added expense of the higher priced hay might be worth it for less headache (and backache) How many round bales are you talking about, 5, 50, 500??
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I like the bale cart better, notice the flat bottom on the bale? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QmZEd1cyEe4&feature=related This one looks cheaper and easier to build http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CzwiCYcpLNM&feature=related
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You need a big loader w a bale spike. The little AC would do an immediate nose dive, reverse wheel stand. Do square bale. Rokon can have the steak. I don't eat much meat. sm01 . Wassup with hay prices? Is this a drought issue? I know nothing about this stuff. . Re: "but soon it will be winter, folks!" Wrong. In a couple months it will be beautiful fall season. Winter is hereby cancelled. Not happening. .
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Small bales of Timothy are already at $10 a bale. We paid $2.00 a bale for marsh hay and are supplementing with alfalfa pellets for the winter. The drought wiped out 2nd crop and 3rd crop is looking weak. Something to consider is the round bales. Use a chainsaw to cut them into pieces you can load into a sled, wagon, cart and then transport. I know a few folks who use the chainsaw method around here with the large square bales. Chris
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the Allis will pull it's share of a good load. i think rounds would be tough to handle without some kind of cart like rokon posted. talking about hay, i just had to post this pic:D. i would not want to be going down any inclines with this load :O.
[img]http://www.simpletractors.com/images/new_in_1964/hay_pg10.jpg[/img]
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One thing to keep in mind is that with round bales a lot of hay can get wasted. Depending on the animals eating the hay this may not be a problem. If I feed my horses a square bale of hay they will eat almost all of it. If I feed them a round bale I would guess 15% or so is wasted / lost. The horses step in the bale and grind it into the ground. Once that happens they won't eat it. I know goats are a lot less picky so it may not be an issue with them. Rick.......
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Just an observation, I am by no means an expert; the round bales in the video's are from Ireland and they look smaller/lighter in diameter than the 700 pound bales that I have seen here in the states. jh
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quote:
Originally posted by TractorChic what can move these things (I've heard 400-1,000 pounds!) from the storage shed to the animals?
Any chance that instead of trying to move all of those bales of hay you could just let the animals come up to somewhere right near the shed to eat?
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Well with two dairy cows and their 6-month-old bull calves, we'll be going through 3 or 4 bales per day. At $5 - $8 a bale, (the cheapest I can find around here) that's ... a million dollars, roughly. I can get a 4 x 5 round bale for $20, which lasts my friend with a similar number of animals almost 2 weeks. So we are surely going with round bales. I like the chainsaw idea. They are about 600ish pounds, and my friend says she and her hubby can roll them, but it is a serious cardio workout. I might just roll them onto some sort of drag that I can tow behind Alice. We have no way of stacking, so we will be putting them under a tarp as close to the shelter as possible. It's going to be a fun winter!! One of these days, I'd kill for one of those hydro lifts with a spike that you can tow behind you, kinda like the orange miracle machine linked above: http://www.fasthaymovers.com/thehaybaby.html ... maybe when I win the lottery! I'll let you guys know when the bull calves are ready to be made into steaks! hahaha!
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On the few occasions I have purchased a round bale I have been able to push them around. I would recommend that before you do move them around you tie an additional rope around them. You do not want to rely on the string holding the bale together. It can and will unravel. The last time I purchased a round bale instead of feeding the horses the full bale I broke off what they would eat in a day and fed them that. Basically I treated the round bale like a large square bale. This meant I had a lot less waste; but did take more time. Rick.........
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quote:
Originally posted by perry
the Allis will pull it's share of a good load. i think rounds would be tough to handle without some kind of cart like rokon posted. talking about hay, i just had to post this pic:D. i would not want to be going down any inclines with this load :O.
[img]http://www.simpletractors.com/images/new_in_1964/hay_pg10.jpg[/img]

This is priceless! Hahaha!
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I use a junk truck hood for a drag to move heavy items. You might be able to roll a bale on a large one, and pull it to your feeding area. There are safty concerns, though. No steep hills up or down, hook a short chain to ONLY the draw bar, block fore and aft with at least a 4x4. It would not cost a lot to try. Borrow a damaged hood from a local junk yard, buy it if it works.
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quote:
Originally posted by goatfarmer
I think Dan wins the steak. That #2 video is a neat idea!
I agree. This is an interesting thread, and educational for me. There's a local farmer who runs his tractor up and down the road by my house, pulling a large flat trailer, either empty or loaded with hay. He's really busy with that in the late fall. (also recently) Is hay just overgrown, naturally occurring grasses? or it is planted to promote a specific crop, such as "timothy" was mentioned by bowhunt4life. i imagine once established it would just grow by itself perennially. And then I wonder how it's harvested. and how it's baled. I have a friend who has some 20 acres and doesn't use hay; she was wanting a farmer to harvest it - sounded like free, or maybe trade/barter. I wonder if it isn't harvested if that tends to ruin the field due to old dead material, from the previous season. And there must be an optimum height for harvesting. I know grass, and I like tall, but this is a whole other league with what seems like really tall, mature grasses, etc. A lot of lawn species will grow to some 2-3 feet tall - would that make good hay, and be useable as feed also? I'm no farmer - not yet anyway. but I would love 20 acres to play on.
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Hay is not grass (from your lawn) that has been allowwed to grown long. It is a completely different product. If a field is not cut regularly the forest will slow reclaim it. Before that happens weeds will start to take over. Once that happens it can take years for the field to recover. Most farmers I know won't use weed killer so they resort to pulling the weeds by hand or cutting the field very short in the early spring. The problem with that approach is it delays the first crop of hay. If that delay is significant the farmer can lose the second cut of hay they usually get. If the farmer loses one crop of hay the loss of income can be quite large. In Western Maine the price of a bale of hay (in the field) ranges from 3.25 to 3.50 depending on the farmer. Depending on the farm each crop of hay can be between 1,500 to 12,000 square bales. Rick..........
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Thanks, Rick. Very interesting info. I recognize these problems as principles of reclamation and natural succession. Is it then typical to prepare the field preferably in the fall; by actual mowing with a tow-behind deck? Or does the 3rd/final harvest simply take care of that? Probably the answer is = it depends. I could probably do some www..search... and get the full story; since I only have too many questions already. But thanks this is enlightening. I have studied hort and eco; and it's all horticulture and it's all ecology - it's just that agriculture is a very specialized area, with proven and accepted techniques; and I have never pursued those at all, which is kinda amazing. I can see a lot of overlap that could help my learning process. omg - now I really want land. sm03 What I have now is an acre that's 50% treed. My lil mini forest, that I 'prune' and thin, mainly for appearance and the view; and I am now seeing it regenerate itself at the same time. Nature is one powerful entity; and is enhanced by careful management.
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Well, yes it could be your lawn grown long, but that depends on what your lawn is and what kind of hay you want. What part of western maine are you in rick?
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If you really want to know about hay, you would do better to research it. It could get complicated. LOL There are several varieties, some specifically "groomed" for specific animals. Timothy, Clover, Alfalfa, Orchard Grass, Burmuda Grass, Oat varieties and I'm sure others. The variety needed would depend on what your feeding, since different grasses have different nutrients, and different animals require different nutrients, as well as the "inner workings" of different digestive systems. You asked about a specific height for harvest. Not so much. More important is the maturity of the plant, not the height. Different varieties may grow to different heights on different soils Quality hay depends on many variables. Variety (what are you feeding) thoroughbred horses, vs pleasure horse vs goat, milk cow, beef cow, sheep, llama, rabbits etc Weed content (certain weeds are toxic to certain animals) moisture content (too wet = moldy, too dry = dusty) horses in particular respiratory systems susceptible to mold and dust maturity of plant at harvest (flowered, seed heads, stem to leaf content) many people look at color (not as important as people think, but depends on the variety) green orchard grass may not have as many nutrients as brown timothy for example around here, a good hay lot is reseeded every few years, the major weeds are kept out, and in a good season with 3 cuttings no other "field preparation" is needed. the re seeding is done because after a while other grasses and weeds can take over and the "planned" crop will die off eventually Like I said, you do best doing some research ;);) It could get complicated :D:D Disclaimer; I know very little about hay, I'm in no way an expert.dOddOd
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Build yourself a four wheeled trailer that fits the bale. It will need a piece of framework that will fit down each side of the bale just outside where the bale contacts the ground. The axle on one end will need to be easily removable. That will make it have two wheels and essentially two spikes or something like a fork lift. Slide this underneath the bale, then put the other two wheels on. You will then need some type of hydraulic jack system to articulate the frame upwards and lift the bale off the ground. You could then pull a 700# bale with a garden tractor, since it would be riding on four wheels. I hope you understood my design idea.
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Thanks, Dan. Nice view. Disclaimer duly noted. 8D My first real turf course, the instructor, nearly every question he answered started with 2 words: "it depends". I discovered that pretty much everything in horticulture involves the word "tendencies". It's all based on what's desired. I remember in studying organic chemistry, we indulged in an apparatus called a "chemostat" which was designed to mimic the digestive system of ruminants. But in the ag dept at the U of Guelph, they paraded us through an area where there was a cow with a window on the side of the rumen. That was a shock; but it all made sense at that point; esp. when they opened the window and sampled the contents. I'll never forget that day. :O Definitely a huge topic requiring research; but you and Rick provided good points of view. Also, I remember an old guy rancher who talked about his hay. The cows were kinda fussy about hay from one field; but they really liked this other hay that had some foreign plant material in it, from another field. There were 2 of these old guys at the golf course; we used to kid around a lot; but they knew a lot of stuff, and they'd just say it, and look at you funny if you didn't understand. Those guys were a blast, hilarious - but highly experienced and very friendly. I used to share table with them in the lunch room - once you got over the friendly insults, it was all giggles and guffaw. :D Thanx again for the tour.
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quote:
Originally posted by HubbardRA
Build yourself a four wheeled trailer that fits the bale. It will need a piece of framework that will fit down each side of the bale just outside where the bale contacts the ground. The axle on one end will need to be easily removable. That will make it have two wheels and essentially two spikes or something like a fork lift. Slide this underneath the bale, then put the other two wheels on. You will then need some type of hydraulic jack system to articulate the frame upwards and lift the bale off the ground. You could then pull a 700# bale with a garden tractor, since it would be riding on four wheels. I hope you understood my design idea.
That's creative. Sounds almost like turning a 4wheel cart into a shovel-of-sorts. Then loading. Jack it up. Reinstall wheels. and go. Perhaps easier with smaller wheels, to keep the height down low. I thought about plywood, with rough tapered wood runners underneath - like a sled basically. Would require flat land area for transport/traction. This is like the old-car-hood idea. Or any similar metal flat drag. It doesn't have to be pretty; but it needs to be safe enough. Safest place for 700 pounds is on the ground. One of the problems with all the systems here is that they will be used in winter and there could be an inch or a foot of snow and ice in the picture, just to complicate things. (even tho winter is cancelled). I tend to like the chainsaw idea - and I had the idea that perhaps an electric hedge trimmer with a 2-foot blade-cutter might be easier and cleaner - if a hedge trimmer will cut into a bale. A "Hedge Hog" is only like $75, requires an extension cord, and for long life you could keep it indoors warm. Like carving a turkey. I have fancy trimmed a few hedges, and those will cut 1/8" material like nothing, a 1/4" material easily, and thicker if needed; but 1/2" is a grind. But I can see carving a 2-foot slice into a bale - dinner is served. I am looking at a bale as merely a slightly compressed hedge; I don't know how tight they are rolled.
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I like Rods idea best so far. A lowboy trailer of sorts that one can get the bale onto easily. I have 2 acres of clover out front and no way to bale it as the turns around the gardens and trees is too tight for large farm equipment. Ideally the equpment to bale on small scale is available. A Simplicity sickle mower would work along with a BCS small round baler that works on the BCS 2 wheel tractor. It is a garden tractor size baler that makes garden tractor size small round bales. However, the baler costs $10,000yellXX( You could buy a whole farm tractor baling setup for that kind of money..tractor, mower conditioner, rake, baler, bale elevator and hayrack.. Too bad because they work slick..
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