EZ Trail bale baskets

I noticed a couple guys around here have them, thought about getting a couple for next season so I don't have to hire anybody to stack on wagons. Anybody have any? They look slick in the brochures, this is the "100" bale basket that you hook right up to the chute. Good? Bad?

I considered them too and they are good, a few around here. Here is the bad as i see it 1. hard to manuver in small irregular fields 2. You have to "dump" them then stack the hay it can lead to a mess and lots of broken bales. 3. not made for much road use like a trailer. 4. only hold up to 100 bales not much good if you bale a lot. There is a couple other brands forage king being one. They do fit some operations, not mine at $4-6000

They sell used between $500 and 2000, depends who else shows up to bid. I got mine for $1600. Mine is an early 'Quality' brand I think.

Needs the hitch pin directly below the center of the bale chute. Some balers do this, others you need to buy or weld up a hitch adaptor.

1. In slippery crops you can't make tight turns on corners, yea that is a negative.

2. I've had very little trouble with broken bales, I'd think a bale thrower is harder on a bale than these baskets. If you dump all the bales & drive away, yup they spread out to a bigger pile rthan one hopes for. You can open the gate & pull the bales out, not at all messy that way.

3. Goes down a road a heck of a lot better than an old loose wagon. They are really a trailer, with the boogie wheel up front just idling there.

4. Sometimes olny get 90 on, sometimes 120 - depends on the hills. They can be a little topheavy if you have extreme hills.

--->Paul

My neighbour has a couple of the Forage King type but they'd be roughly the same thing.
I've used them a bit last year. I think they have their place... but you need to consider...
None of these systems that trail behind a baler corner very well. You're limited to probably 110 degree turn at best and probably wider or the bale ramp will hit the bale chamber.
You also need to watch the basket closely when it starts to fill up... or it will get pushing a long string of bales into the back of the basket... and this will change the density of the bales. Dramatically. This probably leads to most of the broken bales you will find in the basket. What I found is that if you keep it down to 60-70 bales per basket load you avoid most of those problems even though you can get probably 120 bales in one load if you climp up and throw them back a bit.
Other things... the front wheel is just a caster. Some will trail decent at speed on the road and some can't do more than 10 mph. I used one of each...
Beyond that you're still going to need to hand bomb them into the barn. If you're far from the barn you either need a lot of baskets and drivers or be prepared to take your time.
Personally they do not suit me because I have a lot of long hauls that are impractical to make with a basket and I really don't want to be hand bombing bales anyway.
I went with a Kuhns accumulator this year which works reasonably well but it's not without it's nuances... but once you're set up for it... it does work quite well with no labor involved in handling bales provided you have barns that you can stack in with a loader.

Rod

At $5-2000 I would love to have one just cant find them here for that.

sounds like it wouldnt be too bad an idea as most of my hay ground is bigger square chunks and all the hills are a straight up and down. Most of the fields are 6 to 8 acres and within half a mile from home plus we have a mow conveyor.

I have 3 of them and that is all I use. No way I would switch to anything else. Three bale baskets out do double the the number of kicker wagons just because of how fast you dump the load and keep going. You can turn as sharp as you want with them, you just can't feed the baler going close to a 90 degree turn but I don't think you can feed a kicker rack that easy on that sharp of a turn either. I turn sharp and bale some pretty small fields with them.

Another photo of how I use them.

If you like twisted/crooked bales they are great. My uncle had three of them. I hated to go put hay in at his place. You spent half your time straightening bales so they would stack in the barn. They also are hard on the baler too. I get to replace a lot of spindles with them shoving sideways on the baler on turns. One guy has broken the right spindle three cutting in a row. Every time it is at the bottom of this real steep field that he has to bale up and down. He turns to the left which makes the out side spindle take the turning load. POP goes the weasel. LOL

I will take a good pan style kicker and thrower rack every time over those baskets. I have Gerry's welding racks and they will hold 175 bales easy each. If you really want to load them have someone ride and stack them flat. We do this on the last cutting. We use the hay off of the wagons. Then the wagons will hold 250 bales each.

i have used one for 15 years no problems
twisted bales to loose a bale
i have a hilly hay field never broke a spindle
bale ramp hitting chute hitch to short
i pull it down the road 30 mph front wheel down
i have a ez trail always get a 100 to 110 bales in it
it will pop a string sometimes if i turn to sharp works better if you turn right got to have your hitch right length
they say they are hard on the baler been using a wore out 275 for 15 years

Do you actually want to dump them on the ground at the elevator and have all that chaff mess laying on the ground to get rid of. Wagons it can be pushed off at end of each load to where you can use that feed that is the best part of the hay. Then unless you have enough of a crew to unload at time of dumping every load will get farther and farther away from the elevator and you might end up carring them a hundred feet to the base of the elevator. What to do if you have several loads dumped and the rain starts, you cannot back them in the barn till rain is over equals wet bales. Wider than one lane of road here and with side ditches if you have to meet someone the bottom is draging on the edge of the road. Just questions to think about. Have a neighbor that has them but is in hay buisness and unloads in field to load directly to semi to haul away and with that setup he has the crew to handle but I have seen many a bale he has left in the field to get soaked and he never removes them, you are left with a big mess to get rid of so you can work the field. I could own 5 good kick bale wagons for the price of 1 bale basket and have the ability to have it all in dry till unloading time perhaps weeks later.

I agree with Paul and Hayray. I have two of the
ProQuality brand baskets, and like them. Never seen
one for less than $1000, though. Last two I saw at
auction brought $1600 and $1650.

I bought two ProQuality baskets and started using them this year behind my MF124 baler. They were running $1500 used. I think new EZ Trails are over $3000. Sure was nice not to be stacking on the wagon when it was 98 degrees and humid. I get about 95 bales in mine, and I stop once and move some of the bales toward the back of the basket when they start bunching up at the top. Next time it happens, I change baskets, as I need to keep the load under 12' to back into my shed to unload. I've found it best to stop moving forward before making a sharp corner, to clear the baler, then make the turn. Less likely to be pushing hay into the chute while turning. Biggest problem is if it happens to be the end of a bale starting into the chute while turning.

I was getting a few broken bales per load, but that's because of the baler, need to sharpen or adjust twine knives because some knots weren't holding. After I got used to running the baskets, I could see if I had a broken knot as the bales go up the track, and then stop and retie while they're still compressed. Like Paul said, they do spread out a lot when you unload, but if you open the gate and use a few bales to prop up the gate, you can pull them out pretty easy to keep the pile smaller. A few bales get curled up like a caterpillar depending how they are in the basket, but usually can be flattened out.

I have baled with a thrower many many times, and for how many bales I have seen explode when they smash into the wagon or how many go over the back or through the back (baling up and down hills with wooden cages) we were looking for a less violent way to get it done, and since we have a pretty good baler with a wagon chute on the back I thought it might be a worth while venture. Where our hay mow door is is in a corner so we could back it in the corner and dump, use the barn on 2 sides to contain the hay. As for the chaff and loose stuff that falls out dad picks that up with his Cadet lawn vac/wood chipper and usually gives it to the chickens for scratch feed over the winter time.

The big kicker racks that EZ-Trail and H&S make are exactly the same price as a new bale basket, about $3700.00. You can back them in a barn just like a regular wagon, 11' wide and same height as the kicker racks. I never dump in the field like your neighbor, we go right to the barn with them rigth were the hay crew is. I have one farm that I can back all 3 in if I need to.

Never had one bit of a baler problem with the after using them since 1994. If bales are bending that much then the bales must be loose or some other issue. Sure have seen a tangled mess in kicker wagons, there should be no difference in bale retention. Here is a Youtube link of me baling using the baskets last year, these were real nice heavy 3rd cut bales.
Untitled URL Link

> use the barn on 2 sides to contain the hay.

Sounds good to me, other than that statement.

When you open the back gate, the hay does not really come tumbling out into a pile. It slides down a couple feet, then you either pick the bales out nice and neat from either side where the gate is opened with very little real mess; or you drive away & the bales tumble out in a bit of a longer path - slowly and in a low long pile, not a heaping stack.

--->Paul

Bought 2 of them this year, and no regrets. They work really well, and have really sped up our haying operation. Only problems I ran into was a sharp edge on the ramp that sliced twine (grinder and file solved that), and the steel disk holding the caster in place broke. After finishing for the year, one of my daughters commented that we must still have a lot of hay to put because she wasn"t as tired as other years. No bale shape issues as long as you bale tight enough and have your baler set properly.

Eh. kick 'em in and end up with about 75% saleable bales?

Is it a center line baler? You can't turn left with any conventional baler i've run........

I've used a Forage King for several years now and the only problem I have is the bales sometimes pop out of the chute when turning. I manage to get it a lot closer to the baler this year and only had it happen twice in about 1600 bales. I use a New Holland 67 to bale with and it doesn't seem to mind the hay basket either. I just wish I had another one but my wife (who stacks n the barn) likes the break she gets in between loads. Any broken ones get lined up in front of the elevator and I re-bale them when I come in with the next load.