They just had this dicsussion on the newagtalk site, boy oh boy those inline trailers are the best and anyone who doesn't use one is a fool is what I learned there......
All in good fun.
I haul round bales across my farm, some are a distance down a lot of field road. Light years I end up carting one at a time on the back of the tractors with the bale forks. I don't have a loader or bobcat that will lift a 5x6 bale it's all 3pt action.
If I get a lot of hay like this year, I use the one bale spear I have on three point to load thrm on the Donahue trailer, 8 bales maybe. But I have to chase back and forth with the tractor with the spear to load and unload, so get the wife involved to drive it, while I pull the load with another tractor.
I could: buy a second 3pt spreat and go to the work of tying up 2 tractors with spears.
Buy a special spreat and trailer combo that would let me hook and drop the trailer easy, use one tractor for loading, hauling, and unloading.
Buy a real bobcat or loader tractor that could lift a big bale.
Buy a self dumping trailer like talked about.
Retire from cattle and hay and rent out my grass to others.
Some of those options cost a lot, or take a fair amount of time, or still leave me stranded needing to get two machines to the far side of the firm.
So, I continue on as I do.
If I had a little more hay, or if I had to go down the public roads a lot, those inline self dump trailers would appeal to me for sure! In my area they don't fuss much, but it can be illegal to haul 2 bales wide on a trailer as others mention, and so forth.
Paul