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Implement Alley Discussion Forum

Hay bale management

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WA Gerry

12-18-2006 17:36:29




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I am a small time hay producer (small square bales) considering expanding my haying operation. I did 3,000 bales this year, and looks like this year will be 6,000 bales. To date, I have used manual labor to pick up the bales from the field. I can see that with the increase of the number of bales, it would make sence to take advantage of some additional equipment to "get the hay out of the field". There are several options to consider including bale loaders, accumulators with bale fork loaders, bale wagons, and the good old "pick it up by hand". In my search for a increased capable hay baler I ran across the concept of "hay kicker" which throws bales of hay into a bale wagon. This approach is almost not heard of in western washington state. I understand it is used in many different areas of the country. I have talked with a New Holland Sales Rep, though in the field for many years, is not fully aware of this technique of "moving bales from the baler to the barn". One issue that seems to come up each time I bring up this issue, is that "it would seem" tossing these bales from a baler would result in damaged bales. My request is for someone to give me the "no spin zone" answer to "bale kickers" and how effective of an approach to "getting bales of hay" out of the field is.

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hayguy16407

01-12-2007 09:26:03




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 Re: Hay bale management in reply to WA Gerry, 12-18-2006 17:36:29  
for your 6,000 bales a kicker bailer and some kicker wagons would be my choice your not in a big enuf size to profit from a bail loader of any sort and your concern "it would seem" tossing these bales from a baler would result in damaged bales
you would break manny more bails with bail loaders or handelers around 1 in 400 of my bails break with a kicker bailer one guy I sell hay to uses a bail loader and he breaks way more bails than I do I use a 273 New Holland with a kicker and i have a 69 New Holland with a pan that I a'm puting a kicker on this winter this 69 is my backup bailer you must have a bailer of some sort you can find kickers you can bolt on for around $100-$300 for New Holland balers and I built all my hay wagons from just a running gear some were old silage or grain wagons I just rooled off the old box and went to work a good hay rack will be bolted not nailed and made of ruff cut lumber often a hard wood or a flexable lumber cousting for lumber and hardware around $300-$600 in some areas depending on resorses feel free to e-mail me if you have questions of would like to see pics of any of these things

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hayray

12-20-2006 17:07:05




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 Re: Hay bale management in reply to WA Gerry, 12-18-2006 17:36:29  
You may want to look into a bale basket. Self loading and has the advantage of self unloading with the pull of a lever and you don't need to buy a kicker and worry about bale size. You also can hook them up to a pick-up truck and pull them out of the field to the hay elevator. This eliminates the labor required to unload a kicker wagon, as they really get knotted and tangled up in there. I run 3 bale baskets and figure they are worth about 5 to 6 kicker wagons.

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bb940p

12-20-2006 16:08:27




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 Re: Hay bale management in reply to WA Gerry, 12-18-2006 17:36:29  
Making hay is my weakness, so I'll have to weigh in here. I have owned two NH tractor pull auto bale wagons, 1033 and 1034. We still make small squares with a NH 575 with a belt thrower and seven wagons.The auto bale wagons were great for storing the hay in the shed to be sold later. They were reliable, fast and fairly trouble free.The thrower wagons work best for us to sell to the custumer in season.The wagons are the transport pod. We store them loaded until it is time to deliver, then simply hook up the pickup and go.A full wagon travels at 25 to 35 mph tops, empty ones at the limit.We no longer store the small squares only the big squares. Bale size dictated our decision to sell the auto wagons. Our current customers want 40 lb bales not the 60 to 70 pounders that auto wagons need to function properly. When deciding on a system remember the auto bale wagon not only picks up the bales but also makes the stack, so you don't have to. They will work on hills but not as good as on level ground.We have owned 3 JD balers with pan type ejectors. The last 3 balers that I bought new, have had belt throwers, because they are just plain better, and I used to think the JD ejector was sent from heaven. Hope this helps.

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MulesandHeelers

12-20-2006 12:01:09




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 Re: Hay bale management in reply to WA Gerry, 12-18-2006 17:36:29  
Another way not talked about yet, is what we called a stooker. This or mine was made by Agratec, it is attached behind the baler and makes a stack of six bales in a triangle, leaving only three bale edges touching the ground. Kind of a pour man's bale wagon.
Costs and finding/keeping a few good lads, finaly
went to a good used 1048S Bale Wagon and paid itself back within three cutting.

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RickL

12-19-2006 23:03:33




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 Re: Hay bale management in reply to WA Gerry, 12-18-2006 17:36:29  
balers with kickers do work. I grew up behind the 14t units also with the thrower. We never made half bales with it thou they were maybe 4 5 inches shorter at the time. they worked okay but the wagons unload partwas okay as long as you unload same day. ThenI grew up went on own and went to baler without thrower and used bale basket wagons instead. BEST THING I DID. No comparison and the wagons were way easier to unload they slide right to you pretty well. WOrd of advice here hou is if you are unloading into elevator, pull along the end of it and just trip the gate,DO NOT PULL FORWARD,this way they will slide to you and you will not string the pile of bales out about 25ft,they are still in the wagon as you pick them up they will keep sliding to you. ran those units (3) for well over 10-12 years. I now use a accumulator setup. If I handle 20 bales a season by hand its usually when the come and want it in ther mini van otherwise you will never touch them. The New Holland bale wagons are another option but you do need to learn how to unload them an the stacks will fall over sometimes. For alot of versatillity you have two options in my experience. Bales basket wagons/or accumulator system last would be the New Holland unit if you have large sheds. Me the accunulator is it hands down.

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mjbown

12-19-2006 17:28:20




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 Re: Hay bale management in reply to WA Gerry, 12-18-2006 17:36:29  
The early JD ejectors on the 14T & 14ws were mechanical and needed small/light bales. You don't want one of those. The #30 ejector was hydraulic and was on the 24's and up to the the 347's when they came out with the#40. The 30 &40 will handle full size and weight bales. New Holland also offered one of these hydraulic ejectors on some of their balers made under license or purchased from Deere. If you go the ejector route your want one of these, they are hands down the best throwers out there. This was the predominate way of doing hay here in the north east twenty- five years ago. Now most hay is chopped, round baled or large square baled on the dairy farms. Only hay operators who cater to the horse trade make small square bales and most use Stackhands to pickup and stack in barns made for these machines. Good used balers with ejectors are plentiful and cheap here as they have fallen out of favor because of the labor needed to unload the basket wagons. Kids don't like to do that kind of work anymore.

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tim[in]

12-19-2006 10:28:35




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 Re: Hay bale management in reply to WA Gerry, 12-18-2006 17:36:29  
i have always wondered about the leaf loss in thrower type balers.personally as someone with a bad back, i am not worried about longer bale size and even thinking of going to lighter weight ones because of that. i know guys who used to pack all the could into old wire tied bales butam one of the people paying for that foolishness now.those few cents are not worth the $ i am going to spent trying to save my back now.

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Jonfarmer

12-19-2006 13:27:41




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 Re: Hay bale management in reply to tim[in], 12-19-2006 10:28:35  
The leaf loss isn't too bad, as the bales are packed tight enough to only lose alittle bit off the exposed edges. I hear you on heavy bales, and thats why I make full size 14"x18" bales, but I keep the tensioners barely threaded. I sell my hay to horse owners, and they do not want big heavy bales, they prefer about 35-50lbs, so thats what I make. I make it just so the strings are not too loose, but not too tight, even this is important to horse owners since they don't want bales that are very hard to get their fingers under the strings, and they don't want heavy bales that causes them to strain or that the twine cuts into their fingers. This is fine because I can make more money making lighter bales and I don't like moving heavy bales anymore than they do.

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WA Gerry

12-23-2006 05:25:40




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 Re: Hay bale management in reply to Jonfarmer, 12-19-2006 13:27:41  
Thank you for participating in the hay bale management thread. In particular, I found your comments concerning 14x18 bales for horse hay customers most interesting. I recently passed up a reasonably priced NH 14x18 baler thinking I could not make hay bales with that equipment for horse customers. I guess I was not fully informed. Thank you again for participating and sharing your experience. I have learned a tremendous amount from this one thread. Great group of folks in this forum.

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tim[in]

12-20-2006 09:47:06




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 Re: Hay bale management in reply to Jonfarmer, 12-19-2006 13:27:41  
thanks jon.



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Easy1

12-19-2006 06:19:31




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 Re: Hay bale management in reply to WA Gerry, 12-18-2006 17:36:29  
I used to buy hay from a guy that used those New Holland bale wagons. He baled until he had the wagon full, changed wagons, kept baling. I think he had 3 wagons. He would get them full, stop baling, take the wagons to the barn, and the wagons would stack it - had a real high ceiling barn. The stacks must have been 20 ft tall. He was into his 80's when he finally quit.



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burnetma

12-18-2006 22:33:42




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 Re: Hay bale management in reply to WA Gerry, 12-18-2006 17:36:29  
Gerry,

I found you over here too.

One of the first posters made a good point. If you use a kicker and you have enough wagons you can have your customers take the wagons directly to their place and they can unload, saving you labor and daylight.

The downsides are that you need to purchase or make a few wagons with road worthy tires and you need to trust your customers. It is not likely that they will steal the wagons, rather they may damage the wagons. If you have never pulled a hay wagon, they can sway back and forth at relatively low speeds. Some running gears are better than other. If the driver does not watch it he can easily loose control of the wagon or strike another car or worse a pedestrian/bike rider. So these are things to consider. Good advice is to tell the drivers to keep their vehicle in low gear and never exceed 20 mph and that should keep them out of trouble.

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jwal10

12-18-2006 21:10:04




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 Re: Hay bale management in reply to WA Gerry, 12-18-2006 17:36:29  
Hi, Here in western Oregon we use an accumulator behind the baler, it has small tires and trails the baler.It places bales in a bunch and is built to use with a loader on a tractor with a grapple.One person can do it all by himself to load on a truck or trailer. Works best to have 2 grapples, so you can unload at another location either in a hay shed or stack. But you can always use the old elevator.We try to stack in field and sell there and load on someone elses truck.Works good for grass straw for export.They also make bale movers built on trucks with a grapple, much faster on the road from one stack to another.Bale wagons work good but more money.

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Jonfarmer

12-18-2006 19:45:00




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 Re: Hay bale management in reply to WA Gerry, 12-18-2006 17:36:29  
Kickers work very good, just wagons are expensive and you still got to unload them. Your at quite a disadvantage with not being able to get used wagons in your area, but even around here, hay wagons pretty much never get any cheaper than $800 a piece, and thats for wooden rack ones thats not in the best of shape, and they go up from there, the all steel wagons are the most sought after since they don't need the constant maintenance that the wooden ones do, but they are 2-3 times the cost. I have a JD 14T baler, and the guy who commented about the 14T making smaller bales is false, it makes the same standard size bales the brand new ones do, but the big thing is the 14T was made back in the day when farms were much smaller and the tractors were not as powerful, so it is much lower capacity and therefor much slower going than a new baler. The reason I keep a 14T is because I only make a few hundred bales a year, so I can make do and can't justify upgrading. However, I have worked for area farmers who have nice New Holland balers with kickers, slap a powerful tractor on them and even with 3 people unloading the wagons, we can barely keep up with it. Doing a bunch of square bales by yourself is a heck of a job and there doesn't seem to be an easy way around hard work, unless you get hold of one of them automatic bale wagons, but the price of those is outlandish, so I haven't seen any other than the New Holland website, although, they also have a towed version of it to go behind a tractor, but I'll bet that even those would be way too expensive for your operation, but with these automatic bale wagons, you bale right on the ground, same as you have been, then this wagon has the ability to pick the bales up off the ground as you drive along and stacks them on the back of itself, then you can drive to where you want them and dump them in a very neat stack, pretty darn neat, but lots of $$$$ and thats why nobody has one around here.

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old

12-18-2006 20:58:19




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 Re: Hay bale management in reply to Jonfarmer, 12-18-2006 19:45:00  
Well your wrong on that one. A JD-14T with a kicker only makes half bales, not only does this come from some that has used one but its also in the manual. With a kicker if you try to make a full size bale it will fold it in half and then you have no bale at all. Now with out the kicker yes it makes a nice full bale. I have owned JD 14Ts since around 1980 and the one with the kicker was nice other then haveing to make half bales made them hard to stack.

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Jonfarmer

12-18-2006 22:43:06




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 Re: Hay bale management in reply to old, 12-18-2006 20:58:19  
Mine doesn't have a kicker, so I have always made full size bales with it. You must have a basket type kicker?. I have also seen people fit a newer style kicker with the belts on them, but this requires using a small gas engine to drive it, my uncle has done this with his 24T.



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low budget

12-19-2006 02:50:23




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 Re: Hay bale management in reply to Jonfarmer, 12-18-2006 22:43:06  
Old's baler would have the #1 elector, it has a curved chute with "arms" on the side to throw the bale. It was the first kicker made by anyone and could only handle half size bales. Later JD balers (starting with the 24T) have a pan type kicker and will handle full size bales.



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old

12-19-2006 07:22:38




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 Re: Hay bale management in reply to low budget, 12-19-2006 02:50:23  
Yep half size bales and if you had any body on the wagon when you where baleing they had to watch for the bales because it would noc a person down and at time it would throw 2 bales at once and that was a double wammy



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JMS/MN

12-19-2006 06:37:13




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 Re: Hay bale management in reply to low budget, 12-19-2006 02:50:23  
That later model JD mechanical kicker also fit the 14T and worked well with the full-size bales. I also remember their first one that threw the small bales- didn't remember the model number, but that came out in the 50s. The hydraulic unit that came later was a big improvement. They also let you bale on the ground, which the belt throwers can not be set for.



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JK-NY

12-18-2006 18:54:05




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 Re: Hay bale management in reply to WA Gerry, 12-18-2006 17:36:29  
I just thought of another option for a square baler with no kicker - a "bale basket" , they are a wagon with a caster wheel in front that tow behind the baler, they have a chute that bales go up and drop into the wagon , pushed up by the plunger of the baler pushing bales out of the chamber. To unload , The rear of the rack opens and hte bales come out .I have never used one but I guess they work OK. This would be another "1 man" baling operation , but like unloading kicker wagons , the unloading and filling the barn is the hard part. E-Z Trail is one manufactuer of bale baskets I know of.

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Fordfarmer

12-19-2006 07:20:57




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 Re: Hay bale management in reply to JK-NY, 12-18-2006 18:54:05  
I run 2 haybaskets. Work very nicely. About the same price as a good kicker wagon, and you don't need to buy the kicker. Actually easier to unload than kicker wagons (yes, I've done both). You're on the ground, and the pile is spread out somewhat. Best day we've had with 1 baler, 2 baskets, 1 person setting bales on the eleveator, 1 person stacking in the mow, and 1 person hauling loads and helping some at the elevator is 1400 bales.

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JK-NY

12-18-2006 18:43:05




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 Re: Hay bale management in reply to WA Gerry, 12-18-2006 17:36:29  
I use a baler with a kicker. The main advantagre is one man can bale and load wagons in one trip over the field. There is little/no damage to the bales. This is the most common way to handle square bales in most of the NE USA.I dont have any help so this works best for me . Other options are New Holland self loading bale wagons, grapple forks and accumulator behind the baler or having a helper ride the flat wagon behind the baler and stack bales or bale onto the ground and pick them up later.

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old

12-18-2006 18:21:58




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 Re: Hay bale management in reply to WA Gerry, 12-18-2006 17:36:29  
I had a JD-14T with a kicker on it a number of years ago. Nice because you could bale and haul all at the same time and only use one person. But on the 14T the bales where half size so your 3000 this year or 6000 next year would end up being double that number and be half as long. As long as the knotter was working right I never lost a bale and they where only about 35 lbs because they where half size.

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tom zennie

12-18-2006 18:15:58




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 Re: Hay bale management in reply to WA Gerry, 12-18-2006 17:36:29  
Bale kickers or throwers are used extensively all thoughout Michigan and Wisconsin on the small dairy farms. They really don't damage the hay bales. However, in our experience of unloading these wagons for our own hay many times, we find that the bales on the bottom are somewhat bent or crushed but not really bad enough that they won't stack well. Most bale wageons hold about 140-200 bales. Most guys limit the size of the bales since they will get damaged if the bales are too large: probably no greater than 36-40 in. They really are effective and most small farmers around here couldn't hay without them. The only negative is that the wagons can be a pain to unload as the bales get pretty tightly packed together.

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Ray(MO)

12-18-2006 18:08:41




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 Re: Hay bale management in reply to WA Gerry, 12-18-2006 17:36:29  
I use a pop up bale loader. I hook it to the front corner of the wagon or trailer and one person drives the tractor and one stacking bales. Saves on walking.



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e

12-18-2006 18:00:24




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 Re: Hay bale management in reply to WA Gerry, 12-18-2006 17:36:29  
If you look at 90% of the balers in wisconsin, they will all have kickers/throwers. I've used that type of baler for 8 years and the only time I will have "damaged" bales is when I don't pack them tight enough and they sit on the wagon too long.

We have 6 wagons which means I can put up about 1000 bales at a crack. My customers come and pick up the wagons so in a good year, I will maybe put 1000 bales in the barn. I typically put up about 5000 bales a year.

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