Hay carrier/trolley

Riverslim · Mar 18, 2012

Pulled the twisted rails and the carrier from the collapse of my dad's old barn some 20 years ago. Just got the old phart idea of putting it up in the overhead of my shed (high enough to prevent banging my head. Anyone have a photo of entire set up? Was there some forks/hooks to grap hold of loose hay?

Zachary Hoyt · Mar 18, 2012

Is this the part that you are thinking of? I got it at an auction a year and a half ago.
Zach

George Rausch · Mar 18, 2012

Oh yes, four huge hooks grouped together, and shaped like spider legs. You lowered them down from the loft peak, on their own pulley, spread them out on top of the hay, on top of the wagon, and stomped them down into the hay. If you got hooked into the floor-boards of the wagon, you also lifted up the wagon.....
take up the slack, lift up a load, and as the load hit the peak, you HIT IT, and the load clicked up into place, into that carrier you have, and it slid back inside the loft. Then you gently pulled the load back inside the loft to the correct spot, made sure the kids were not under the load (as I found out, when I was 6 years old) and trip the trip rope, and the load dropped.
A hot miserable dirty dusty way to do it. Never forget the first time Pop had square bales made up.

Riverslim · Mar 18, 2012

I don't know. I've never seen one.

ohiojim · Mar 18, 2012

that's one kind,it's called a harpoon,...there's another i've seen that has 4 claws that you push into the hay..i think the harpoon is more common

Murray2 · Mar 18, 2012

Yes you are correct that was the earlier type used, the first only had one lever going into the hay with a small piece on a hinge that moved to the left or right to hold the hay in place while being lifted. The second or more modern was the type previously described with the 4 pieces that went in the hay that looked like a spider's legs. Then everyone was happy when the small square bales were introduced. Cheers, Murray

Leroy · Mar 18, 2012

There are both single leg and double leg harpons and then the 4 prong like they say but the 4 prong are rare then the more common one with 6 prongs and those are rigid in the prongs are fastened together for sideways movement and then there are the ones fastened together with chains and those are the dangerous ones to handle. I have at least one and up to 3 of some of them in my collection.

GeneMO · Mar 18, 2012

My dad tried using the 4 prong type to hoist wire tied, square bales up in the barn. It was not very successful.

Gene

TomH in PA · Mar 18, 2012

Here's a single prong harpoon. All that's left of the arrangement in my barn is a section or the trolley rail along the ridge.

After the horses pull the hay wagon into the barn you lower the harpoon into the load of hay:

Then lift the lever up to open the hook and grab a load:

Then horses raise the load with the pulley and sweaty hands muscle it into the hay loft along the rail, pull on a rope to drop the load:

Anonymous-0 · Mar 18, 2012

If you're thinking of the same spider leg type that I am, they were used to pick up four bales at a time and take them to the mow. They were indeed the best type ever designed.

Areo

farmerjohn · Mar 18, 2012

There were dozens of types sold way back when. Here is a catalogue of just one company.
http://repository.lib.ncsu.edu/collections/bitstream/1840.6/595/5/0005_Loudenhaytools.pdf

heavyhaulertoo · Mar 18, 2012

Ours was big , it would take 8 bales all the time. If you felt lucky you can take 12 bales, you had to have good tight bales.

paul · Mar 18, 2012

Just thumbed through my Farm Collector and saw a pic of a corkscrew type of loose hay spear, hadn't seen that before. The 2 prong one in someone's pic is what was used here, thyere were many styles.

Once smallsquare bales came along, they made a carrier that had 8 hooks on it, could set it on top of 8 (or 10 if you packed them with 2 crosswise in the middle) bales and lift up the square bales. Worked real well, I helped with the ropes and setting and so forth growing up, many thousands of bales ran through our hay trolley.

--->Paul

Weldon K · Mar 18, 2012

Here is a link to a site with a lot of pictures.
There is one in our barn that has a six or eight pronged grapple that spread open on top of the load of loose hay on the wagon. As rope was tightened grapple fork closed in on the pile of hay. As load got to the trolley on the track in peak of roof , it contacted trolley, mechanism connected and then was pulled into barn. trip rope was pulled when ready to dump hay. Pull trolley back to front of barn, mechanism unlatched and grapple descended to load of hay. Repeat process.
Hay trolley

showcrop · Mar 18, 2012

I don't know how many times my mother told me how she disliked leading the horse that pulled the hay fork. It wasn't a job that a horse could do on it's own like many other jobs, because of the timing. So she or her sister had to back the horse up then lead it ahead. She told me that one horse wasn't too bad but another one seemed to not care where its feet were. Getting stepped on could make the horse handlers job uncomfortable and made it necessary for her to wear big clumsy boots to protect her feet. I have an old fork hanging in my barn just for looks. A friend found it at a yard sale and bought it for me.

Weldon K · Mar 18, 2012

Here is a picture of the trolley and grapple in our barn.

Leroy · Mar 19, 2012

The 6 prong grapple would handle 5 bale and the horse a lot of time would be unhooked at end of pull and walked back and rehooked, only took 2 seconds to hook or unhook and a horse does not like to walk backward, they will for a few feet but that is it. A year ago last summer a 6 prong grapplw loaded fully with heavy bales as soon as it hit the mow the whole track and everything came crashing down just missing the crew that was in the mow, 2 days later it was back up and in use.

Herald IA · Mar 19, 2012

The type you say looked like spider legs, we called a gapple fork. Still have two. Worked good in loose hay and on small bales. Would take 8 0r 10 small bales depending how they were stacked.

Hay carrier/trolley

Riverslim

Member

Zachary Hoyt

Well-known Member

George Rausch

Member

Riverslim

Member

ohiojim

Well-known Member

Murray2

Member

Leroy

Well-known Member

GeneMO

Well-known Member

TomH in PA

Well-known Member

Anonymous-0

Well-known Member

farmerjohn

Well-known Member

heavyhaulertoo

Member

paul

Well-known Member

Weldon K

Member

showcrop

Well-known Member

Weldon K

Member

Leroy

Well-known Member

Herald IA

New User

Similar threads