Deweze Hay Monster

About 3 weeks out from putting her to work. For those who remember working on one.......I'll find you a spot on the back or in the barn on top of the pile........

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=onIsfsSXRXc

It is a Doosey. gobble

I can?t wait to see it working

So does it have a system of stuff in the back to make a stack? Looks more like you just have a person to manually stack. Having the conveyor chain running full length would sure make off loading a lot easier. I'd never seen one before.

(quoted from post at 08:28:29 05/06/20) So does it have a system of stuff in the back to make a stack? Looks more like you just have a person to manually stack. Having the conveyor chain running full length would sure make off loading a lot easier. I'd never seen one before.

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Standard crew is driver and 2 stackers. Machine picks up the bales and delivers them to back of stack riding on a pair of roller chains. Stackers pick bales out of tray, turn then 90 degrees and set them down. For short hauls, standard stack pattern is 3w x 3h +2 on top to tie them together. Full load is 150 bales. For longer hauls, go 3w x 4h + 2 and that is 200 bales. You can load as fast as 2 guys can keep up and terrain allows you to run.

At the barn, front chute elevates to as high as 12 feet......driver moves to to stack on truck, stackers move to the barn or pile to hand stack in the barn. You can unload as fast as the 2 or 3 stackers in the barn can keep up.

Good crews in fighting trim and good hay can do 2,000 bales per day. Some did 50,000 bales per summer per rig.

There were three commercial made versions of these that I've heard of. This one was by DewEze and made in Harper, KS. DewEze seems to have been made from Dodge D600 drive train components...engine, tranny, axles. Chassis was factory made from channel iron.

The other two were Kent and United Technologies. I've seen a Kent.....it had a wooden bed and has an inline 6 cylinder.....and I think is from Ford components.

The one I remember from back in the 70's.....first one I ever saw....was home shop made by a kid from my high school. His was a converted farm truck, but a lot were also made from school bus chassis. Some of those were better than others. Home built versions probably outnumbered factory made 10:1.

Didn't survive long as they came out only a few years before Vermeer came out with their first big round baler, which made small squares mostly obsolete....almost overnight.

Here?s how I do it and it saves a lot work I?ll tell you that

I?ve never seen one of those. Around everybody just used NH
or Kirshner bale wagons to eliminate hand stacking
completely. Before we got our first bale wagon, grandpa
would just drive down the row scooping up bales with the
Farmall M and Farmhand with a long tooth hay basket similar
to how these worked. https://rockymountainbalesweep.com/

He would dump the load on truck then we would stack them.
Bale basket

I helped build 6 shop built units.We also made a 10 ft extention for unloading.We called them hay monsters.

Jim

(quoted from post at 09:56:03 05/06/20) I helped build 6 shop built units.We also made a 10 ft extention for unloading.We called them hay monsters.

Jim

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I have a 10' extension for this one too, but it's not working. Bearings are froze up and place on front chute where it mounts up is slightly sprung and is going to need some "adjustment". Extension allows crew to shoot bales up into a pretty high barn loft window....or stack more than 8 high in the barn.

What did you build yours from? Truck chassis, school bus or ???? Talked to one guy who made theirs from a school bus and he said that one didn't have enough springs on back and if they really loaded it up, it would bottom out. Others didn't do the radiator right and they would run hot.

Grandpaw will have to have one of those for his hay empire.

Never seen one of those. Very clever. I dont do square bales but still found this very interesting. Thanks for posting!

(quoted from post at 06:16:16 05/07/20) Never seen one of those. Very clever. I dont do square bales but still found this very interesting. Thanks for posting!

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I've always thought hay hauling was the same all over, but have come to realize how regional it was. Midwest and probably NE dairy farms used kickers and hay wagons.......some just pulled wagons. Then there are the NH stackliners.

I started haying at around age 8.....when they put me on a hay rake. By age 11 or 12, I was doing the mowing too. At around age 16, dad bought his own square baler and I started doing all three. We would do around 5,000 to 7,000 bales a year....that was during the 60's, early 70's.

The worst way ever devised was to shotgun the bales and walk the fields, picking and stacking as you went. Where I live now, that is still the way it is done.....mainly because it is the low tech method. Requires nothing but something flat and moveable to stack on. Also the highest labor requirement, which makes it the least desirable at any scale.

We used a sled....a crude form of the accumulators used now....but that only removed the need to walk and keep up. Bales still had to be plucked off the ground, stacked on the truck, hauled to the barn, then bucked up and stacked. Using a bale loader cut out half that effort, but didn't help at the barn.

When the first "monster" showed up.....it was night and day different. A crew of 3 could easily lap the next best alternative there was.

i Use 5 guys when I pick up off the ground and it?s still slower
than the bale elevator I use now 3 loading and two stacking I
use to do it alone and that?s a lot of Work load ten or 12 then
crawl up and stack them then do it again

We used mostly Ford truck chassis Dewey is a good friend it has been about a year since I have talked with
him. A very interesting man.

Jim

A friend of mine bought a new Kent machine in 1975. We hauled 60,000 bales that summer. I got paid 3 cents a bale. It was better money than working
by the hour. Another well established hay hauler would do 100,000 per year, with a Deweze. He would not consider a job if there was less than a
thousand bales on the ground.

Several yrs back a man hauled small sq bales for me with a machine that resembled the one in photo but I think it had a name on it that started with a "K". I think the name was Kent but I can't remember for sure.

To my knowledge there were no bale kickers utilized in my area.

(quoted from post at 18:25:58 05/07/20) A friend of mine bought a new Kent machine in 1975. We hauled 60,000 bales that summer. I got paid 3 cents a bale. It was better money than working
by the hour. Another well established hay hauler would do 100,000 per year, with a Deweze. He would not consider a job if there was less than a
thousand bales on the ground.

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Part of the reason for me hunting one of these down was for the nostalgia of it, but also the economics.

I am putting up small square bales for the horse market. Have about 10 customers......largest only takes 150 to 200 bales. Smallest to date was a guy who only wanted 10 bales to feed some goats. But they all want good quality, small squares and will pay from $5 per bale on the low end to as much as $10 for a 50# bale of good timothy. Regardless of what it is, you have to get it off the ground and in the barn on a timely basis......as in within hours. Screw that up and you got nothing but moldy garden mulch. So critical it gets picked up ASAP.

Finding labor at any scale.....when picking off the ground.....is a problem. Here and everywhere else. Some pay by the hour.....I've heard $12 to $15. I pay by the bale.......labor gets 60 cents a bale. If that is 4 guys......they get 15 cents a bale, but if they can only do 75 to 100 bales an hour, they only get $12 to $15 per hour. They can get that elsewhere doing a fraction of the work, so not interested.

But with this machine.......two kids riding on the back....with me driving......can do 150 bales an hour. For the two kids.....that translates to $45 per hour......or even $30 if they split it with me. At $45 per hour......they will show up anytime I call and be happy to do so.

Could I do better with a NH stackliner? I could get it off the ground......but my storage barn isn't tall enough to tip it up to unload. I can get better prices if I deliver and stack in customer's barns. Video shows one such situation. Small elevated loft over box stalls in a small stable. I can't put them in that loft with a stackliner.

Economics also goes much deeper.....and it all factors into which method of hauling works best for me.

Bottom line is I was thrilled to find me a working hay monster!