I’ve been searching and I can’t find anywhere within 1000 miles that sells a bale buggy. Would be awesome though!
Maybe not “a ton”.
Two of my quarter horses will eat 1 round bale every 2 weeks in the winter. So by that math, only 12 horses would eat through 3 round bales in a week. So I guess it depends what you mean by “a ton” of horses.
One of my friends taught her Fjord to do just that! Hooked up a harness to the round bale and he pulls it where it needs to go. Through the North Dakota snow and all.
But yes, OTTBs and Shetlands wouldn’t work as well to pull one, LOL.
Sorry you are stuck in a bad situation. Yes, I would reach to out to neighbors if you can, that would be within driving distance to bring a tractor over. Or someone that could haul a Bobcat.
Otherwise, the tarp suggestion is probably your best bet to pull it into the needed location with your pickup.
Or, build a ramp and use your other vehicle to pull it onto the back of your pickup and drive to the needed location.
Either way, it’s a pain and a hassle, but you gotta do what you gotta do.
Well, this sounds good in theory. But it does take a fair bit of time and expertise to train a horse to the “carry the load” in this case pull. You can’t just pull the biggest one out of the field. Hitch a rope to it and say “mush”. Plus proper harness tack is not cheap.
No snark intended
You could ask your local welding shops how much they would charge to make one of those:
You pull them behind your vehicle, back to the bale, spear it, lift it with the winch there, pull it where you want it and let it down, pull away from it.
Many here use those, even drive short distances down county highways pulling those.
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Our neighbor just had the local welder make one.
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Yeah, and even if you have a harness, it might not be suitable for draft type work . That said, I want to expand Xander’s repertoire (and my equipment) to include draft work at some point…
I’ve seen someone use a discarded car hood as a bale sleigh. They had a chain attached to the two front corners to pull it with a vehicle. Roll the bale onto the metal hood, throw chain over vehicles tow hitch and drive the bale to the designated area. It worked quite well though it did require 2-3 people to roll the bale onto the sleigh.
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[QUOTE=gumtree;n10275672]
Well, this sounds good in theory. But it does take a fair bit of time and expertise to train a horse to the “carry the load” in this case pull. You can’t just pull the biggest one out of the field. Hitch a rope to it and say “mush”. Plus proper harness tack is not cheap./QUOTE]
Actually, moving a round bale might be much easier because the brakes are built in so no need for a breeching and shafts/pole,. The horse could be led, so no need for lines, or even for teaching him to drive from behind. So all one would need would be a collar, hames, tugs, and some kind of an evener. And the evener could be part of the set up to attach to the bale.
A used collar and tugs wouldn’t be expensive compared to a full harness, or a vehicle, or a tractor.
I think if one started a horse with a couple of steps (reward), then a couple more steps (reward), it wouldn’t take him long to get the idea. So the most challenging part might be in figuring out how to attach the horse to the bale. I like the pipe driven through the center of the bale idea.
Another place where a horse could help.
Someone I know was out riding and her horse knocked over a round bale and she felt like she needed to tip it back up the way it was–so she got her horse to push it back up again. My friend is a really good clicker trainer though, and her horse understands how clicker training works, so the horse caught on to what she was supposed to do right away.
Horses are so strong that it seems a shame not to tap into all that muscle to help out with chores. 
Heck, just rope the bale and have the (suitable) horse pull it into place.
no horse tipped over a round bale then set it back up. LOL.
is mud a significant issue here? Can you/would you drive your current vehicles into the lots?
One year, I fed round bales; I had a pickup truck, but no bale spear or bale dolly. I bought a galvanized pipe longer than the width of the bale and a heavy chain. Thrust the pipe through the center of the bale, attached the ends of the chain to the ends of the pipe, and the center of the chain to the hitch on the truck.
Towed the bale where it needed to be, with the round bale acting as a wheel; didn’t lose much hay off the outside of the wrapped bale. I had to make sweeping turns while pulling the bale, so as not to get myself in a tight spot, and reversing wouldn’t have worked, but this worked fine that summer.
Did this all by myself, and I’m on the small side.
Try checking out The Lancaster Farming for a bale buggy. There have to be some in PA, especially western PA, where there are more beef cattle farms. They are easy to find in VA and TN as well.
Our Craiglist has a one bale buggy.
The local little town junkyard by the highway here has a used one for sale.
Seems that there are easy to find around here.
Could you ask local feed stores who sells used old farm machinery where you are?
They may have one or find one for you.
Even regular farm machinery stores may have one they traded for in their yard, along with all the fancy pretty new tractors?
Or have a welder make one, should not take long or be too expensive.
A friend has one his boy made in shop class in high school some years ago.
You may check with your local high school shop class teacher.
Here they would make one and only ask for a donation to cover the materials, or may even have one a kid made already laying around.
The barn I frequent has a tractor that is broken down and they’ve run into a similar problem…round bales but no easy way to move them. At one point they were moved with a pick up and a ratchet strap that was somehow attached to the hitch and then wrapped around the hay bale. Then they drug the bale to the appropriate pen. Not ideal and initially the straps slipped off a couple times but if you could have someone keep an eye on the straps/bale and one person drive it may go a bit more smooth.
