Just curious what you have found for clever means to move round bales. We’re doing rounds this winter, and do not currently own a tractor. I found a neat thing called a hay dolly, which looks good, but I’m sure there are other good ideas!
My husband is also not opposed to building something, we have a truck and a Gator with a winch, if that helps. We’d prefer not to buy a tractor/FEL.
The most important part of moving rounds without a tractor is the original location they are placed for storage.
I had a small farmette for years and feed rounds year round to help the grass last. I had them placed along my driveway at the crest of the slight hill. I could roll them by hand to the drive and then roll them along the drive to the pasture, through the gate and into position. There was one small tree root in the drive that, depending on the weight of the bale I could PUSH the hay hard enough to continue along into the pasture. If it was a heavy bale, I’d get in my car, inch up to the bale and kiss it with the bumper. That would be enough to get it going and all was good.
The rounds had to be in place in the pasture before any snow was on the ground or I’d have to feed squares until my kind neighbor could come move one for me.
It can be done, but it’s a pain.
I get them delivered one at a time now and help the farmer push them off the back of the truck into position. This is much easier, but requires some flexibility to be able to meet the farmers schedule.
Storing in proximity to where you are going to be using them is great advice. As well as planning your path of travel carefully too. Level or slightly downhill is great. Even small obstructions can (like a root mentioned above) can cause a big headache when moving a round by hand. Be careful, a round can get away from you on a steeper grade and cause a lot of damage.
Moving from point A to point B can easily be done by bumping along with your car/truck bumper if it can’t be rolled. Use winches and ropes with caution, they do break and can seriously injure anything nearby.
The dryer the hay, and the tighter your farmer wraps the round, the easier it will roll. Net wrapped is the best if you can find it. If possible avoid buying rounds that look like a tire going flat, it can indicate wet hay in the middle and it seriously ups the difficulty factor.
A dolly has always been interesting to me as well, though my ground isn’t level enough to make it much easier I don’t think (roots and rocks and ruts). And, bear in mind, you’ll need to find a way to get the round up on the dolly. I try to keep my rounds on pallets when I store them, try being the operative word. If the bale isn’t wrapped great or perfectly round, I can’t heft it up the 4 inches on to a pallet by myself. If you have two people its a lot easier.
I personally store rounds and peel off servings daily, but I only have two extremely easy keeping horses.
There are several types of hay movers that I’ve found so far, we’re debating between one that mounts to the truck box and the pull behind. Both use winches to ‘tip’ the bale onto the forks. They run about $2000 new, which is considerably better than buying a tractor! We also looked at a tumble bug, but don’t think that will work once we get snow… We’re thinking were going to need the mechanical advantage from the winch to tip them.
We used to use a truck to move them in winter, with a sling. It worked OK, but wouldn’t work at all in the fall and spring without snow for gliding.
I definitely don’t want to store bales on a hill where they can easily roll, people die every year getting pinned under round bales! Unless you chock them, which wouldn’t work great for us, some the chocks would freeze to the ground in winter. They do need to be stored in an accessible spot though, with a good (preferably short) path to their end location. We have them in an area that stays pretty drifts free, and has a good plowable path to the feed location.
http://dallas.craigslist.org/dal/grd/5126894919.html
This is what we use. It’s old, rusty, cranky but FANTASTIC. Attaches to the ball on the farm truck, you lower the spikes and back into the bale. Crank it back and away you go! We can drop a rounder almost anywhere. MUCH better than trying to push them and FAR better that asking the neighbor to come over with his tractor- the man has no sense of space and has taken out gates, rails whatever happens to be close.
Have you had any issue with your truck from the weight? Springs or frame damage or anything? That’s our only real concern with that type, and we haven’t met anyone who has one! What’s the payload rating on your truck, ours is 2500lbs?
Also, that’s good deal… Too bad the shipping would cost a fortune!
DH and I pick up a round bale at a time from the farmer. The rounds are about 500 pounds. The one farmer keeps rounds on the haywagon. We back up and roll it on the truck. When we get to the farm we roll it onto the Gator and use rachet straps to keep it on. Take the gator to the field and roll off onto the pallet and replace the wood corral around the bale.
The other farmer loads the round into the truck with the graber.
I have the short bed on my K-2500 so can only easily get one bale at a time from the farmer.
My truck has 107,000 miles on it. No issues with the springs or frame damage or anything. We were moving 2 bales about every 10 days from Nov to March. We have put way heavier loads of gravel in my truck for my driveway with no ill effects.
[QUOTE=rugbygirl;8237410]
Have you had any issue with your truck from the weight? Springs or frame damage or anything? That’s our only real concern with that type, and we haven’t met anyone who has one! What’s the payload rating on your truck, ours is 2500lbs?
Also, that’s good deal… Too bad the shipping would cost a fortune![/QUOTE]
None whatsoever. The truck we use is a GMC Sierra, 1999 I think. It’s the “farm truck” and it works hard. We used to pull the gooseneck with it for years, but it was a bit too much trailer for it. Now it pulls the hay dolly and my Mini horse trailer- FO got a Ram for the trailer.
Edited to say: most of the bale’s weight is over the tires, not a lot on the hitch. We do use a drop hitch and not the ball on the bumper, though…
[QUOTE=Field of Dreams Mini Horses;8238083]
None whatsoever. The truck we use is a GMC Sierra, 1999 I think. It’s the “farm truck” and it works hard. We used to pull the gooseneck with it for years, but it was a bit too much trailer for it. Now it pulls the hay dolly and my Mini horse trailer- FO got a Ram for the trailer.
Edited to say: most of the bale’s weight is over the tires, not a lot on the hitch. We do use a drop hitch and not the ball on the bumper, though…[/QUOTE]
Thanks!
I’m leaning toward this type, nice to hear a good report! Our bales are between 1450 and 1500 lbs, hence the concern about weight. We’ll definitely be using the frame hitch too, not the bumper.
before we had the tractor, we used to store it on 3 stacked pallets. Then would back up to it with a trailer and ramp (one of the cheap $600 ones from Home Depot hitched to an ATV) and would roll it off and up the ramp. Even the bigger bales would have enough momentum to get up the ramp even if it was just me and I couldn’t sweet talk the husband into it. drive out into the field, unload, toss the hay ring over it and go.
The biggest bale we did this with was in the 1100 lb range.
[QUOTE=rugbygirl;8238123]
Thanks!
I’m leaning toward this type, nice to hear a good report! Our bales are between 1450 and 1500 lbs, hence the concern about weight. We’ll definitely be using the frame hitch too, not the bumper.[/QUOTE]
It’s really a blessing. So much hassle with the clutzy neighbor, too hard to push by ourselves; we even rigged up a rope pull one year. It worked, not well. Plus, our back neighbor sells rounders, and if we need to we just drive back with Dolly and snag one.
We picked Dolly up off Craigslist for $250, I think. Worth every penny.
Wish I could find a hay dolly in Ontario, would make things so much easier!!
For now, I am also without a FEL so getting the round bales out aren’t fun. I have them stored outside in the winter and just roll them down a small hill and that’s where they stay. I put a slow feeder net on and then a hay hut - lasts just over 2 weeks.
If the weather is reasonable I can get hay delivered one bale at a time bit don’t like to do that if the paddocks are wet or if there are massive snore drifts. A hay dolly would be amazing
You can definitely buy them in Alberta, but it’s almost $1000 to ship a vehicle by rail now, and the dolly runs about $1300 new. Depends on your budget, although if you can get them in Alberta, I bet you can get one in ON or MB, for substantially less travel!
? Is that one in Ontario? The website is very difficult to read.!
I don’t have a spear but have gotten really good at getting them in the feeder with the tractor - I wrap a tow chain around it and pull it to the area of the feeder and then push it in with the bucket. You could do the same thing with a truck, pull it over and then roll it into the feeder by hand. Before that I just rolled them the entire way by hand - just made sure they were stored uphill from where my feeder is located.
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