Slippery grass hay/loose bales - hauling nightmare

[Madhouse]

I have a 22ft equipment trailer that I’m able to get 200 small squares on if I go 6 high. The bales I purchase were not very firm and we loaded on a slope. Grass hay is slippery - it is always hard to stack. Making it worse this stuff was super loose. Thankfully, I have 8 - 2" straps, I used them all. Then I broke out my box of little straps and used four of those also.

The load did not look stable so I drove as gingerly as I could for the 30 miles to my house. I managed to make it home without loosing any hay. After I backed into position I loosened the straps and a portion of the front tier fell off.

When I say that I’ve thrown hundreds of thousands of bales I am not exaggerating. While I’m not going to boast and say I can tie in a stack with the best of them - I do know what I’m doing and have lots of experience.

Here’s my thought:
I want to put a net down after the first three layers of hay and bungee it tight. Then stack the top three layers. I’m thinking this will stabilize the load significantly… ?

Your thoughts?

Where would I purchase a 10 x 25’ net?

[NancyM]

The baler can be adjusted to avoid this, tighten up the bales, even with slippery grass hay. BTDT. Don’t buy hay that is baled this loose, because shipping it is always going to be a nightmare. My own grass fields have, on occasion, been loose bailed like this, and I simply did not load the trailer that high to ship it to storage. But fields and storage are on the same farm, so loading carefully and not going high worked for me. Now, my bales are tighter, more able to withstand handling.

Good luck with the net theory. If you can’t find a net, putting long boards along the top long sides and strapping down with cargo straps over the top of those can help to stabilize the load.

[Mango20]

Maybe Repurposed Materials would have something that would work for you. Here is what came up when I searched on “net”. I kind of think the price for the net would negate any savings you’re getting on buying loosely baled hay, though.
https://www.repurposedmaterialsinc.com/index.php?p=catalog&mode=search&search_in=all&search_str=net

[CHT]

You could also use sort of snow fence wrapped around under the straps.

We have also used wide wood slats under the strapping to help with tying down loosely baled bales, but not sure if that would be enough to resolve what you are describing.

[buck22]

Where o where is Goodhors?

[goodhors]

I really sympathize with OP in having to deal with those loose bales in getting them safely home. Congrats on not losing any bales in transit!

Sometimes you have to buy and haul what is available, loose or not. Buyer has no control on baler setting when they put it up. This hay may be all you can locate or afford, is excellent hay for your horses, just loosely baled, so you take it.

When we have had this loose bale issue, we have used sheets of plywood across the top of bales, then threw the straps across to anchor the bales and not let them jiggle or have straps cut into them. Yes, we also used ALL our rachet straps, 2 or 3 inches wide, not the little ones. I think we put a strap about every 4 or 5 feet to stabilize things. Hauling hay on the semi flatbed or the smaller gooseneck flatbed, 28ft ?, we also stack 5 or 6 bales high. Depends on how much hay we bought. Our hay is not usually close to home, so we pile it high to save trips and hauling costs.

We now always take the plywood, it lays on bed of trailer with straps over it when going to pick up the hay. Fairly easy to get up on top bales for strapping things down to come home. Again the plywood prevents straps cutting into the bales, maybe cutting the strings to cause a real mess on the road. We tighten straps down firmly to prevent a shitting load. Passed inspection by the State Police when he pulled us over! He did make a joke about " excessive use of straps" but better too many than not enough! He evidently had been catching hay haulers all day, handing out tickets for too few straps acording to the law. He saw us as an oncoming truck, turned on his lights, spun around, before seeing all our straps. Husband was already pulling over so the Trooper “had” to give us the once over with a walk-around the outfit, because he was already committed to stopping us with his lights on. No ticket, sent us on with a smile.

I never tried using a net on a load of hay. Interesting idea. Not sure it will really stabilize it a lot with bungee anchors, which are not firm like straps. I might go with two layers of straps, and extra plywood sheets, if hay is really shaky. Lay some plywood on that layer 3, strap it. Then add the other hay layers on the plywood to reach 5 or 6 total layers. Do the plywood over that top layer and strap it down to go home. Be sure to use enough straps over the top layer to be legal for the entire load, since the lower straps “don’t count” because they are not over the entire load.

[Madhouse]

Mango20 - Thanks for the re-purposed materials site, I’ll do some looking at that.

Goodhors - Thanks for the informed/experienced assessment. I think I’m going to get some plywood for just this purpose. I’ll need to cut it down as my trailer/load isn’t 8’ wide.

What is the required # of straps for small squares? I basically have a strap over every tier - with the exception of criss-crossing the middle two tiers because the wheels/fenders don’t allow for anchor points in the center of those tiers.

Now I’m going to hi-jack my own thread… Goodhors, it sounds like you could relate to this story…

A former co-worker/good friend of mine’s husband is a hay broker/hauler. She caught a ride to a wedding - the reception was at a casino. He went and grabbed a load of hay past the reception, the plan being that he would pick her up on the way home. She got the call saying he was close. To save time and having to pull the rig through the parking lot she walked out to the road, high-heels and all. He pulled over, she climbed in… Then the flashing lights came on! :eek: The officer was rather skeptical at first.:lol:

[goodhors]

Madhouse, that was a very good story!! Made my husband laugh too.

On the plywood, 4’x8’ sheets, try laying it lengthwise of the trailer instead of cutting it. Depending on trailer width, you can overlap the center edges of 2 long sheets to cover your load width as needed. We try to leave the sheets whole, since they may get used for other projects during the year and you have the full size to work with.

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