[SlideStop]

In my area round bales are few and far between. Honestly, I don't think I've EVER seen one here! My question is... how the heck do you move the gigantic things??

I keep trying to figure it out... drag it, roll it, pick it up... get a small army?

Thanks! :lol:

 

[Avna]

In my area round bales are few and far between. Honestly, I don't think I've EVER seen one here! My question is... how the heck do you move the gigantic things??

I keep trying to figure it out... drag it, roll it, pick it up... get a small army?

Thanks! :lol:

There's machinery developed for all phases of dealing with round bales. In sizes from vast industrial behemoths to one-balers you can pull with an atv. Google it.

Long ago, before there were round bale movers, a young friend of mine, a dairyman, was moving a round bale in the front loader of his tractor. It flipped over and crushed him, he's a paraplegic now. Still a dairyman, thirty years later.

A sheep rancher, who grew up on a Saskatchewan grain farm, whom I told this story to, informed me that it was a common kind of accident back then. He himself walks with a permanent limp because as a young man he fell through the rotted roof of a grain silo he was repairing, and broke many bones in both feet. Farming is a dangerous job.

 

[Mulefeather]

Most of the people I've seen that use them have a heavy-duty tractor, like a Kubota, to move them with. My last boarding barn had one and used round bales, they'd put them in a big covered feeder.

 

[equinesmitten]

We use the fork attachment on the tractor.

 

[SlideStop]

Sold, I'm getting a Hay Baby for an ATV... when the time comes of course! :lol:

 

[WhattaTroublemaker]

Ah round bales. We move them by hand.

My father (who's pushing 64) and I will drive out to the field, put two planks on the back of the truck, roll two on, bring home, roll off, repeat.

In winter we shovel the snow off the tarps, roll up the tarp, cut the "rind" with a hatchet and peel it back. Unroll the middle and fork it all in. One particularly bad year we had to cut it with the chainsaw. Not good for horse or saw, but it was a life or death situation.

 

[Emoore]

There's machinery developed for all phases of dealing with round bales. In sizes from vast industrial behemoths to one-balers you can pull with an atv. Google it.

Long ago, before there were round bale movers, a young friend of mine, a dairyman, was moving a round bale in the front loader of his tractor. It flipped over and crushed him, he's a paraplegic now. Still a dairyman, thirty years later.

One of the neighboring ranchers when I was a kid was killed this way as well.

 

[Greenmeadows]

Around here, we use a fork attachment on the front of a loader tractor, poke it on a un netted side, and plop it on a bale trailer, of which I think there are at least a couple different styles. Then when ready to feed it, the bale gets poked again, then placed into a bale ring, the netting taken off, and voila! Breakfast is served!

 

[horselovinguy]

Ah round bales. We move them by hand.
My father (who's pushing 64) and I will drive out to the field, put two planks on the back of the truck, roll two on, bring home, roll off, repeat.

You and your father hand roll 800 - 1000 pound round rolls from the ground up a plank onto a truck bed....holy cow!
Remind me to not get you ****ed off...............

I took the easy way out...
I have a tractor with hay spear attachment, stab the roll, lift the tractor arms and take it to where we want it, put it on the ground and slip the spear out and DONE! :grin:

:runninghorse2:.....

 

[WhattaTroublemaker]

You and your father hand roll 800 - 1000 pound round rolls from the ground up a plank onto a truck bed....holy cow!
Remind me to not get you ****ed off...............

I took the easy way out...
I have a tractor with hay spear attachment, stab the roll, lift the tractor arms and take it to where we want it, put it on the ground and slip the spear out and DONE! :grin:

:runninghorse2:.....

Yep, we do!
We cut, tether, rake and bale others hay to be paid in hay to feed the horses. We're pretty broke, so can't afford our own equipment. Most of the tractors we do get blow up or quit within the year so we quit buying.
We make do though!

 

[Avna]

Yep, we do!
We cut, tether, rake and bale others hay to be paid in hay to feed the horses. We're pretty broke, so can't afford our own equipment. Most of the tractors we do get blow up or quit within the year so we quit buying.
We make do though!

Color me impressed too.

 

[HombresArablegacy]

Back when I had to board my horses my first year here in Nc, I'd buy one roll, have the hay guy load it in the bed of my truck with the tractor fork. When I got to the barn, we'd remove the tailgate ( important if you don't want it damaged) and push it out of the truck. I actually unloaded one by myself once.....never wanted to even attempt that again.

 

[Smilie]

Well, we have a quarter section, but don't farm it ourselves. My husband is a contractor. Thus, we always had our round bales put up in partnership, with our partner doing the haying,
Often though, since he farmed a lot of land all over the place, our round bales would still be sitting in the field, when I needed them to feed
We thus used our 4 x 4 truck, and a tow rope, placed around the bottom 1/3 of that bale. If the bale was lying on it' side, we would first use a jack, to get it standing up.Helps to tow it, with snow on the ground ! In summer, I use small square bales
Now, we no longer grow our own hay, and I have way less horses, but still use round bales in the winter. They are delivered, and we just stand them up as needed, and then I fork off of them, re moving nay outer spoiled hay
But yes, people that move hay all the time, have a fork on a tractor ,and also have a 4x 4 truck , equipped with a bale handler, thus able to carry two round bales at a time, including down the highway, if needed

 

[JCnGrace]

We have a tractor and a spear that will fit on the front loader arms and one that will fit on the 3 point hitch in the back.

 

[loosie]

You and your father hand roll 800 - 1000 pound round rolls from the ground up a plank onto a truck bed....holy cow!
Remind me to not get you ****ed off...............

Haha! We(of necessity) do it by hand too. I guess it depends how high the truck bed & steep the ramps/planks as to how hard. My husband helps me roll them up planks onto our stock trailer, which is about 1.5" high. My 12yo daughter & I can move them on the flat or slight slopes. I can't generally manage to turn them or push up any kind of slope without help tho.

One of the funniest things I've seen was my boss at a trail co, rolling one out on a bit of a hill & somehow he went over the top... & then under it, got rolled out with the hay!

 

[loosie]

Sold, I'm getting a Hay Baby for an ATV... when the time comes of course! :lol:

I would NOT want to move round bales(except shoving them round at ground level) with an ATV. Not heavy enough(by a fair bit) & so extremely dangerous. The amount of serious accidents/deaths involving ATV's, esp in farming tasks, is quite high over here.

 

[evilamc]

Last winter I decided to try a round bale. I don't have a tractor....and there was a foot of snow on the ground when I went to get it and had to take it in my field. Because of all the snow I didn't want to go to deep and get stuck. Well farmer didn't realize I was going to be unloading this bale by hand and put it on my truck wrong so I couldn't roll it off...I went and grabbed my UTV (have a Viking, its my tractor) and hooked a tow strap to it and then around the bale and pulled it off my truck. Wasn't the prettiest way to do it but I got it done without needing to call my husband for help lol!

Before I moved, place I boarded at we fed round bales, also no tractor. We'd pick up bales and roll them off truck into feeders in field. A few times we had to unload them then put them back on truck a few weeks later...thats when things got interesting. We would use boards and roll them up the boards back onto the truck.

 

[evilamc]

I swear if my husband saw half the things I did by myself rather then calling him for help....he just wouldn't even know what to say to me.

 

[secuono]

With heavy equipment!

We don't have any, so we, DH & I carefully roll them to the barn, then flip them onto their flat side on top of a pallet.
They are horribly heavy! I have some 4x4.5 rounds from last year, they are dry and easier to roll than they were last year!
We have new 5x5s now, they are very, very hard to roll. It will be a massive pain moving those as needed into the barn....Especially if there is snow or the ground is wet....I'm hoping to move 2-3 at a time into the barn when we start needing to use the big ones!

People that say they can move one with their own power must be superman, have a downward hill to help or they are tiny and lightweight bales! I'll never believe most can move one on their own! =0

 

[Drifting]

At my friends place the hay guy delivers them into her loft.

Then we roll them out onto the back of the truck (loft is low enough that the truck is even with the entrance) and then roll them into the field off the truck. Through mud and ick sometimes. I wish she had a needle for her tractor it would make moving them easier.