Harnessing Horsepower

[Iron Rose]

Check out Westernhorseman.com shows feeding loose hay with teams using a Hydra-Fork and sleds

Dan

[J-L]

That’s how many outfits did it around here too. Some still do. When I was working a job over by Big Piney, WY I watched one of the big ranches feed for a while. They ran over 1500 mother cows and some yearlings at that time. They would head out with four teams of 4 up. One sled had the Hydrafork and would load all the others then go feed. It was quite a sight, and worked real well.
Now I see their beaver slide stackers are falling down and their stackyards are full of 3×4 square bales. When they need a bobsled they just pull it with a Cat now.
There are still some using teams around here besides me though. Most of them won’t hook a team unless they can use a bobsled. My uncle and cousin who border me use theirs on a wagon still.
All of those who don’t like to use a wagon say that it makes their team nervous having a wagon rattle behind them. I tell them this it true if you don’t do it enough to get them over it. You just have to stick with it until they get over it, which usually don’t take that long.
I have to tell you my loose hay story Iron Rose. Up until I got to high school we put our hay up loose. When times got tough my folks got jobs off the ranch. My Dad had two of us older kids pitch a load of hay on after school and feed it before school the next day. We used to make our old team trot across the froze turds on the feed ground to bounce all the hay off that we could and save on our backs pitching hay off. We thought it was a great idea until the old man came back and caught us one day. Sure was hard on the wagon. We always wished for a Hydrafork.

[Plowboy]

Those are some nice horses that fellow has! Glad to hear he loves what he does. I saw a hydrafork in the Mishka calendar several years ago and I think they used 6 abreast and the sled seemed to be a flat bottom thing like a huge stoneboat. seems like it would be hard to move on heavy snow but would stay on top. This guy had his on a heavy bobsled which would be easier to pull. Thanks for sharing the info it was good to see.

[CIW]

I didn’t notice how he powered the Hydra-fork. Did he have a small motor to run the pump, mounted on the sled?
J-L, your wish can come true. Baker Machine is still making them in Neligh, Nebraska.
They originally were mounted on the front of an underslung to pull hay off a 5 ton stack that was slid on.
There is also a model made with a cutter bar on it, to slice hay off the stack, onto a belt, then it was fed into a feed bunk.
They can be bought used for less than $1,000 anywhere along state highway 20, in Ne.
Did you buy a round baler? I’m still working on a hydralic round bale mover/unroller that you can pull with Huff & Ruben or a tractor. I finally found a source for an accumulator a few weeks ago.

[J-L]

Dan, I haven’t seen the Western Horseman article yet but I can tell you these we had around here ran off of a Wisconsin motor mounted on the front of the rack.
The hayracks that used these were quite big compared to my little wagons and sleighs for square bales. It takes a lot of room to get two ton of loose hay on a wagon in addition to the hydrafork.
No I haven’t gotten a round baler yet. I had one lined up and then the calf market took a dump. I could have financed it anyway, but decided to be a little conservative and get by one more year.
Interestingly enough, I leased out my father-in-law and he has a round baler. We put up 800 of them over there. Thats where the boys have been all winter, unrolling round bales. I kept 3 other mules home feeding the young and old.
If you get that gadget figured out be sure to let me know. My father in law would be interested as well as myself. I may still get a round baler in the near future. My haying crew will dwindle down as they leave the nest.
By the way, I did find a Hydrafork up in the Hilliard Flat country. Actually two of them. One is in pretty decent shape. My cousin uses one to feed his bread loaf stacked hay. It’s mounted on a trailer and tractor.

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