How many pull round balers with drafts?

[Robernson]

I know my neighbor does. He pulls a newer John Deere baler with mule 3 abreast. They can work for long streches of time and can really do some baling. I was wondering if pulling round balers with drafts is common practice.

~~R

[ngcmcn]

You must’ve been reading my mind I was thinking of posting a similer inquiry about round balers.

What I’d like to know if any one out there has adapted a 24-30 horse motor on the round baler with a hydraulic pump attached and how they did it, and how well it worked? Or are people using powered forecarts which I’d rather not invest in at this point.

Neal Maine>>>>>>>VT

[jac]

Hi Neal and Robernson.. There was a lot of stuff on balers posted in the equipment section tho mainly small square balers.. I’m actually drawing up an idea for a round baler that has an auto steer axle of its own with engine “assist”.. my idea was to have the engine on a throttle pedal with land drive for the baler and an overrun clutch so that as the bale fills or the ground steepens you could accelarate the engine and override the land drive and thus take the strain off the horses.. this may sound a bit over the top but my reasons for not using the hitch cart is we have small fields and tight turns would be hard with the baler hooked to a hitch cart… I dont see why it cant be land driven because there is a ground driven square baler out there and when that ram punches the bale it must put a fair strain on the team, whereas the round baler is only a rotary and I dont think will be as hard to pull.. tho I mite be wrong:D
John

[Scott G]

There are several Amish orders who use round balers with BIG PTO forecarts. You won’t see any of them posting here though…

The Amish guys I’ve talked to seem to like them.

I’m not as big of a round bale fan as I used to be. But then again, I only feed two steers and a few horses.

Had a neighbor that about 18 years ago was unloading a round bale out of his truck. He lived on the side of the mountain like we all do around here. Anyway, he got it off the back of his truck into the corral, the bale landed on its side and off it went. It busted the corral and thats when it really picked up momentum, continuing down the mountain until it launched off the cut bank side of the county road, went about 20′ airborne over the road, touched down, went through the wire fence and stopped when it got to the meadow/creek. We figured it went about 250-300 yds. Another neighbor, Martha Ann, had just driven by on the road seconds before this thing launched over it. Can you imagine driving down the road and seeing a 700# round bale flying overhead? Ahhh, the stuff local legends are made of…

[mink]

the pioneer catalog has a nice picture of 4 belgians pulling a round baler…mink

[ngcmcn]

Jac, it seems unless you’ve got some good sized straight fields, that ground drive may not be the best. I suppose you could have a ruddy great flywheel turning the round baler, they don’t take a huge amount of HP to run, its the weight of the bale that starts to add up as you go along. I’d want something with brakes for sure.

N

[jac]

Hey Neal.. You’re probly right on that.. I come up with these crazy ideas now and then :D.. Im constantly trying to find ways of making draft horses more efficient with the machines they use. Fitting an engine to a round baler should be quite easy as there is no flywheel to worry about. The hydraulic pump drive could be taken from any number of shafts on the baler and not need to be from the engine direct. I like the space saving from a self contained baler but will have to find out how much weight transfer there is as the back door opens. I notice the drawbar does a lot of bouncing as the bale leaves the chamber.
John

[Plowboy]

So far all I’ve seen is the Amish using them behind a powercart. The amount of power required depends on the terrain and the size of the baler. Being two wheeled I’m sure you would want a heavy cart to handle all that anyway so a powercart with brakes would probably be the best bet.

[Author]

Posts