moving roundbales

[sanhestar]

Hello,

I’m thinking about alternatives for moving hay roundbales in winter time – we’re doing it with car, horse trailer and either two people rolling, pulling, shoving the bale or with the help of a small tractor (this depends on which hay storage we access).

I would like to become less dependent on a second person and seeing some of the people here in this forum move and load round bales with either horses, mules or oxen I would like to go the same direction.

But, BIG but, what type of draft animal(s) do I at least need? Could donkeys or small mules or ponies (shetland, welsh, etc.) move a roundbale when working them as a pair? How much do you estimate a roundbale “weighs” when pulled with a balemover and when pulled with either stoneboat or sled (over snow)?

[Rod]

My dry round bales weigh around 600 lbs. Howie has a nice round bale mover which is pictured on the right and discussed somewhere here on this forum. I have a photo of it on my computer which I copied posted below. Some drag them on car hoods or stone boats and you can find lighter bales (and heavier ones also). I think they would be too much for a donkey team to pull unless on wheels and flat terrain.

[jac]

Hi Rod .. That is a seriously neat bale mover !! We are also looking for a good way to move bales and do away with one more job our 1954 fordson has to do around the yard.. moving bales and powering our hay chopper with the belt pulley is the only jobs left.. I take it there are no hydraulics and it does it all by pivoting to get the lift ?? Simplicity..
John

[Tim Harrigan]

Sabine: I would like to see a video of you moving round bales:). I move 5×4 round bales (850 to 900 lbs) on either a sled or stoneboat by myself. All you need is a chain and a hand hay hook. It works best for me if I load it with a flat end on the boat. If the bale is laying on its side, pull the sled or stoneboat up next to the bale. Unhook and back the team up to the bale, perpendicular to the sled, with the sled between the team and the bale. Put the hay hook in the bale about 1/3 of the way down on the opposite end from the team. Run the chain over the top of the bale and link to the handle of the hay hook. Hook to the team and take a step or two forward. The bale will flip up on end on to the sled. Reverse the process to unload. A stoneboat is nice with only a little snow, a higher sled with runners is better with deeper snow. Next time I move a bale I will take few pictures.

Donkeys or small mules could pull it for sure if they know how to pull against any resistance at all. If they are just used to pulling you around in a little wheeled cart it might be a problem 🙁 but if they actually pull things they should be fine :D. Regarding the pull, round hay bales typically weigh about 11-12 lbs/cubic ft. You may have noticed other posts where I have said that we pretty consistently measure the pulling force in the chain at about 40% of the weight of the sled or stoneboat on bare, firm ground. So with my bales plus the stoneboat the total load weight is about 1000 lbs, pull in the chain is 1000 x 0.40 = 400 lbs. Rod’s 4×4 bales would need less than 300 lbs of pull. If the sled is on snow on level ground less than 10% of the weight of the load is measured as pull in the chain. So the pull with the 1000 lb load will only be about 100 lbs or less. In that case you might want to worry more about getting run over by the sled than pulling it. With Howie’s wheeled bale mover only about 5% of the weight would be measured as pull in the chain or 50 lbs or so. But a sled might be better in snow, depends on how much you get.

[Rod]

@jac 15485 wrote:

Hi Rod .. That is a seriously neat bale mover !! We are also looking for a good way to move bales and do away with one more job our 1954 fordson has to do around the yard.. moving bales and powering our hay chopper with the belt pulley is the only jobs left.. I take it there are no hydraulics and it does it all by pivoting to get the lift ?? Simplicity..
John

Hi John

I like the one Howie has, they are made out West somewhere (Ohio?) and the last literature I had the price was around $1200. The other photo came off the internet also and I do not know where I found it. When I notice a piece of equipment on the net that I like I save it in my equipment photos file for future reference. Mine are moved with my tractor and a bale grab. We feed out over 200 a year and storage areas are tight on our hill farm. Some are wrapped silage bales. We keep 140 dry ones in a drive in barn.
I think Tim Harrigan’s method sounds as good as anything else and has the added value of simplicity and using equipment most have available anyway.

[Howie]

I think my bale hauler is just the cat’s whiskers.:)
In the sumer we use it to gather the bales and set them on a pallet and cover them with a cheap tarp.
In the winter I use it to put the bales in the feeder. I have very little waste.
In our area we have three sizes of bales 500# 800# 1100# and I can handle any of them with the steers with no problem.:rolleyes:

[sanhestar]

thanks so far. I’ll ask about the weight of our bales when I get some this weekend – I think they are around 600- 700 lbs.

@Tim: getting the bales from the “outside” storage sounds fun but it’s not. It’s “rope here, rope there – pull the bale down with the car – roll it to the trailer, roll it up the trailer ramp….” – at least I don’t have to pay dues for a fitness studio 🙂

Unfortunatelly things didn’t turn out well with the cattle I bought this spring and wanted to train. Right now I’m thinking how I can best achieve what I want to do with animal traction during the year and if cattle would be the best choice.

[Tim Harrigan]

Sabine: Here is a pdf file with some pics of moving a round bale out to the feeder this morning.

[blue80]

Tim:

I’m going through my mental list of oreo cows; galloways, dutch belted, buelingos, and for some reason thought they were all polled. Can you fill me in?

Thanks, Kevin

[Tim Harrigan]

Dutch Belts are horned, smooth coat, dairy character; Belted Galloways are polled, curly coat, beef breed. I am not familiar with the blue lingo.

[J-L]

Looks like that works great Tim and nice team.
My bales are heavier and sometimes frozen down. I straightend hay hooks doing that. Lostfarmer’s neighbor made me a couple pairs of stouter hooks that are 5/8 inch high carbon steel. They work very well.
What you demonstrate is that you can do anything with a round bale with a broke team. Roll it, turn it, tip it, what ever. Just a simple skid works fine for moving them a ways.
I like seeing us all using our brains to figure out a way around using tractors for this kind of thing. It’s actually fun. One thing I’ve noticed is that the more of this you do with your teams, them better their handle gets. It’s similar to pulling logs out of the timber in that you have to manuever in tight spots (in my stackyards) and do lot’s of backing, turning, etc.

[Author]

Posts