Best Hay Method

[Hay Pirate]

For 3 years my family used trucks to pick up the hay. We got pretty good at it. Stacking 70 bales a truck, sometimes 85. I work near a lot of other hay farmers, they all use kickers with hay wagons. But those wagons just get like 60 bales because they're not stacked. We're now trying to use a chute on the back of the baler and stacking them right onto the wagon, but trucking the wagon is much slower and unloading it isn't as easy as the trucks.
Labor costs for the trucks were getting ridiculous but the hay wagons are easier but longer to do because of their slow road speed.

What is some of your guys opinion's on hay collection and stacking?

1. Stack the pick up trucks.
2. Kicker with x wagons
3. Chute with x wagons
4. NH Hay Stacker
5. Buying Hay
6. Other

 

[Egon]

Automate it!

 

[Robert_in_NY]

What size wagons are they using? I can easily put 120 bales in a 8x18 kicker wagon. If I work the controls well I can put over 130. I can put 150-160 on a 9x18 kicker wagon. If I have someone stacking I can gain 50-60 bales per wagon but it all depends how far I have to haul.

Now I do have one old wood rack wagon that only holds 100 bales. It is roughly 8x16.

If you are working your own farm and your buildings are close I would just upgrade to better kicker wagons. The NH stack wagons are nice but you need to have a large building to store the hay in. If you go with a chute you have to worry about labor on the wagons and I still prefer to have a person stacking inside a kicker wagon then a flat wagon. If you do hit a hole there is less chance of serious injury. Plus you don't have to worry about hay falling off the sides.

I would never want to use a pickup truck to haul hay out of a field. Why work against gravity, take it either straight from the baler or get a stack wagon.

 

[zzvyb6]

How much hay are we talking about and where is it stored. My 1012 stacker is ok for small batches and you can get larger capacity ones that are self propelled. It does mean a second pass thru the field, though, maybe even with a second tractor and operator. I just junked a field elevator which towed behind a pickup. it picked up the bales and sent them forward to a person in a truck who stacked them. Still needed a second body, though. My stacker has a self unloading feature which allows you to set it up to off-load bales one at a time. It pulls a group off the main load and gets them back onto the second table. Then a crawler chain pulls them off the right side to an elevator up to the barn. If you want to keep the stacks intack on the ground, you must rearrange a middle group on the 2nd table so the groups get interleaved. This keeps them from falling over when you unload.

Can you get coordinated with your neighbors to time-share the hay pickup? Then the wagon, manned wagon, or kickwagon operation means only one pass thru a field. STill the kicked or pushed bales are a nightmare to unload because of the random way they get tossed. Best is manned kick wagons but it can be dangerous. Getting hit with a heavy bale is something that will scare you, but you can roll with more that on wagon at a time. Wagon inventory (1 or 2 behind baler and 1 or 2 at the barn) is minimum. Other wise people are waiting. If your knotter goes on vacation for an hour, people wait. Broken bales in the wagons makes for a slippery standing are. Meanwhile a 50 - 80 lb object with you name on it is flying in from outer space.

One more thing, the stack wagon piles can be covered so they don't have to be sent to the haymow if that can be tolerated.

 

[Robert_in_NY]

To stack the loads from a stack wagon outside in our area you would need a very good stacking area that is raised slightly above the rest of the ground with good drainage all around. There is too much moisture to leave hay sit outside very long on the ground. I don't know where the OP is from but some areas don't have the moisture like we do and stack and leave their hay either tarped or under a roof and not have any problems. If I was to leave hay under a tarp for very long it will wick the moisture up from the ground and ruin a lot of the hay.

 

[Hay Pirate]

Not sure what a lot is to you guys, but we've estimated that we need 30,000 bales in a season to make it through the year to the next season. So, we're always working our tails off to get enough hay...we never do though. Last year we got an estimated 18,000. I think this year will be an all time high, not sure how many though.

We got three barns, two which you have to throw up to and the third you can back into with a truck and throw over to the sides and back.

Our wagons are "kicker" wagons, didn't know they were called that. They have big walls and are wooden. But just today I had a **** flat on the one, old tires anyway.

 

[Robert_in_NY]

If you are doing 30k bales you should put a quarter turn on the back of your baler, build a new building big enough to unload a self propelled NH stack wagon in and go that route. I would not even start to think about moving 30k bales with a pickup, wood kicker wagons or a chute to flat wagons. Go with the Self propelled NH stack wagon and enjoy the AC in the cab. They are expensive to buy new but are well worth it. One guy on the baler, one guy on the stack wagon and you haul 160 bales at a time. The only bales you have to touch are if one of the bales rolls coming of the quarter turn. All you do is set it back on its edge and hop back in the stack wagon.

What do you use the hay for? If you are using that much hay you might want to just go to large square bales, then you can use stack wagons for large squares or a loader tractor and trailers to haul them out of the field. No messing around with small squares or needing tons of people for labor.

Heck, I deal with 10-15k bales a year and as soon as I get tired of fixing my thrower I am selling my kicker racks and going to a stack wagon. I can't imagine messing with 300 kicker loads of hay.

 

[farmerjim]

you could try one of these E-Z Trail Farm Wagons - Bale Baskets
a few people in my area use them and them seem to work well. i think the only draw back is the 100 bale max load. doing that much hay per year you may be better going to a large sq baler or rounds. but if you were to stay w/ small sq's i would probably invest in a self propelled satck wagon.

 

[Hay Pirate]

We're using the hay for horses. We got over 120 of them, most of them not ours. So the hay needs to be good and dry and plenty. The boarders complain if they see a single harmless weed in the hay.
We are looking to making a new barn just for hay. One we could use with those stack wagons.
I think for next year they could be a staple since I'm not going to have many people to help out and I won't be able to work as hard.

I mean, 160 bales, that's over 2 trucks.. If they go as fast as a truck, man that'd be a good investment if its not too expensive to build a hay barn.
The hay barn would need to be huge because I don't want to stack any hay the conventional way if we're using the stack wagons!

So, stack wagons are defintely a big help then. How fast do they go on the road and does anyone have problems with them (other than the bale isn't turned)?

 

[chadincolo]

How fast depends on the engine. Some of the older ones ran 4 and 6 cylinder engines, not too fast loaded. I know a guy who pulled the engine out of an older one and dropped in a decently built 460 and he could pass people on the highway....some of the new ones run turbo diesels, same thing, how fast do you feel comfortable going?

They are mechanical systems, will have some problems just like a baler or a tractor, but I've never heard any major issues with them. Make sure you build the shed tall enough, I think you need 14 feet to the bottom of the rafters.

In my area, was just stack hay on the edge of the field, no tarps unless it's dairy quality. Can store it that way for a few years without major spoilage...