Re: How To Build A Traditional Hay Stack?
It looks homemade to me too but, I can't say for sure because I can't understand their language. I even have a difficult time doing a search using an online translator. Those eastern countries have some seemingly diy equipment that's seldom seen in the USA. Here's a rear mounted hi lift. Самодельный гидравлический подъемник на МТЗ-82 - YouTube
There's one around youtube somewhere loading round bales in a hay loft. I tried to lift a couple of those into a hayloft once using the old track and pulley system that was in the barn. I pulled with the tractor and broke a good rope.
Re: How To Build A Traditional Hay Stack?
Google < farmhand tractor loader > and go to images. You'll see lots of different style loaders.:)
Re: How To Build A Traditional Hay Stack?
Thanks, Egon. Did you see my question #48?
Re: How To Build A Traditional Hay Stack?
I've never had luck cutting hay with a chainsaw. I've heard of it but it always jams between the clutch and cover until the chain binds up when I've tried it. I have a block of hay 30+ feet long, 10+ feet wide by 10+ feet tall left in a barn. The old folks had hay knives to saw blocks out to sell, we work at it a bit every year with pitch forks but are on a face, not the top so its slow going.
Re: How To Build A Traditional Hay Stack?
Quote:
Originally Posted by
slowzuki
I've never had luck cutting hay with a chainsaw. I've heard of it but it always jams between the clutch and cover until the chain binds up when I've tried it. I have a block of hay 30+ feet long, 10+ feet wide by 10+ feet tall left in a barn. The old folks had hay knives to saw blocks out to sell, we work at it a bit every year with pitch forks but are on a face, not the top so its slow going.
Pitching hay out of a hay mow or off a stack is a skill that requires a bit of practice. It is like a tetris puzzle in reverse without color codeing. You have to pitch off the last tumble that went on first as each one locks in the ones below. If you just stick the fork in and pry up anywhere else your trying to pick up the hay your standing on. Knowing how it went in helps a lot but if a loading fork or other machinery put it in you might not be able to find the pattern to start picking it apart.
Re: How To Build A Traditional Hay Stack?
Quote:
Originally Posted by
vtsnowedin
Pitching hay out of a hay mow or off a stack is a skill that requires a bit of practice. It is like a tetris puzzle in reverse without color codeing. You have to pitch off the last tumble that went on first as each one locks in the ones below. If you just stick the fork in and pry up anywhere else your trying to pick up the hay your standing on. Knowing how it went in helps a lot but if a loading fork or other machinery put it in you might not be able to find the pattern to start picking it apart.
It's really a matter of knowing what the stack looks like as you build it. You get an "eye" for how the layers interlock. You fork the layers off in reverse order that they were piled onto the stack. (For those computer programmer's out there... it's a reverse FIFO.) ;)
When I was pretty young, there were some ranchers that still used horses to stack hay. Not many, but here and there. A fair number still used teams to feed with in the winter, though. Don't remember ANY 4x4 tractor's back in those days. So, it was easy to get stuck and it was even easier to tear the bejesus outta the pastures-hay fields with 2WD tractor's trying to break into the stacks and haul hay. Not so, with a team of horses.
They didn't get stuck...
One poster summed up how the hay was put up when I got a little older. Portable stack frame. Of course, tractor's of many shapes, sizes and manufacturer all fitted with the Farmhand loader. Many of the Farmhand loaders had the long, wooden teeth (probably 8' long) with metal points. Later models had long steel teeth and they were probably 8'-10' long, too.
You'd drive down the windrows and "sweep" up the loose hay with the Farmhand and haul it over to the stack frame and dump. Course, the windrows were all raked with a dump rake. Therefore, the hay didn't get jumbled up too much - it mostly layed flat with the stems in layers upon each other.
That's the key with stacked hay - layered. Sheds rain and snow. Like a shingled roof. And for anyone who has had the experience of stripping a shingled roof from a house or building - you know how impossible it is to peel up more than a couple of layers at a time. Same with feeding a stack. You can only peel up a couple of layers at a time. Get too aggressive and you'll just tear up equipment or your back!
Anyone remember the chain-drive stack movers? Many of them where made by Farmhand, too. Tilt-bed and push the leading edge under the stack and engage the chains to slowly pull the stack onto the frame of the stack mover.
I can remember many tractors (big, 150hp with duals) getting stuck with a stack loaded on the mover trying to get outta the field. Or, worse yet; burying the tractor while trying to load the stack. The stack might be half-way onto the mover and there ya were... down to the frame! :eek:
How about going down the road and coming up on a tractor moving 1-2 stacks of hay. They would take up 2/3 of the road! Your only recourse was to hope that he was pretty close to where he was going or turn around and take another route. 'Cause there was no safe way in the world to ever pass a loaded stack mover! Unless you were on a good oil road and he was pulled over on the shoulder.
A fair number of folk's died while encountering stack movers. (There were no lights anywhere on those things; except the tractor - but, it's impossible to see the tractor from the rear - the load was usually 20'+ wide and 20'+ tall.)
Don't have those kind of problems with big, round bales.
AKfish
