Small Bale Accumulator

[Jerry/MT]

Age is catching up with me and we've sold our cows. I am considering adding a small baler to our equipment to make hay that would be marketed to horse owners. I doubt that I can successfully buck bales in 95° temperatures so an accumulator is a must. I have looked at what is available and have settled on either a Steffens or a Bale Caddie 1200. The Kuhn Mfg. accumulator, while relatively simple, looks prone to problems with a broken string or a missed bale so I have ruled it out. I found a lot of info about the Steffens but not much about the Bale Caddie 1200. (balecaddie.com)

Does anyone have any direct experience with the Bale Caddie 1200 that they can share?

 

[powerscol]

First - do you have 15 GPM flow to run the bale caddy . Too many things to go wring with the switches and hydrailics IMHO. Also I noticed the spinning hay mover kicked up a lot of hay grabbing the bale to move it on the bed (did not look good). Also can your equipment handle the grabber weight with the 12 bale load. I have one of Kuhns small grabbers (205 model) and do just fine gathering bales in the field without the accumulator. It and grab 5 on edge or 4 flat in either direction - makes for easy cross stacking. Granted I am only doing 200 bales a day, but for me it works. Search my user name for pictures of my operation. It has a back face the hooks pull towards so no lost bales at hookup. However their side grab was interesting - it was just too big to me.

Something to think about on sizing. How much room in the barn do you have to maneuver and stack. I went with the smaller grabber as I could see around the edges and swing and move in the barn to stack, and to unload as I made sales. 4 or 5 bales at a time to load out is easy on the customers too for filling pickups.

Before dismissing Kuhns, give them a call and talk to them about your operation and equipment. From what I know a missed tie should not stop their system. Its all manual too so no gizmos or switches. From the video I am sure the bale caddy wold have fits with a missed tie.
Good luck on your search and please let us know what you decide.

 

[Jerry/MT]

First - do you have 15 GPM flow to run the bale caddy . Too many things to go wring with the switches and hydrailics IMHO. Also I noticed the spinning hay mover kicked up a lot of hay grabbing the bale to move it on the bed (did not look good). Also can your equipment handle the grabber weight with the 12 bale load. I have one of Kuhns small grabbers (205 model) and do just fine gathering bales in the field without the accumulator. It and grab 5 on edge or 4 flat in either direction - makes for easy cross stacking. Granted I am only doing 200 bales a day, but for me it works. Search my user name for pictures of my operation. It has a back face the hooks pull towards so no lost bales at hookup. However their side grab was interesting - it was just too big to me.

Something to think about on sizing. How much room in the barn do you have to maneuver and stack. I went with the smaller grabber as I could see around the edges and swing and move in the barn to stack, and to unload as I made sales. 4 or 5 bales at a time to load out is easy on the customers too for filling pickups.

Before dismissing Kuhns, give them a call and talk to them about your operation and equipment. From what I know a missed tie should not stop their system. Its all manual too so no gizmos or switches. From the video I am sure the bale caddy wold have fits with a missed tie.
Good luck on your search and please let us know what you decide.

Thanks for your input.

My baling tractor has 14 gpm and either the Ford 4610 or the NH TD95D is big enough to handle the a small square bale grapple with 12 bales. I can handle 1500 round bales easily with either one.I wouldn't use the bale grapple from Bale Caddy. I'd use a Lewco or Steffens with a rotator so I could load trucks and trailers. I don't have a barn and if I did it would be mostly open sided for hay storage.

I've heard from lot of folks that operate Kuhns that are very complimentary but they all say a broken bale or broken string in the verticle chute makes real mess that isn't fun to clean up. I found a lot of info on the Steffens andHoelschler but I can't really find much on the Bale Caddie accumulator.

I've seen a few used NH bale wagons that are competitively priced with some of these used accumulators. An old neighbor used to use accumulators and an 10 pack grapple to hay and he put up a lot of hay for horse people and I think it's a more versatile option.

Thanks again for your input.