Argonne
Gold Member
- Joined
- May 21, 2005
- Messages
- 279
- Location
- Paris, TX
- Tractor
- JD2210, Ford 4400, Case IH 685, Terramite T7, JD 6x4 M-Gator
Life interrupted this year, and I am ending up buying hay for the winter for our 3 equines. I went with round bales due to the economics.
We feed from a bunk feeder with hay rack out in one of the pastures, and I need to keep it that way because when it gets soupy out there the Gator is the only vehicle that can make the trip without tearing up the pasture. As such, we need to cut up the round bales (in the barn) and ration them out.
I have hopes that my wife will do the feeding most days, and I want to make it as easy as possible for her. Pulling a round apart with a pitchfork is, um, not easy, so I am researching ways to section a round bale fairly easily.
I have an old electric chainsaw gathering dust, and my plan is to modify the blade (saw the procedure on the net somewhere), replace the oil with vegetable oil, and use it to cut the bales up. In another forum I saw comments that electric chainsaws were generally not up to the task, and would burn out, but I don't know how much cutting that were doing or whether or not they had modified their blade.
Has anybody here had experience using chainsaws for this purpose? Are there alternative methods that work?
We feed from a bunk feeder with hay rack out in one of the pastures, and I need to keep it that way because when it gets soupy out there the Gator is the only vehicle that can make the trip without tearing up the pasture. As such, we need to cut up the round bales (in the barn) and ration them out.
I have hopes that my wife will do the feeding most days, and I want to make it as easy as possible for her. Pulling a round apart with a pitchfork is, um, not easy, so I am researching ways to section a round bale fairly easily.
I have an old electric chainsaw gathering dust, and my plan is to modify the blade (saw the procedure on the net somewhere), replace the oil with vegetable oil, and use it to cut the bales up. In another forum I saw comments that electric chainsaws were generally not up to the task, and would burn out, but I don't know how much cutting that were doing or whether or not they had modified their blade.
Has anybody here had experience using chainsaws for this purpose? Are there alternative methods that work?