FEL when using 3pt implements

olPete · Jan 21, 2017

Interesting thread. I must admit I leave my FEL on more than I need to.. but then it always seems to be needed soon after I take it off.
I will sometimes put a bike in the bucket so I can head home for more coffee/food without having to take the tractor home, or put the bale spikes on and crowd them back so I have pointers to keep the runs straight, save my neck and reduce overlap (a trick I learned while seeding).
Mostly I remove the FEL for practice and to keep things from seizing up, so when it needs to come off, it's a quick job and not a half hour's worth of jiggling/cussing/hitting-with-a-hammer. My FEL is a NZ made Pearson loader with a wedge lock system, not quite a toolfree job, the wedges just need a tap and remove. It offers great visibility when on, and it stays on most of the spring and early summer for mowing silage/moving silage bales and then comes off for aeration and subsoiling when I get sick of looking through it.
That's when I find I need it!
I am doing a little contracting work now so it is on and off depending on the job and terrain, as are the duals..
Most of the farmers, especially the dairy farmers around here, leave theirs on all the time, often with attachments still on. Looks weird when you see a guy cultivating his land with whichever attachment was last used, dangling out the front!! Although I have noticed I certainly have had a change of pace going from 1200ac. of dairy farm to 110ac. that we own, jobs get planned around the tractor setup and not the other way around, so much

pmsmechanic · Jan 21, 2017

I dislike the loader hanging on the front of the tractor so much that I take it off if I have a job that doesn't require a loader. I'll even take the loader off at a customers place if I don't need to use the loader any more. It's about a minute to take off and about 1.5 minutes to install. In my opinion that's a small price to pay for the ease of tractor operation without the loader.

ovrszd · Jan 21, 2017

Farmer495 said:
I skipped SSQA and go right to Euro. Stronger and you don't have to get off the tractor to latch attachments. Pick up and go.

Yep, I believe the Euro design to be stronger. Problem is it's harder to find used attachments.

ovrszd · Jan 21, 2017

olPete said:
Interesting thread. I must admit I leave my FEL on more than I need to.. but then it always seems to be needed soon after I take it off.
I will sometimes put a bike in the bucket so I can head home for more coffee/food without having to take the tractor home, or put the bale spikes on and crowd them back so I have pointers to keep the runs straight, save my neck and reduce overlap (a trick I learned while seeding).
Mostly I remove the FEL for practice and to keep things from seizing up, so when it needs to come off, it's a quick job and not a half hour's worth of jiggling/cussing/hitting-with-a-hammer. My FEL is a NZ made Pearson loader with a wedge lock system, not quite a toolfree job, the wedges just need a tap and remove. It offers great visibility when on, and it stays on most of the spring and early summer for mowing silage/moving silage bales and then comes off for aeration and subsoiling when I get sick of looking through it.
That's when I find I need it!
I am doing a little contracting work now so it is on and off depending on the job and terrain, as are the duals..
Most of the farmers, especially the dairy farmers around here, leave theirs on all the time, often with attachments still on. Looks weird when you see a guy cultivating his land with whichever attachment was last used, dangling out the front!! Although I have noticed I certainly have had a change of pace going from 1200ac. of dairy farm to 110ac. that we own, jobs get planned around the tractor setup and not the other way around, so much

Are you using forks to stack those bales?? Curious what type of attachment you would use to minimize tearing the wrap??

olPete · Jan 21, 2017

We call em "soft hands" down here. Good for picking them up and the only real thing to remember is to maintain a 45° angle to the stack, which gives you the clearance you need without ripping the neighbors. You will notice the red bar- this can be removed allowing the hands to swing from side to side when empty but that slows things down a little, I find.

olPete · Jan 21, 2017

And this is on the back end, as a counterweight. Bale tipper. . You can slide them under the bale, and then pull the string and it will sit the bale down on its end.
Baleage, silage bales.. whichever you want to call them, they are fairly widely used in NZ for the convenience. Rather than being committed to keeping on feeding out once the pit is opened, with the bales you can just feed out for a day and wasteage is reasonably low. Makes for a lot of plastic to do something with however, these have 6 layers of wrap (12× at the ends)

ovrszd · Jan 21, 2017

Thanks for the education Pete!!!!

The issue with the plastic was going to be my next question.

I don't believe I've saw individual bales wrapped here. You see quite a few rows of bales wrapped together. Even then there's a lot of plastic. But the nutrient value of the product seems to be worth the hassle.

olPete · Jan 21, 2017

You're most welcome.
Yes, I used to work for a baling contractor, and most of our clients preferred the individual wrapped bales as they would place them out in their winter crop paddocks at planting time, and then cut the wrap off and move the electric fence. We mostly winter outdoors down here as our winters are reasonably mild. The only reason for so much wrap is to prevent punctures while transporting them, tube wrapped bales only need 2 or 3 layers to keep out the air. Without the double wrapping at the ends, maybe only used one-third the plastic. The big plus with individual is from the fact that it is better for capturing a surplus at the right time, rather than waiting for a large area to be ready for harvest. A lot of our clients would get us in 5+ times per year to bale up anything that got away on them, maintaining quality for the livestock. This is in contrast to the large area you would shut up for silage, which may actually reduce the intake for the stock.
We used McHale Fusion baler-wrappers as they were about the only proven comby at the time.. the boys came out from Ireland and simply could not believe where we were taking them, as steep as the farmer could mow with mower uphill and duals.. fun times indeed. Did about 60,000 per year per baler for 5 seasons.

A job stacking the other day, 420 bales and only ripped 3. Man loading the truck may have ripped 30 or so but some nice wide tape is fine if the plastic is dry.
I've been following TBN for ages but never said a peep, finally figured out how to attach photos so there may be a lot of 'education'
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