Putting Away Hay

MikePA · Jun 27, 2002

AND I DON'T EVEN RIDE!!!

Ditto! I don't ride either. It's a labor of love, I guess! The rain held off long enough to get the last 30 bales in the loft. A total of 155 bales. I'll get to do it all again in September when we stock up for the winter. We have to have about 200 bales (about all we can store) in the loft to make it until spring. My wife says, "They have hay in the winter, why do we need to get it in the summer." Yep, that's what I want to do, drive to a hay barn, through the snow to get hay. /w3tcompact/icons/laugh.gif

gerard · Jun 27, 2002

Guess we got spoiled. Used to get hay from our neighbor 1/4 mile up the road. Didn't mind getting a pick load at a time, even in the winter since we're in the same boat re minimla storage. He's 80 and is finally calling it quits so we have to make sure we put up enough to get us through.

MikePA · Jun 27, 2002

Just make sure those bales are dry when you put them in your loft. Hay fires start pretty easily when hay starts to decompose.

Rich, this guy is pretty good about not baling when the hay is too wet. He's also good about how long it dries in the field and then he uses a moco so the hay we get is pretty good. If we're in doubt or the hay looks too green, we leave the hay loft door open to keep air circulating.

Frosty · Jun 28, 2002

Mike -
My Dad had a hay elevator with an electric motor on it. He ran it off a small generator. The neat thing about that setup was he would set the generator AWAY from the barn/hay so no chance of catching fire./w3tcompact/icons/clever.gif

We would set one end of the elevator on the tail gate of the truck or on the ground and the other end up into the barn. Sure saved a lot of bale dragging!/w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif

MikePA · Jun 28, 2002

Frosty, how heavy are these things? I'm wondering how I'd get it up to the hay loft door which is 15 feet from the ground.

EdKing · Jun 28, 2002

how heavy are these things? I'm wondering how I'd get it up to the hay loft door which is 15 feet from the ground.

They are not much heavier than one of the old wooden extension ladders. The end with the motor is the heavy end. If you put a pully up above your hayloft door, you could pull the elavator up to the door and then move it into place from the ground. I have placed them in to posistion by myself when I had no one available to help me.

mikim · Jun 28, 2002

As a kid I remember working for a fella that had a system for putting hay in the barn that lifted about 8 or 10 bales at a time. It was 4 large tines that jammed into the bales on the wagon, and a center pivot where the rope connected to. The rope then ran up to a pulley on a track that ran the length of the barn at the peak of the roof - the end of the rope was pulled by an 8N on the opposite side of the barn with his daughter on board (good lookin' daughter in a halter top as I remember) He'd jam the tines into the stack, hook a catch at the center point, yell at his daughter to pull 'em up, they'd rise to the top til they hit the track then she'd continue pulling and the whole mess would travel along the track until we in the barn would pull the trip rope to undo the catch at that center pivot which would let the tines relax and drop the load. Then we'd yell at her to whoa and we'd have to hustle to get that load stacked before another was ready to drop - sure didn't take long to unload a wagon that way - but I'd bet you have to stack your wagon to accomodate the tines.
mike

Carl_NH · Jun 28, 2002

Mike,

We put up 3000 or so 40-50 Lb bales every year and finally got an elevator, but before that my dad (and I when I got big enough) would pick the bales with a 8' three tined pitch fork using his hip as a fulcrum point then raised the bale to the loft - could get about 14' with this method.

Takes some practice to do this but is easy once you get the hang of it. Builds a good back and arm in the process.

Carl

Frosty · Jun 28, 2002

Mike -
I think Dad's was about a 16 footer. Like EdKing said, one man can muscle it around and the motor is the heavy end so leave it down. Weight-wise I would guess around 200 lbs with little electric motor but you only really "scoot" it around or lift one end (the light end /w3tcompact/icons/grin.gif) at a time.

We just had a small electic motor with V-belt drive. Worked great and saved a lot of sweat and labor! /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif

EdKing · Jun 28, 2002

Weight-wise I would guess around 200 lbs with little electric motor

I just saw an elavator on ebay, Sweet Tractors is selling it, they posted the weight at around 120 lbs.