Feeding from hay trailers

[dcara]

Does anyone feed from some type of hay trailer? I've often considered different ways to try and reduce the amount of time and labor it takes to feed hay. I've been considering using (building or buying) 3 trailers that would each be loaded with 4 rolls sausage style and then pulled to the feeding area and parked for up to a week (i.e setting out hay just once a week). The 3 trailers would be separated from each other and spaced about 50 ft apart for feeding. Each trailers would be made of three 16ft pipes forming a shallow V with wire panel forming the floor of the trailer and mounted on a frame to the axles. The tires would have to be extra wide and foam filled. The axles would have to be short, maybe only 2.5ft so the tires didn't stick out much past the edge of the trailer. Also, some type of manual brake/axle lock would be necessary.

 

[dun]

The biggest problem wit ha trailer is if it rains. No matter how well the floor is set up to drain the stuff will still get stuck and the bottom hay gets slimey and if not kept cleaned out regularly the floor of the trailer will eventually rust

 

[Bonsman]

We have 7 of the pull type hay trailers. Apache is our favorite--stay away from the H & R types. We love them, especially since our land is scattered around the county. Instead of feeding hay every day, we can fill a 24' Apache and feed once every four days. You can get three big square bales in the feeder. The hay loss is much less than the round feeders and more cattle can get to the hay.

The feeders saves a lot of money on gasoline (100 miles a week to one of our pastures) and when snow arrives, we can fill them up and know the cattle will have hay during the snow event.

We keep the bottoms cleaned out. Insofar as rain, is that the wet stuff that use to come out of the sky? I think we had some of that in September.

 

[dcara]

Thanks for the feedback guys. I like the bottomless type Apache trailers. Pretty pricey though.

 

[novaman]

The biggest problem I have with hay trailers is the lack of available space for cows to eat. One trailer with 4 bales would be about 22-24 feet long and a cow usually needs 2-2.5 feet of room. That means you would probably only get 22-24 cows on one feeder at a time.

 

[bigbull338]

wich means youd need 3 feeders pre 100 cows.because not all of the cows will be trying to eat hay at once.i like the looks of the apache 6 bale feeder.an if i was a rich man i might buy 1.