Grinding rolled hay?

[Bigfoot]

It's not a thing in my area, or atleast not to my knowledge. As expected, I'm seeing a lot of waste on my sudex hay. I put up my fair share of Johnson grass hay to btw. It was crazy year with rain, and the stems got too far gone. If a man was to have access to a bale processor/grinder, whatever they are called. Cattle would go ahead, and clean it all up wouldn't they?

 

[tom4018]

I have seen a few people grind poor hay mix with some better hay or grain that gets ate good.

 

[cowgirl8]

We fed switch grass hay with one. The stalks were so thick it ruined almost every tire used in the field while baling it. Cows ate every bit after we chopped it up. Fed over a thousand bales like this 2011 and 2012..Used a tarp to contain every drop, didnt want to waste any... Havent used it since. But it sure got us out of a bind in the last drought and avoided paying 125 for a small round bale of crap that people were buying in our area...

We used it to blow the hay right into the ring, and we would make a big pile and then rake it into the hammermill then into the mixer wagon and mix it with feed..Found all this equipment cheap on craigslist, never had seen any of these things before until then.

 

[cowgirl8]

Here we are making a pile for feed, husband made this guard to make a smaller pile since we were then going to fork it into a hammermill......man i dont want to have to do this again ever....We kept the 3 things we used, mixer, hammermill and this hay chopper....but i dont want to have to drag them out again..

 

[pricefarm]

Man up the road from me had a big hay grinder he uses he grinds up all the hay then feeds it in concret feed bunks. Very little wast. U have to have a high hp tractor to run one though I think his is around 125 hp and from the way the tractor sounds when he dumps a roll in it pulls it pretty hard. His grinder doesn't blow it out like cowgirl8 does it has a conveyer on the side.

 

[John SD]

I have seen a few people grind poor hay mix with some better hay or grain that gets ate good.

Pretty common here to grind poorer hay with better quality, especially for weaning calves. There are several custom rigs around the area that do this year round as a full time business for farmers/ranchers, and feedlots. Most of them have rigs big enough to grind a bale per minute and can get quite a pile of hay ground in a short time.

My favorite hay grinder has a Barko hydrofork mounted on a 400 HP Allis-Chalmers powered Mighty Giant grinder and feeds the rig himself. No tractor/loader necessary. Or just bring the bales to him, or let him park next to the haystack and have at it.

I used to get hay ground every year for my calves and sheep. Some guys also spray some liquid supplement on the ground hay as it comes out of the conveyor. Never done it myself but it adds protein, palatability, and helps keep the dust down :idea:

I see a few bale processors showing up around the country. I've never been around one myself but looks like a BP would be handy for daily feeding in bunks or on the ground. Also looks like it would make a good anchor when the snow gets deep :P

 

[TexasBred]

My favorite hay grinder has a Barko hydrofork mounted on a 400 HP Allis-Chalmers powered Mighty Giant grinder and feeds the rig himself. No tractor/loader necessary. Or just bring the bales to him, or let him park next to the haystack and have at it.

This is the only drawback. It takes a pretty dang big tractor to run a grinder. Not necessarily this big but in the 150 hp range minimum.

 

[Jake]

We grind quite a bit of hay every winter. Usually 1/3 alfalfa, 1/3 CRP grass 1/3 straw. Have a couple trailers we fill with that. Cows clean it up good, you can put in different screens to make it more palatable, flow better, or blow away less. We typically grind 100-150 bales at a time

 

[cowgirl8]

We bought that tub grinder from a estate. The fella who used it made his own feed. We had already bought a hammer mill and mixer wagon, they had those for sale at this estate sale also. We've considered making our own feed, we have all the equipment.
That tub grinder just has a opening at the chute with a wheel with teeth. Its spins and then the bale spins. You can adjust the speeds, but as far as i know it only chews it and has no screens like the hammer mill. I have a video of it running...Not sure why i'm in a tractor facing it, i know i was there for a reason but i forget. Posted this video because there is a strange blurred spot that looks like a ghost...lol...always working for that viral video....Anywho, its that tub grinder in the pictures, but running sorta.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GTyjXlPN1Kg

 

[Angus Cowman]

You can get a tub grinder or a vermeer bale processor that will run on 100hp tractors but they aren't large capacity but would probly work for what your wanting

As for processsing and the cows cleaning it up yes you have lots less waste
Especially if you feed in bunks or some type off feeder
Tractor tires work prettu well
The TMR we had ( Jed still has ) we would mix 3 or 4 grass or stalk bales and 2 or 3 bales of oat baleage and 5000lb cs and 4000 lb corn but you needed no less than 225 PTO Hp to run it on the high side and about 180 on the low side
But did a better job of grinding and mixing on high side

 

[John SD]

My favorite hay grinder has a Barko hydrofork mounted on a 400 HP Allis-Chalmers powered Mighty Giant grinder and feeds the rig himself. No tractor/loader necessary. Or just bring the bales to him, or let him park next to the haystack and have at it.

This is the only drawback. It takes a pretty dang big tractor to run a grinder. Not necessarily this big but in the 150 hp range minimum.

:nod: :nod: :nod: Not only that, but the stress a tub grinder puts on the mechanics of a tractor PTO are tremedous and when (not if) the PTO breaks is very expensive to fix.

Used to have a guy that went around the country with a big Haybuster PTO tub grinder. He started out with an old articulated 4x4 7020? tractor, then upgraded to a 4840. The 4840 had more ponies, but the grinder still worked the snot out of the tractor.

Neighbor bought a well used Farmhand tub grinder at an auction once. He only had one tractor and needed it to feed bales to the grinder. So he borrowed my MF 2775 to run the grinder. The grinder could make that big 160HP Perkins 640 V8 snort :shock:

The guy with the 400 HP AC kept a supply of the multiple V-belts that delivered the horsepower to the grinder with him. Not sure how many belts were under there, but he would smoke them every once in a while. Didn't seem to bother him. He could change out the belts and get going again in hardly any time at all :o