Round Bale Transport

[simangus]

Hello,

I would like to purchase a couple of round bale transports to allow me to move bales by myself (dont need a truck driver) in from several relatively close hay meadows. Most of the hayfeilds are within 2-4 miles. I have been searching on the internet and am amazed at how expensive these things are. I would like to buy two 8 or 11 bale transports to hook together and load and pull w/ tractor. I came across a flyer for the H+S transports and found that they are $4500 apiece??

Anyone have these - do they work ok ? Any other brands to look at ?

 

[DiamondSCattleCo]

Sorry, no experience with H&S Bale Transports, but they look pretty fragile to me. If you're going to go the route of having something that you have to load and unload with a tractor, why not buy a plain old farm wagon? I see 14 bale wagons sell routinely for under a thousand bucks at auction sales. What I haul with, when I'm by myself, is a gooseneck trailer that I built a converter for. The gooseneck wasn't able to be safetied any longer, however when pulled with a tractor, it doesn't need to be. The converter I built out of an old 1-ton frame I had here. Total cost was 300 bucks (including trailer) plus a few welding rods.

Rod

 

[R. John Johnson]

Up here bale carriers like this are common. One man can load, haul, and unload 12 bales without getting out of the cab. I lucked out and found this one used for $4500 CDN.

John

 

[ToddFarmsInc]

That is a pretty slick setup there John. I like the concept of not having to get on and off the tractor all the time. That is pretty neat.

For years on our farm, we just use flat bed hay wagons. We have a couple of large ones that we can stack 11 bales on. (are bales are small, 5ft Dia. X 5 Ft Across) We stack them 4 long X 2 Wide, and then set one row down the middle between the bales 3 long. We have rarely ever had them roll off the truck this way, even without strapping them down. We have one flat bed truck with a hoist, and a goose neck traler with a hoist, and when I can get a couple of friends to help out, I can stay in the tractor out in the field and they can haul and dump for me, and then I have a large pile to clean up later. The benifit of using standard flat beds is that you can use them for other things too, like hauling limbs, square bales, hay rack rides, etc. Specialized hay transports are for the serious hay hauler, that's all you can do with them.


If you are handy with a welder, you can make something like this. I made this trailer a few years ago, out of an old truck running gear and some old water pipe. I don't have any cost into this trailer but the welding mig wire and gas, and the time. (it sure is nice having an ample supply of scrap iron around.)

Since this inventory photo was taken, I have dropped the origional truck axels, and added a standard wagon front axel, and a walking tandum rear axel from an old fertilizer spreder. It rides like a dream through the hay fields now. If I had to do it over again, I might have used a little heavier walled pipe. The wagon holds up really well, as long as you don't apply too much down pressure with the loader when placing bails on the wagon. It's not a wagon I would just turn a typical highschooler with to load up.

 

[1982vett]

Here's my rig.

About a mile from the farthest end of one haypatch to the barns. Hauling 8 vs 2 saves a lot of time. Used 3 floor joist salvaged from a construction site. Nailed 2x4's as bridging and used 2x12's as decking. Use the front end loader to put on and take off 18 ft trailor. About $375 in materials not counting the joist.


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Good supervision is a must for everbody

 

[iowafarmer]

http://www.teslaamfg.com/hay-transport.php
A company near by me makes these not sure what they cost but they are a lot like H&S. I don't have any first hand experince with them. We use a neighbors hay transport. It is a semi trialer stripped to the frame with pipe welded across it then put on a caddy so that it pulls behind a tractor. not sure how many bales we put on there.

 

[frenchie]

We are using a trihaul ....http://www.liftofftrihaul.com/video.html Unloads 18 bales in less than a minute.7 grand but almost got it payed for from just custom work.

 

[Devin]

I used my neighbors H and S for two years and both years I blew a (new) tire and tore up a rim. Then had to buy a new tire and new rim. This always happened at mid day when the road was hot. This year I bought a self unloading trailer. It's a 36' gooseneck. If you google "Red Rhino" or "Go Bob Pipe "they have photos of it. I wish I would have bought this thing years ago. You can travel at highway speed safely, which is good for us because we are so spread out. I gave $4500.00 last november. They are probably a lot more now with steel going up. If you are only going four miles you could probably get buy cheaper.