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John K Jordan
01-28-2019, 9:11 PM
I was talking with someone the other day about loading hay. He had loaded plenty by hand (as have I!) but had never heard of a grapple.

I took these pictures today while getting a load.

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The grapple on the tractor grabs 10 bales at a time. It doesn't take long to load the whole trailer this way. (I usually get 150 bales per load.) After loading my other trailers by hand for years, I bought a flatbed trailer just for loading with the grapple.

All the larger square-bale hay producers use a grapple along with an accumulator. The accumulator is a fascinating machine pulled behind the bailer - each square bail that comes out of the bailer is automatically turned and positioned into a big square with 10 bales which it then automatically sets on the ground ready to be picked up with the grapple.

The cheapest way to buy hay is right out of the field right behind the bailer. I drive out into the field and the grapple operator picks up the 10-bale squares and stacks 15 of them on the trailer. Strap down the load and it's all done, except for the paying, the driving, the unloading, the carrying, and the stacking! (And the feeding every day.) I usually haul 3-5 tons at a time. With the llamas, alpacas, mini donkeys, and horses I'll feed well over 300 bales this season, each 50-60 lbs.

I'd be happy to never load a trailer by hand again!

JKJ

Mike Henderson
01-28-2019, 9:25 PM
I remember, as a teenager, hand-loading (and unloading) hay bales in Louisiana in the summer. I'd have hay and dust all over inside my clothes - stuck to me because of the sweat. Pretty miserable.

I told my dad one time that the thing that kept me going in college was the fear that I'd have to go back to the farm if I flunked out.

Mike

Matt Day
01-28-2019, 9:40 PM
I remember stacking hay as a kid too on horse and dairy farms. Being up in that hayloft on a 90 degree day it must have been 110 up there, sweating, hay all down my shirt, getting knocked over once in a while on a bad bounce off the hay elevator.... wish we had one of those grapples!

Tom M King
01-28-2019, 9:42 PM
I have never seen one of those grapples, but would have loved to have one years ago. We're down to just two horses now, so no major hay handling needed these days. We fed round bales in covered feeders when we had a larger herd. We only need to feed hay 4-1/2 to 5 months, so a tractor never gets started for feeding horses now with only 2 horses.

Even at 15 bucks a bale, put in the barn, it's still pretty cheap compared to what it used to take. We're not in a good part of the country for growing good horse hay, so it comes with some transportation costs. It used to be not so bad with a full semi load at the time, but I'm glad those days are past.

Ken Fitzgerald
01-28-2019, 9:45 PM
John, in HS I spent one summer working for a hay contractor who contracted with farmers from the field to the barn. IIRC it was usually a crew of 4, (1 driver, 1 stacker and 2 pitching bales onto the truck) we were paid 1.5c per bale, often started soon after sun up and came home near midnight. That and working on oil rigs for my Dad gave me sufficient inspiration to find another way of earning a living!

Tom M King
01-28-2019, 9:55 PM
Getting up hay as a teenager was a great way of building a good base of strength. I have a good friend who has never been one to exercise, but even 50 years later, after getting up hay all Summers as a teenager, he can still be counted on when it comes time to lift, or move something.

We used to get up hay on a mid '60's half ton pickup. It would be piled even on top of the cab. Typically, we would count on getting 90 bales on that pickup, but fortunately, didn't have far to go with it. We would toss it up pretty high in his family's barn, with each of us on either side of a bale, throwing it, and flipping it into place on the stack by the strings.

Ronald Blue
01-28-2019, 10:44 PM
Bucking bales! What memories. I spent about every fit day for baling in the summer from probably 13 -16 baling hay. The last summer I was hired by a custom baler and I did all sorts of jobs for him. Loaded the rack, unloaded at the barn, sometimes working in the hay mow, traveled the tractor and baler from one job to the next. That was my spending money. The bale grapples like you have John came on the scene well after I baled. Ate 80's maybe? They were the answer for not being able to find capable help any longer. The baler has an accumulator that puts 8 bales down in a cluster to speed loading. While in this part of the country they are used to some degree the majority of hay is rolled into the big round bales. There are some hay producers that raise "horse hay" that is shipped off to horse country. Our rich farmland will produce several ton of hay per acre too. With up to 6 crops in a season if the rain is timely. Of course the first is the largest. Fresh cut curing hay is always a pleasant smell. Thanks for the post and jogging the memory.

Bill Dufour
01-28-2019, 11:02 PM
looks like a small version of a squeeze truck. I do not understand it. It seems to lift from the top?
Bill D.

Bruce Page
01-28-2019, 11:16 PM
You rural boys have the coolest toys.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TQ463Gf0RnE

Ronald Blue
01-28-2019, 11:42 PM
That's the accumulator on the baler I referred to. The grapple actually buries multiple hooks or teeth into the bales to pick them up Bill. Watch the video Bruce shared and you can see them engage the bales before the loader picks up.

John K Jordan
01-28-2019, 11:48 PM
looks like a small version of a squeeze truck. I do not understand it. It seems to lift from the top?
Bill D.

The frame presses the 10 bales on the side and back to square it up as needed, the top presses the 10 bales flat, then curve hooks rotate down into the bales under the strings and relying, I think, on the tightness of the bales. In the first photo you can see the hooks on the top in the unhooked position. In rare circumstances a bale might fall off then I grab, carry, and heave it onto the trailer.

I used to buy hay in small highly compressed bales which would be plastic wrapped in a big almost-cube, each tightly strapped and the whole thing wrapped with clear plastic. They used a squeeze device to pick up the whole bundle and set it on a pallet then load onto my trailer with a fork lift. Maybe that was the squeeze truck you mentioned.

I loved that hay since it was high quality, tested and certified for nutritional value, and sold by weight. Unfortunately, they are no longer in business.

In TN hay is almost never sold by weight but sold by the bale which is not a unit controlled by the Bureau of Standards. A bale can be 30 lbs or 70 lbs, can be short or long, can be wonderful grass or full of weeds. Before I buy I check it carefully, lift a couple to judge the weigh, sometimes split a random bale open to feel and smell. The friend I buy from now has fantastic quality hay, heavy bales, and incredibly good prices! (He produces hay mostly for fun and to have something to do, not to get rich.) I drive 35 miles one way but it's worth it.

JKJ

John K Jordan
01-29-2019, 12:18 AM
Even at 15 bucks a bale, put in the barn, it's still pretty cheap compared to what it used to take.

$15, yikes! I pay $4 a bale for good grass hay, maybe $6 for bermuda, more for alfalfa. I think to have hay delivered is an extra $1 a bale but I don't know anyone who will deliver then put it in the barn so I usually do all that myself, hopefully with someone to throw bales off the trailer. I feed three horses, three mini donkeys, and six camelids at the moment.

For storage I bought an aluminum shipping container, 8x8x40', cut vents in the sides and put rotating vents on the roof. The thing is in the shade in the summer. (It's a lot cleaner now that I found a neighbor who loves to pressure wash things!)

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I can fit enough hay inside, stacked 6 high, for almost an entire winter.

Here's a load of hand-loaded bales on a different trailer ready to put into the storage. Stacking that high in the field was fun. Good exercise though! - this load was probably 6000-8000 lbs and I handled each bale 6 times from the trailer loading to the animal feeding. I transfer 14 bales at a time to two smaller storage areas near where I feed. (14 since that's how many are easy to carry with my little 4wd Kubota truck!)

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JKJ

Jim Koepke
01-29-2019, 1:33 AM
One summer of my teenage years bucking hay in northern Washington convinced me raising a lot of hay eating animals wasn't for me.

My animals tend to be cats and chickens. No chickens currently.

jtk

Mike Cutler
01-29-2019, 4:39 AM
Who knew?
I guess I was an "accumulator" and a "grappler" once?
I'm not sure, but I think we could have once loaded that hay wagon faster by hand than the guy on that tractor.
Now, I'd rather use the tractor. ;)

Martin Siebert
01-29-2019, 8:30 AM
Father-in-law works around 300 acres of hay a year. He has one of those big cages that tows behind the bailer. It just kicks the bales up into the cage and will hold like 110 bales. Big bottom gate opens to dump them where ever. Then they have to be stacked and put away. Cutting time is usually when I plan a dive trip to some exotic far away place. I like the idea of the grapple and trailer, especially for the "putting away" part...the problem is that not too many folks around here store hay in a drive in floor level facility. Just about all our hay storage involves being upstairs over a stable. Which in hind site is about as stupid as it gets, and I have long thought so even without a grapple. I mean, who was the first genius that said , "yeah, 75 pounds a bale...we gotta store these so you carry them up a flight of stairs!!!" Horse people are just not practical...wouldn't it work better to store the hay at ground level and lead the horse up a ramp?? If he flipped out and killed himself on the ramp you are still ahead of the game...you just got rid of a hapless idiot horse!!!
I had a tee shirt made for my wife that says, "Horse till you puke"....she was not amused.

Tom M King
01-29-2019, 8:51 AM
We can get Bermuda and Orchard grass hay around here for a few dollars a bale, but it doesn't keep weight on the horses. Also, I have to go get it, and handle it. If we feed Timothy and Alfalfa, it keeps the horses in good shape without having to feed grain to amount to anything. We're down to only feeding 80 to 100 bales a year, so my time is better spent making money than handling hay.

I could get the same hay a lot cheaper by the bale, by driving an hour one way, and all the handling, but I talked a local guy into offering this service of putting it in the barn, and he stays busy. I also told him what to charge, so I can't complain. He uses a hay elevator to get it up a story. I used to use a front end loader, when I did it.

We have a hay drop in the middle of the barn that holds 8 bales, so we don't have to go up in the loft that often.

Jim Becker
01-29-2019, 8:52 AM
That is definitely a "fit for purpose" attachment! Looks like it helps with keeping the stacks level and even, too.

Mark Bolton
01-29-2019, 8:53 AM
Those grapples are real common in yards that sell a lot of straw for mulch. I saw one once that skid on the forks of a large forklift and would pick one layer 1/2 the length of a tractor trailer at a time. Definitely faster than by hand. Almost no one around here other than some for horse folk put up square bales anymore.

Tom M King
01-29-2019, 9:03 AM
Found a bunch of youtube videos of hay elevators. The bales we get weigh probably 75 pounds, so probably something over double of the ones in this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RV6M-lXkYKI

John K Jordan
01-29-2019, 9:37 AM
I'm not sure, but I think we could have once loaded that hay wagon faster by hand than the guy on that tractor.
Now, I'd rather use the tractor. ;)

My bet is on the tractor, even one as slow as the one in the video.

The first layer or two are easy by hand. When you are 5 and 6 high it gets to be a chore and needs at least one other person or you are climbing a lot. Of course if you have several people it goes faster. But one guy can load the trailer himself with the grapple.

It's a lot quicker to load if you take the trailer to the hay rather than the way they did it in the video with a lot of time wasted driving. Of course you need another vehicle and driver that way - the guys in the video probably used the tractor to pull the hay wagon to the field. When we buy hay out of the field sometimes several customers with trailers are lined up waiting.

The accumulator my friend uses is quite different than the one in the video. It is sloped at a steep angle and the bales slide down the slope into chutes, turned as needed. When they hit the ground the square is much tighter and a quicker to pick up since the driver doesn't have to square it up first.

And for even faster loading, one hay guy I know uses a cherry picker kind of like this one.
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The boom extends so can load from stacks in his barn at maybe 10-12 high. Man is that fast, and far more maneuverable than a tractor. His grapple can move sideways and rotate so he doesn't waste any time lining up the square on the trailer.

JKJ

Bill Dufour
01-29-2019, 9:44 AM
Squeeze trucks: Info I found say they can load 56-65 bales at a time. Or pick up lose hay. Many of them the forks do not fold up on the highway.
Bill D.

https://www.pinterest.com/blakebrasil/hay-squeeze/?lp=true

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W1xKO-6Jd9s

Perry Hilbert Jr
01-29-2019, 10:01 AM
I still make hay, although with my current respiratory problems may have to quite. I made about 1,100 bales last year, which is nothing by most measures. But for two goats, a few sheep and 5 cattle, I don't need much. I find the exercise of just getting out every day to do the lifting and feeding helps a great deal with staying in shape. The only time I drink alcohol/beer is hot summer nights after stacking bales. Sit out on the font porch, listen to the crickets and night birds and just chill. Heard of those automated bale stackers. I would have to make a lot of hay to make one worth while. My barn is barely large enough to drive the tractor straight through, turning in there to stack bales would be hopeless. Of course the ads, always show straight neat bales and uniform stacks. Never saw a baler put out such uniform bales. Maybe my 1960's New Holland is also over the hill. Last summer about every 6 th bale was only 24 inches long. most were about 40 inches. When I first bought my place, there was an old timer down the road that still used wire. I just could not imagine that. I looked into a machine that pulled behind a tractor and converted the hay into compressed cubes about 2 inches by 2 inches. You pulled a hopper along side and stored the hay cubes in bulk. You can move them or load them with a front end loader. Move them into a bin with a hay or grain elevator. It still makes more sense to me, but required a big tractor ( min 120 hp.)

Mark Blatter
01-29-2019, 1:23 PM
The last time I bought hay was about 15 years ago. I was buying 100 bales or so a year. I would buy a mix of about 90% grass and 10% alfalfa and always tried to get a first cutting. In Montana, there are only two cuttings and the second is just not as good as the first. I was paying about $190 per ton, or about $6.75 per bale. Every bale was hand loaded onto a trailer, then unloaded by hand into my barn. I fed about 25% of the time and my kids the rest. We had 2 - 3 horses at the time, none of them mine. Every year, almost every day, I asked myself how I got into that mess.

Of course today, one of my kids now has a few cows they are raising, plus chickens and kids. Another one works on a dairy after getting her masters degree in animal genetics. I suppose I could say it was all part of their 'education'. Hand loading hay in 90 degree temps was always fun, but the real fun part was hand stacking the bales, up to six high, in the barn at 100 degrees was the real treat.

Perry Hilbert Jr
01-29-2019, 1:43 PM
I think Steinbeck wrote a love note about almost every state.

Kevin Jenness
01-29-2019, 3:25 PM
From Gary Snyder's poem "Hay for the Horses":

“I’m sixty-eight” he said,
“I first bucked hay when I was seventeen.
I thought, that day I started,
I sure would hate to do this all my life.
And dammit, that’s just what
I’ve gone and done.”

Todd Mason-Darnell
01-29-2019, 5:59 PM
My wife has horses.

I bucked hay one. I was young and in love.

Since then, I am willing to pay the extra to have the hay delivered and stacked.

Dave Anderson NH
01-31-2019, 12:55 PM
Like Matt, I remember haying and handling bales in the summers of 1961-64 for 25 and later 35 cents an hour. Worst was putting the bales in the loft. Even with the conveyer it was sweaty itchy work and by day's end I was scratched up and more than ready for the creek.

Bill Jobe
01-31-2019, 5:47 PM
We used to get up hay on a mid '60's half ton pickup. It would be piled even on top of the cab. Typically, we would count on getting 90 bales on that pickup

Tom? How big was the fish that got away? :rolleyes:
I've never gotten that many on a hay rack.
But I'll allow you the benefit of the doubt in the interest of kindness.

Steve Demuth
01-31-2019, 8:17 PM
Pretty hard to even find small square bales around here. We get ours in 1800 lb round bales. Stand them on end near the yard and unroll them to feed by hand.

But back in the day (we're talking 1960s now) we baled everything in small bales, stacked it by hand on a flat trailer (120 bales on a 16' long by 8' wide) behind the baler, unloaded it one at a time onto an elevator, and stacked it tight in the mow of a barn. Walking and stacking on the moving wagon was better weight and balance exercise than any you'd get in a gym, but ultimately pretty hard on the knees. Did the same with oat straw, and flax straw (that was unloaded at an Archer Daniels Midland storage site). Probably made 5000 bales a summer for ourselves and another 2000 or so custom work. Well oiled team of a couple of adults and 2 or 3 teens would do 800+ per day. Hay was pretty heavy, but the straw was maybe 30 lb bales, and the flax barely 20.

Hard work on a 90 degree day, but very satisfying.

John K Jordan
01-31-2019, 11:07 PM
My hay guy always makes small square bales because the equine/goat/sheep/llama people all use them, probably because they can handle them without equipment. He sells all he can produce and sells out early, some directly to customers and some to resellers. (I reserved mine back in the summer.) A couple of years ago he made a bunch of round bales and couldn't sell them for enough to make it worth while. He rolled them out, teddered, and rebaled them square.

I have bought the big square bales before, put them in my storage and pulled off flakes to feed.


Pretty hard to even find small square bales around here. We get ours in 1800 lb round bales. Stand them on end near the yard and unroll them to feed by hand.
...

Curt Harms
02-01-2019, 2:09 PM
I remember, as a teenager, hand-loading (and unloading) hay bales in Louisiana in the summer. I'd have hay and dust all over inside my clothes - stuck to me because of the sweat. Pretty miserable.

I told my dad one time that the thing that kept me going in college was the fear that I'd have to go back to the farm if I flunked out.

Mike

Yeah, but I'll bet you didn't have to buy pre-ripped jeans:p. Mine had patches on the knees soon enough. It was bad enough in a hay mow in Wisconsin in the summer, I wouldn't even want to think about Louisiana.

Bill Jobe
02-01-2019, 2:12 PM
Then add rock salt powder to the mix ....

Mike Henderson
02-01-2019, 2:13 PM
Yeah, but I'll bet you didn't have to buy pre-ripped jeans:p. Mine had patches on the knees soon enough. It was bad enough in a hay mow in Wisconsin in the summer, I wouldn't even want to think about Louisiana.

No, I've always wondered why people want ripped jeans these days. Back then, if you wore clothes with holes in them (for other than work), it was a sign of poverty.

Even today, I want jeans that look decent - no holes.

Mike

Bill Dufour
02-01-2019, 3:34 PM
Girls in high school now are wearing jeans that are slit at the knee but the top and bottom of the rip is hemmed. This lets them wear ripped jeans but it skirts around the no ripped pants rule since they are nicely hemmed. Unlike daisy Dukes et al.

Doug Landphair
02-01-2019, 6:08 PM
I grew up on a farm in southern Iowa. Dad baled the small square bales and we handled each one as it came off the baler onto the hay wagon. I also worked for some other farmers who used Alice Chalmers round balers. They produced small, round bales about the same weight as the small square bales. With the small squares we typically didn't use hay hooks. Rather, we used gloves and handled the bales with the twine wrapped around the bale. With small, round bales the only way to handle was with a hay hook. Some people used 2 hooks, I always used one. In those days I weighed about 125 lbs - about 50 lbs more than the bales I handled. After loading a couple of wagons you figured out how to leverage your body to get those bales from the ground to the wagon which was above your head. It was hot, dirty work. I still hate the smell of fresh mowed hay!

Steve Demuth
02-02-2019, 8:53 AM
My parents moved to town 18 months ago after 67 years on our family farm. In cleaning out the outbuildings after their pre-move auction, I came across the bale hook my old man made for me when I was about 12 from an electric fence post (3/8" steel rod in those days). My brother and I, before we were big enough to stack bales on the wagon five high, would tag team all day. One drove the tractor that pulled the baler and wagon, the other hooked the bales off the chute and dragged then back to the old man who stacked them. Saved him a lot of walking, and meant we could bale faster. I moved to the barn soon as I was big enough to move bales all day alone, and later loaded thousands upon thousands on the wagon while another, significantly younger brother drove.

I may mount the bale hook for a shop wall curio. Great memories in all that work we did together. We tried to create similar family opportunities for our two kids when they were still here, but it's tough when the "paycheck" jobs are all in an office or somewhere else off the homestead, and don't admit of any pre-adult participation. We raised chickens, waterfowl and sheep, made wood to heat the house, gardened for much of our food, and raised our own outbuildings together, but none of it felt like that very, very essential, contribution to the family economy.

John K Jordan
02-02-2019, 9:17 AM
...
I may mount the bale hook for a shop wall curio. Great memories in all that work we did together. We tried to create similar family opportunities for our two kids when they were still here, but it's tough when the "paycheck" jobs are all in an office or somewhere else off the homestead, and don't admit of any pre-adult participation. We raised chickens, waterfowl and sheep, made wood to heat the house, gardened for much of our food, and raised our own outbuildings together, but none of it felt like that very, very essential, contribution to the family economy.

That way of life is rare for most people today. For many kids these days if it can't be done on a screen it can't be done. I have kids come out to our farm often - some have never had the opportunity to even walk around animals and crops except in petting zoos and flower gardens. I had two boys come once who had never played outside!

Here they can take a llama for a walk, check the chicken house for eggs, plant a bean in the garden, throw some hay to the horses, shovel some manure, hold a baby chick, drive the tractor, extract some honey. When the hens get too old to lay eggs we invite families with kids to come and learn the details about where their food come from - they take home chicken for their freezer.

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Good clean fun!

JKJ

Mike Cutler
02-02-2019, 10:39 AM
We used to get up hay on a mid '60's half ton pickup. It would be piled even on top of the cab. Typically, we would count on getting 90 bales on that pickup, but fortunately, didn't have far to go with it. We would toss it up pretty high in his family's barn, with each of us on either side of a bale, throwing it, and flipping it into place on the stack by the strings.


Holy Cow. 90 bales!!!! I bet no one was tailgating that pickup truck.:eek:
That's two and half to three tons of hay on a 1/2 ton truck. Most I ever got on my Toyota Tacoma was 23 bales,and that was pretty sketchy going down the road.

Jim Andrew
02-02-2019, 1:38 PM
I have a 60 head cow herd, and usually roll up about 600 round bales per year. This last year hay was short so have barely enough to make it to grass time. The bales weigh about 1000 lbs each, could make them heavier, but the cows would waste more, that size seems about right. Have not used small square bales since high school.

Tom M King
02-02-2019, 2:07 PM
Holy Cow. 90 bales!!!! I bet no one was tailgating that pickup truck.:eek:
That's two and half to three tons of hay on a 1/2 ton truck. Most I ever got on my Toyota Tacoma was 23 bales,and that was pretty sketchy going down the road.
They baled small bales because the guy feeding the cows was old, and frail. The truck only had to go from the field to the barn, so not on the road.

James Pallas
02-02-2019, 4:36 PM
Once only once did I work hay. I was in junior high and went to help a friend whose grandpa did a bit of farming. As usual for that era I went in tee shirt Bermuda shorts and Chuck Taylors with no socks. You hay handlers know the outcome of that. That’s why once and only once.:)
Jim

Steve Demuth
02-02-2019, 7:58 PM
Once only once did I work hay. I was in junior high and went to help a friend whose grandpa did a bit of farming. As usual for that era I went in tee shirt Bermuda shorts and Chuck Taylors with no socks. You hay handlers know the outcome of that. That’s why once and only once.:)
Jim

Surprised you made it through a load. Ouch!

John K Jordan
02-02-2019, 8:23 PM
Surprised you made it through a load. Ouch!

I often handle hay, unloading and stacking as well as feeding, in socks and Tellec shoes (kindof like Crocs). The little pieces in the socks do get annoying. The guy who helps sometimes always wears high-top boots. Long sleeves will help keep the arms from abrading. I can't imagine handling a few hundred square bales in shorts and tee shirt!

JKJ

Bill Jobe
02-02-2019, 10:41 PM
A local hardware store put a sign up list to add your name to.
Lots of miserable heat in the mow.
Local farmers would come in and select the number of kids to hire.

One day I was hired along with 3 or 4 others by a farmer who was uncle to a close friend of mine.
He had a rigid proceedure you had to abide by. Nice guy. Just.....that's southern Iowa.
He took quick notice of the way I handled standing on a stiff riding wagon on rough and steep terrain.
He asked me to work for him the entire summer. He did a lot of custom bailing and had much demand.
Every day just him on the tractor pulling the baler, wagon and me. The rest of his crew hauled to the barn and worked inside, upstairs.

That gave me a good feeling about myself.
I'll always remember his kindness

Ron Citerone
02-02-2019, 11:02 PM
I never bailed hay, being a suburban boy. I found this thread very interesting, not only the way it's done, but how it obviously left such memories for you guys. Thanks for sharing!