25 Tons Tomorrow

Tomorrow, 25 tons of hay will show up at our place. It's one year (almost) of feed, for our animals. And, we will have to unload it No easy task when the hay shows up stacked 3 bales high, on a full height spread axle flat-bed trailer. Just to reach the 2nd bale up we will have to reach over 10 feet up, and take off the top two bales. Nearly 1,600lbs 20' feet off the ground, and we will do it nearly 20 times.

This year we bought a different hay spear, one with shorter tines and a higher back rack. Now, we're not as worried about dropping the top bale off on top of the cab (which wouldn't really hurt the skid-loader with a forestry cab, but it would definitely make a huge mess, one we would have to drive through to unload the rest of the truck). Then there is always the worry about dropping a bale on the truck cab itself. The new rack will prevent this too.

Now, I know many of you don't care about any of this, but the next time you go to a select meat market / butcher, you'll know what went into putting some of the product there. Else, you can go to the major market grocery store and by old slaughtered dairy cattle for your beef! Just like McDoodles.

a reply to: Flyingclaydisk
Out of curiosity, is it a thing in the US, or your region that you blow up the hay several stories up into the barn? This always seemed counter productive but I see the insulation value for the animals. Same with seeds. As kids we liked to dare ourselves to jump into the seed pile from ever new heights, they were stored on most farms in the first storage space above ground.

And is it round or square hay, is it bound or foiled for silage?

In my day hay was unloaded by hand. The foot ball players and anyone else who thought they were strong at age 12 were first choice for the job. A 3/4 ton pick up loaded so high there would be 4 bales above the cab... I do not remember how much we made working at other spreads but at home it was just something that had to be done. Off loading and storing in the barn was the worse job.... where a drive by kick out in the field was not so bad. Driving the pick up was my favorite job as I was around 8 and the youngest working !! I stopped suddenly one day and Simms was on top of the highest bale.. Next thing I here is "OHOOOOO" as he come flying off the top with several bales in close pursuit...We were in the pasture so he was not hurt and if I had not been laughing so hard maybe he would not have caught me to break my nose with a well placed punch !! Auh those where the days !!

a reply to: ThatDamnDuckAgain

I've heard of this "blowing" tactic, but no, we don't do that. It's all baled. We generally do 3x3x8 bales or 3x4x8 bales which weigh anywhere from 750lbs to about 1,200lbs. We stack then 4-5 bales high in our storage area. At (5) bales high we have to pick off the top two bales to get things down.

I can't imagine "blowing" hay into a hay loft, for a variety of reasons (not the least of which is FIRE!). No, we stack bales, but we stack large bales, not small ones.

a reply to: Flyingclaydisk
The baling got traction here in my region about twenty years ago in bigger farms. As a kid I often went out with the tractor to help collect the hey. On the passenger seat of course. First we would make rows and the farmers had special wagons that they would use to drive over the rows and tumble it inside the wagon that was lined with wood and wires on top.

I used to overtake the steering wheel though when the # tanker needed to be opened. The dude (distant neighboring farm) would jump off, let the diesel run in idle-throttle, still moving and my job as a 7 or 8 year old was to drive the tractor in a straight line until the neighbor came running back from behind. I couldn't even reach the pedals lol.

He had to hit the valve with a stick so the fluid # comes flying out, let's say it was a delicate undertaking.

a reply to: 727Sky

When I think about loading/unloading hay bales, 2 things come to mind.

#1. Can't remember how old I was, but 11-12 would probably be a good guess. In the field with my cousins, loading the bales onto a trailer, damn snake hanging out the bottom of the bale scared the crap out of me. It was dead, but still still freaked me out. Definitely made me a bit hesitant when picking up the next several bales.

#2. How much it sucked loading the bales onto the upper layers in the barn. Hot as hell and very itchy.

Probably my first hard day's work, and first decent payday.

a reply to: Flyingclaydisk

I have so much admiration for you. EVERYTHING you do takes great effort to get the cattle to our dinner plates.

I've used square bales and rounds for the horses but never bought the giant squares due to the logistics of moving them lol. Is there a price advantage to buying them large? I know it's a ton of work to offload/move them but I imagine it is easier with equipment instead of moving 2500 regular bales by hand. Either way, that's hard work mi amigo. Much respect.

Do you ever get those big round cylinder bales and cover and store them out in the field?

I grew up on a farm with a few cows and we used to use a conveyer belt to get the bales into the loft when I was young. When we sold the farm I would go help friends put their hay into the barns with their conveyers. When you are between eighteen and twenty and you help farmers their wives fed us like kings when we were done...homemade bacon and freerange eggs for breakfast break at around ten, then we worked till about five and the wife had a great supper, usually roast beef and pork with gravy and mashed potatoes and veggies out of the garden.

I doubt if the young guys these days would help with bales for meals anymore.

The people I get my half cow from had their baler catch fire one day late this last week, she posted the scortched hay picture on facebook. The hay will grow back but the baler is shot...bummer, even though it was an old baler, it worked great till it caught fire somehow. They know some other retired farmers that have balers sitting in their barn, but they haven;t been used for years and it is hay making time now. I guess another farmer will help them finish up, they were three quarters done. They only have around thirty full grown cows and the calves and yearlings they have to feed, twenty of those will be meat on people's tables this years.

They only have about two hundred acres total so usually buy some big round bales to make sure there is lots of food...

With my back so screwed up, it is lucky I can pitch hay anymore, twisting can knock it out easily.

You must have quite a few cows to feed over the winter.

I lived in Mongolia in a nomadic community for several years. We cut, stacked and hauled by hand and ox cart. I still think I'd rather do than than what you're talking about. Bales of that weight skeer me!

One of my friends was a y'all, lanky fellow, but that boy could swing a pitchfork like nobody I've ever seen. Always said watching him pitch hay was like watching an elephant work.

originally posted by: BrokenCircles
a reply to: 727Sky

When I think about loading/unloading hay bales, 2 things come to mind.

#1. Can't remember how old I was, but 11-12 would probably be a good guess. In the field with my cousins, loading the bales onto a trailer, damn snake hanging out the bottom of the bale scared the crap out of me. It was dead, but still still freaked me out. Definitely made me a bit hesitant when picking up the next several bales.

#2. How much it sucked loading the bales onto the upper layers in the barn. Hot as hell and very itchy.

Probably my first hard day's work, and first decent payday.

The reason I stopped so fast was because a 4 foot long black and brown Coach Whip Snake was scurrying in front of the pick up. Every year I always kept a Coach Whip as a pet and my current Coach Whip snake back then was only a little over 3 foot long. The bigger the better distracted me into stopping with a full load. Not only did I not get the snake but finished the day with a bloody nose.

Even today if I am playing golf and see a snake I know that its bite does not contain poison I will go out of my way to capture and release after all the caddies scream and run away; great fun that !.

I have never understood why some people since child hood have a deathly fear of snakes... as for me there are some good and some bad, but all are just snakes. About the only thing I try to be careful about is stepping upon a Cobra (or snakes I know noting about) as they tend to really get pissed and bite ...they are fast too but still just a snake trying to make a living the best way they know how....! The worst are the spitting Cobra's who spit venom at an opponents eyes, and can do so farther than most would believe... Many dogs have had their face eaten away (venom is almost like acid) and gone blind thinking they were top dog when confronting a Spitting Cobra..

a reply to: Flyingclaydisk


Not quite 25, but still a lot.

Good luck with that.

a reply to: Flyingclaydisk
Claaaayy? What about the shoulder??😬

a reply to: 727Sky

So not only did you make someone fall off the truck, but you made him fall towards a snake? lol. Not surprised he wasn't happy about it.

I've had a couple pet snakes too, but later in life. I was scared of them as a kid though, and that one especially freaked me out because I wasn't expecting it, and didn't see it until after picking up the hay bale.

originally posted by: mysterioustranger
a reply to: Flyingclaydisk
Claaaayy? What about the shoulder??😬

Two words..."heavy equipment"! 😉

My days of slingin' small bales are long over. We only deal with large square bales now. All of it gets moved with tractors and skid loaders. Only thing we do by hand is the actual feeding part, and the shoulder is getting better at that (slowly).

We move the hay, 700-800 lbs. (bale weight) at a time, from the hay barns down next to the feed bunks. From there we cut the bales open and feed. We have two separate feed areas, so multiply that by two. A feed chopper would be nice, but we don't have enough animals to justify one of those badboys at about $80k.

a reply to: rickymouse

No, we did round bales one year, but they're just too much of a PITA to haul. No problem moving them once they're here, but getting them here is a royal pain in the backside. They make special round-bale trailers now which makes it a little easier, but they don't haul enough bales to make any long distance movement worthwhile. We truck most of our hay in from Wyoming and Montana. Most hay around here is either alfalfa or brome. We feed teff because it has the feed value of alfalfa without the bloat issues. Feed value on brome is way less. Guys around here don't like to grow teff because it's an irrigated grass and they want crops under their pivots, not grass. Some guys rotate corn out with teff, but it's inconsistent because they also rotate soy beans and triticale silage with their wheat.

Anyway, we have just found the large squares work best for us. We can get (60) bales on a 54' trailer load and still get over the scales without being overweight (but it's real close!). Can't run the trucks over the scales with full fuel tanks; it's that close! Can't run with winter chains under the trailers either for the same reason. All that has to come off.

a reply to: Flyingclaydisk
Makes sense because of the waste of space. Here in Germany I never saw rectangular bales the size you described. The small ones, aprox. 2x2x3 foot, guesstimated, would be rectangular but the big ones always round or if they get wrapped for silage, square with round corners. It were round bales before but the wrapping machine makes that look.

About 4-5 foot in diameter and the same in length, but cylindrical. We used to roll and lever them around and build hay fortresses until they got collected the day after. The farmer didn't mind and was happy we collected them all in one space.

Interesting old saying here, about the storing hay at above ground level:

"Jetz ischs hei onda!" A south German dialect saying "Now the hay is down", indicating that something bad but foreseeable happened and that there's anger and trouble in the air.

originally posted by: BrokenCircles
a reply to: 727Sky

So not only did you make someone fall off the truck, but you made him fall towards a snake? lol. Not surprised he wasn't happy about it.

I've had a couple pet snakes too, but later in life. I was scared of them as a kid though, and that one especially freaked me out because I wasn't expecting it, and didn't see it until after picking up the hay bale.

I've had that happen also. Split open a fresh bale of alfalfa once and a big ol' rattler jumped out at me, and he was none too happy about getting baled up inside that bale!!! Don't know how long he was in there, but he was madder than a cat on a stick at a Chinese BBQ when he came outta' that bale! I jumped about two feet!

a reply to: ThatDamnDuckAgain

That's interesting, I've never seen it done that way before. Here, the balers all have the nets or twine inside the machine, the bale comes out all wrapped or tied. We like tied bales over netted ones just because it's easier to open them.

a reply to: Flyingclaydisk

I have seen those too. However the open ones are very eye catching because they are so big, the foil glares in the sun and there is fast movement around the bale wrapping it up. It's an unusual sight but we have these front loaders that spit out wrapped or netted bales.

The plastic wrapping makes the hay ferment. You play around or on top of these things and you need to shower two times to get the smell off the skin and hair.

Here have a look

silage bales

There are machines that rotate the bale and I have seen those where the foil rotates around while the bale is rotated too, to get the 360° covering and airtight.

Silage bale wrapping machine

This should be right up your alley and interesting to see how we do it here, it's German-Austrian language but the video should do it anyways.