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Stacking hay pictures-past & present

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Here's what we use to feed round bales with at times-want to rig something on wheels for when we have no snow-even a poor skinner like me can manage with this deal.
 
Northern Rancher, they did, they even used a huge timber and cables to slide a stack out of wet ground to stackyards with horses. Then they cabled parts of them onto a hay sled with horses to feed out. Later they used a tractor with a winch on the back to cable it onto a haysled.
 
This still just amazes me and, lol, and watching all the work that goes into it...I am way spoiled on the round bales and forks. Of course here we do not have to worry about Winter as you all do. We might get a month of cold and defenitely nothing below 0. LOL, we think we are dying if it gets down into the 20's...still laughing and makes me real cold to see NR's team in the snow lmao...my toes are already numb. I can remember the winter of gosh guess it was '84 that we actually had our ponds ice over where you could walk on them..lol, poor Aussie dog I had then went sliding across it a few times. We have had ice since but nothing like that where we could actually walk on the ponds and creeks.

Thank you all for all the pics and information..this is still intriguing to me.

Easty
 
It was a 21/2 mile round trip to where the cowls were-lucky onty four bales a day-the worst weather I've ever fed with horses in was -90 windchill-that was brisk-you had to go in and thaw out between bales that week. That old team is pretty dear bought them as weaners-I'd never drove horses before so we had to learn together.
 
Thanks for the pics have always wondered how those stacks were made- we used to make bucker piles then build a stack with farmhand-my first year at age 12 mine turned out a little on the larger size i was not to popular with the fella hired to haul them- then we got our first haybuster went thru 3 then started with a chain baler then belt baler now we run 2 new last year john deere balers behind mx 120's the 8 year old runs one and his mother runs the other works pretty well both have radios so they can talk back and forth he is super careful- always shuts it off to get out-he put over 100 hrs on that tractor feeding cows this past winter with bale processer-AA
 
Just out of curiosity, Ranch mom, it looks like you have more money in all the equipment and labor to do your haying that way. Interesting way of putting up hay, we used to be up in SW Montana, they still had "loaves" up there, seeing how you put your stack on by chains reminded me of how we loaded on "loaves" and then a large knife like a guillotine would slice the loaves into "slices" like bread slices. Last time I was up there, still a bunch of loaf stacks around. Thanks for sharing your pics!

Hanta Yo
 
Saw a bunch of those Hesston loaf makers parked along the road on our trip out to Alberta yesterday-you could probably pic up a fleet of them pretty cheap up here. Sorry to rain on your parade AA but eight year olds have no place running that big of equipment-been to too many careful kid funerals over the years to ever condone it.
 
Yeah, Ranch Mom, the fodder loaves I was talking about around "here" have been primarily corn stalks. It is generally a nice and cheap filler for a dry cow ration and makes okay bedding if you shred it before baling it... Rough on belts however in the modern balers. neigbor must have put up 3000 bales last year and it would have been more if there had been more salks per acre.

As far as age of working on equipment... It is interesting, everytime I ask folks when their kids started helping they all say just about the same thing.. And I am not talking age of starting. They all say, should have waited a few more years. I know my neighbor almost had his 7 year old stomped by a cow but somehow the cow stopped up short long enough for the boy to get away. Its something that I "talk" to my three year old about all the time. She wants to help so BAD but for 9/10 things she is just to young. Might be 99/100 but she can help take care of bottle lambs right now and get dad things for bottle calves and help mom in the garden and stuff. She is also an excellent rider along in truck or tractor.
 
Hanta-the equipment is all picked up at farm sales and since noone does it anymore, it is quite cheap. We got the bread loafer for $600 bucks last year, it works beautifully, picked up a $300 dump rake this year. Once you have this stuff, it can be used forever and just fix the small stuff. Have you priced even a used baler? We bought ours for $5500 the first year we were married, and it is was a find. k_ranch is very good at repairs, so we make do with less, he has redone/and repainted both our tractor and stackmover so they look much more "new" than when we paid for them. :wink: Right now, k_ranch and I have only leased land and are investing in equipment to have bought and paid for before we start to make land payments. Having all the different kinds of equipment we might use makes us ready for any new situations that will come up in our future haying needs.

The equipment for stacking-k_ranch's dad has bought over the years the same way auctions or when people don't stack anymore, and all the labor is slave. :wink: k_ranch's dad, brother, k_ranch, k_ranch's mom, me, double aa (our boy), k_ranch's sister, and boyfriend came back last summer to help too. Makes it all go pretty fast. Guys used to come and camp with their whole family during haying and they paid them but that was a loong time ago, like in the horse pictures time.

We use a stackmover with the hydrafork to feed the breadloaves too, and I think at least one of the pics of feeding is a loaf.
 
AA Thanks for your post, interesting how everyone's operation progresses differently. Aren't radios great, has stopped many a fight over hand signals between k_ranch and I :wink: :roll:

As far as age and helping... To each their own. Everyone knows their kids, equipment, and ranch better than anyone else. Accidents do happen and they are a tragedy for sure. As for us, k_ranch is about as cautious a man as they come (sometimes annoyingly so :oops: :lol: ) and he and I make the call together when our kids are going to help. Double A helps with more/bigger tasks each year, and as he handles them, we move on. He even swathed some (before he left for his other dad's place) where k_ranch was helping a friend get down alfalfa hay before it burnt up.

Il. Rancher, good for you in finding things she can help with... If you don't involve her when she wants to help, later she won't want to. I love the enthusiasm of a young child. Sometimes it is more work to let em help but it really is good for their soul. :lol:
 
hahaha, speaking of help k_ranch very kindly suggested to me this morning that could I get a little more done today, than yesterday where I sat half the day in front of puter. :? soooo I will have to go and check in this pm. :wink: better go before he catches me lol


Northern Rancher, I like your set up. I bet with a 2 1/2 mile trip you were freezin your arse off. Quite the deal, I am impressed.
 
Yeah lucky it's a big a... and can take alot of freezing-worse is your hands-I froze my fingers so much as a kid they swell up pretty quick now a days-haven't been able to use the horses much last few years because of no snow-lots of cows fed with horses up here-now with $5.00 diesel there will probably be alot more.
 
Northern Rancher said:
Yeah lucky it's a big a... and can take alot of freezing-worse is your hands-I froze my fingers so much as a kid they swell up pretty quick now a days-haven't been able to use the horses much last few years because of no snow-lots of cows fed with horses up here-now with $5.00 diesel there will probably be alot more.
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I've got the same basic rig as you nr, but mine is on an old 28 chevy running gear. you got to love them springs on the frame when your bouncing over frozen cow pies! :lol:

If I build a new one, it will be made on a 5 wheel, so there is more manuverability.

Mine has a winch to squeeze the arms and another winch to tip the bale up.
The winches and cable were about the only thing I paid for. The rest was just salvaged from around the place. It ain't too pretty, but I've fed a lot of cows with it, when we had cows to winter and a good team. Never had to worry about a motor freezing up or whether the team was plugged in. :wink:

Worst problem now, is finding bales that weigh under 1000 lbs. When they are heavier than that, you've got to use a lower gear on the winch and it takes longer to pick one up. But hey, whats time to a horse or a cow? :lol:
 
My bale slides on a skid plate-I juist back up throw my arms over bale pin them then throw the plate down and bale rolls onto it-when you go to roll it out you back team up-pull out your plate and away you go. Too much like work to winch bales up but if I get one on wheels I'll need that-a friend of mine built one that uses a rig to charge the winch battery as the wheels turn-I'll have to see it to believe it lol.Most ranchers could hire a man and feed a team for what the fuel and interest charges are on a tractor and bale buster-and every spring-my team has a little team lol-sold 4 off them already plus some odds and ends horses.
 
I have stacked hay behind an overshot stacker, (was pretty young then)
and a slide stacker. I have stacked with a farmhand, using a cage and not using one. I have baled small square bales And I have rolled a lot of hay into big round bales. That is surely easier.
 
Dad always stacked hay for years....don't so much anymore but rather bale everything into round bales.. He would do like you and push them into what we always called "bucker piles", with the "bucker" on the tractor. Then dad would pick them up with the Bucker and stack it that way without a cage. He could weave it all together and go really high and made them look good. Most people use cages but dad never did. He could mash them down and pack them with the Bucker as well, but used to when they did it the old way like in the first pictures he talked about him and his siblings would have to get up there and tromp around to pack it....like in the 40's..50's etc.
 
Northern Rancher said:
Yeah lucky it's a big a... and can take alot of freezing-worse is your hands-I froze my fingers so much as a kid they swell up pretty quick now a days-haven't been able to use the horses much last few years because of no snow-lots of cows fed with horses up here-now with $5.00 diesel there will probably be alot more.
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As soon as I'm done with working off-ranch, I know I'll be going back to feeding with horse and wagon. We've got a set of sleighs and a farm wagon with an interchangeable deck that we used to use 10 or 15 years ago to feed square bales. I'm going to rig a couple arms like those on a truck bale deck, and use a chain hoist on them to lift the bale off the ground.

Rod
 
Hey TXTibbs,

I took some pictures hay stacking at our outfit in SD. We put up around 100 13 ton stacks a year, but with the lack of rain, we won't get that many this year. We roll up most of our hay, but stacks give us some flexability and we are just a little old fashioned; we don't want to give up the old ways. It takes a little more time, but the hay quality in those stacks stays good for years.

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IMG_1143.JPG
 
coulee said:
Hey TXTibbs,

I took some pictures hay stacking at our outfit in SD. We put up around 100 13 ton stacks a year, but with the lack of rain, we won't get that many this year. We roll up most of our hay, but stacks give us some flexability and we are just a little old fashioned; we don't want to give up the old ways. It takes a little more time, but the hay quality in those stacks stays good for years.

IMG_1135.JPG


IMG_1143.JPG
Click to expand...

yep Coulee that looks exactly like how dad did it. The mice used to love the stacked hay cause it was loose enough for them to run around in yet tight enough to have a nest. I used to as a kid catch them and sell them to the reptile gardens near Rapid City. We would usually have a dog or a pet coon that would love chasing the mice around. Some years after dad would feed mice would just be running all over the feed ground.
 

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