Loader-Mounted Round Bale Cutter

Loader-Mounted Round Bale Cutter BALE HANDLING Bale Handling (31B) 22-3-20 You can pick up a round bale, haul it to a feeder, and then cut it apart - all in one operation - with this new loader-mounted round bale cutter invented by Ben Borgford of Arborg, Manitoba. The hydraulic-powered bale cutter consists of a pivoting 6-ft. long bar and chain operated by a hydraulic motor, mounted above a pair of conventional bale spears. The bar is raised or lowered by a hydraulic cylinder. To load a bale you raise the bar straight up and stab the bale (the bar can also be used as a clamp if necessary). To slice it up, you simply start the cutter chain and lower the bar onto the bale. You can cut it up in the air so the loose hay falls right into the feeder. "It'll cut a bale in less than a minute and allows you to feed bales with minimal waste," says Borgford, who mounted the unit on a Versatile 276 Bi-Directional tractor. "It's no more trouble to cut the bale than it is to pick it up and drop it into a feeder. You can carry the bale as high as the loader will lift and even cut it into a truck box. Once the bale is cut it falls open and is loose. It could be used as a 3-pt. bale cutter for farmers who want to cut and spread bales on the ground or who want to cut bales apart and manually feed them inside a dairy barn. One limitation would be that you couldn't raise the bale as high as you can with the loader. "It works great with fence line feeders in pastures because you can feed the bale from outside the pasturing area, reducing the possibility of injury to the animals. Another ad-vantage is that you can use it to cut off unwanted wet or frozen hay and allow it to drop off before you feed the rest of the bale." Borgford has a couple of other ideas on how to feed bales using his cutter. "You could cut an 8-ft. round bale feeder in half and weld a 5-ft. length onto each side to make an oval-shaped, 13-ft. long feeder. As the compressed bale is cut it expands and will fall out side-ways to fill the entire feeder. Dairy farmers may want to cut 20 bales or so into a pile outside the barn, then use a small tractor and loader-mounted grapple fork to haul the loose hay into the barn. They'd be able to see bet-ter over the loose hay than over a solid bale." Borgford is looking for a manufacturer. Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Joben Systems Ltd., Box 4090, Arborg, Manitoba, Canada R0C 0A0 (ph 204 376-5030).

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