Modified Bale Feeder Makes Great Rebaler

Modified Bale Feeder Makes Great Rebaler BALERS Instead of using a bale feeder to feed livestock Gary Beem uses one to “feed” a small square baler One of the Palmyra Maine entrepreneur’s businesses is rebaling large bales into smaller ones for his landscaping horticulture and powerline customers Beem wasn’t impressed with manufactured rebalers because the hay came out in bunches He preferred the windrow left by the Buffalo bale feeder so he purchased one and fabricated his own setup Beem built a conveyor table using a former manure spreader bed chain to take the large bales into the bale feeder which he modified by replacing the knife sections with square paddles and welded keystock to pick the hay apart instead of cutting it The hay falls onto a conveyor that Beem made from an old potato conveyor belt that he widened Before the hay goes into the small square baler it’s leveled by beaters made out of pvc pipe to keep an even flow “The biggest challenge was that a lot of chaff comes off the bales when they are taken apart We had to stop and shovel it out from under the conveyor ” Beem says He resolved the problem by adding another conveyor underneath that carries the chaff to a pile where it can be loaded and fed to his chickens or mixed with manure for compost The whole setup runs off one tractor equipped with a 30 gpm hydraulic system with a 25-gal reservoir to keep it running cool “It bales just as fast as baling hay in the field ” Beem says “Recently we baled 606 squares from 9 a m to noon ” He’s made about 20 000 small square bales each year for the past 5 years and he expects to use the rebaler setup for many more years While livestock farmers prefer big round and square bales they are not practical for many customers “There’s a whole group of people where all they can use is the small square bale It’s the only thing they can handle ” Beem says Contact: FARM SHOW Followup Gary Beem 151 Oxbow Rd Palmyra Maine 04965 ph 207 944-4669; hayfarmer@myfairpoint net

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