2019 - Volume #43, Issue #3, Page #16
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Big Bale Trailer Loads, Feeds Hay On Pasture
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“I use a $79 12-volt winch to pull the bale onto the trailer,” says Wilson. “The winch cable lets me set a hook in a bale up to 40 ft. from the trailer. When the bale gets close, flared sides help line it up on the tilted bed.”
When the bale slides on, the bed tilts level. Once the twine is cut, Wilson can spread the flakes by pulling the bale forward through an overhead arch. Retainer tines on the arch keep flakes from falling until a flake is over a large hole ahead of the bed.
Aside from the winch, the bulk of the trailer was fabricated from salvaged materials. “A neighbor gave me an old trailer house axle,” says Wilson. “The frame is 5-in. channel iron with a bed made from 2-in. wide, 3/16-in. flat bar. The flared sides are 3/16-in. flat stock. It could all be built lighter, but the steel was what I had laying around.”
The arch is made out of 1 3/4-in. steel tubing for uprights with 1-in. steel tubing for the angled top. The multi-tine flake retainers are row closers salvaged from an old Buffalo corn planter. The bale hook is a simple right angle device reinforced with roof-truss like supports, all fabricated from steel rod.
Wilson mounted braces from the frame to the uprights. The winch sits atop an angle iron tower at the front of the trailer. The flake retainers are mounted to cross pieces on the arch and braced forward to the tower.
“When the bottom of the flake slides off the bed, it drops straight down to the ground, and the trailer drives over the top of it,” says Wilson.
A piece of 5/8-in. steel rod mounted from front to back underneath the trailer lets Wilson drive over fences to reach a paddock with cows.
“I have a similar fence jumper on my side-by-side so I don’t have to get off to open gates,” says Wilson.
Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Wilson Land & Cattle Co., 1532 Stitzinger Rd., Tionesta, Penn. 16353 (ph 814 354-2325; ancattle@gmail.com; www.russwilson.net)
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