Salt shaker for hay bales

Salt shaker for hay bales HAY & FORAGE HARVESTING Bale Handling (5) 13-1-6 Dairyman Lane Briggs, Great Falls, Mont., shakes a little salt on his hay bales as he makes them with a "salt shaker" mounted right on top of his square baler. The salt, dispensed directly into the baler chamber with a Gandy hopper normally used to apply granular herbicides at planting, acts as a preservative on damp hay and lets Briggs bale dew-laden hay earlier in the morning. "Salt lets me bale damp hay that other-wise would mold, and it improves hay quality because fewer leaves fall off than with dry hay," says Briggs, who installed the "salt shaker" on his New Holland 268 baler by cutting a hole into the bale chamber. "The better the hay, the better the milk production. Also, I think salt makes the cows thirsty so they drink more which increases milk production. "In the old days, before there were balers, farmers used salt when they put up loose hay in stacks. They stacked a 2-ft. layer of hay, tramped it down, then sprinkled a bucket full of salt on each layer. It always made nice hay. We're using the same principle on our baler." The Gandy hopper holds 401 bs. of salt, with each bale receiving about a cupful of salt. "Normally I use about 40 lbs. of salt on an 8-acre field," says Briggs. "I regulate the amount of salt by opening or closing covers over the tube inlet holes on the bottom of the hopper. I put more salt on thick, leafy hay than on less leafy hay. I can stop salt from flowing while I'm turning a corner by flipping a switch in the cab." At the end of each day, Briggs removes leftover salt from the hopper to prevent corrosion by simply disconnecting the electric wire, then lifting the hopper out of its carrier and tipping it upside down. Briggs spent about $100 to make the hopper. Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Lane C. Briggs, 40 Haven Lane, Great Falls, Mont. 59404 (ph 406 452-1887).

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