Spear-Trolley System Simplifies Bale Handling

Spear-Trolley System Simplifies Bale Handling HAY & FORAGE HARVESTING Bale Handling (5) 9-4-9 Swedish dairy farmer Ake Sjoberg, of Valdemarsvik, rigged up this low-cost spear-trolley system for handling-feeding big round hay bales inside his dairy barn. Here, courtesy of Husdjur magazine, is how it works: 1. First, Ake made a spear out of scrap metal. It's mounted on a large diameter metal disk to make it self-standing. 2. The bale is picked up "on-end" with the tractor loader, then raised so the spear can be set underneath in dead center. The loader is then lowered, forcing the spear up through the bale. 3. The spear tip is hooked, via a clevis-type hook with a pin running through a hole near the tip of the spear, to a chain-operated winch and "come along" which rides on an over-head rail. Ake simply attaches the winch hook to the spear, winches the big bale off the floor, then manually moves it via the overhead rail throughout his 140 cow stanchion barn. He pushes the bale with one hand and uses the other to turn the bale and "peel off" a portion for each cow.

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