Hay Scoop Makes Bale Handling Easy

Hay Scoop Makes Bale Handling Easy HAY & FORAGE HARVESTING Bale Handling (5) 18-2-2 "We were tired of hiring people to put up bales and didn't want to spend the money on a fancy bale wagon so I made this giant hay scoop to mount on my tractor loader. It picks up 10 to 20 bales at a time to drop into a silage wagon which then rear-unloads the bales back at the barn," says Eric Van Dijk, Harrison Mills, British Columbia. "It's unbelievable how well it works. There's almost no breakage. And the only cost for the entire system was for welding rods since I just used scrap I had around the farm," says Van Dijk. Van Dijk made the scoop out of 1 1/2-in. steel pipe anchored on a 12-in. I-beam that runs across the back end. The scoop rests on top of a pair of loader forks that he already owned. He crushed the front ends of the pipes so they wouldn't dig into the ground. The scoop simply glides along on top of the mown hay when picking up bales. A bale sled that's towed behind his Deere baler leaves bales in groups of six in the field. They drop the piles in a line at one end of the field. Van Dijk simply scoops up two or three of the piles at a time and dumps them into silage wagons. "We use the apron chains in the wagons to unload bales back at the barn," says Van Dijk, noting that no modifications were made to their Deere 346 baler or to the silage wagons. "We put up approximately 12,000 square bales a year. This hay scoop makes the job easier and a lot more enjoyable." Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Eric Van Dijk, Box 34, Harrison Mills, British Columbia, Canada VOM 1LO (ph 604 796-2613).

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