Big Bale Stacker, Feeder

Big Bale Stacker, Feeder HAY & FORAGE HARVESTING Bale Handling (5) 12-3-35 "This machine will load and stack 300 to 400 big square bales a day and then feed them out individually at a rate of 6 or more per hour. There's never been another ma-chine like it," says inventor-manufacturer Charles Siebenga, Belgrade, Mont., about the big square bale stacker-feeder he de-signed and now builds. As a loader, stacker and retriever, Siebenga's "Bale Manager" is equipped with two up-front forks. To load a bale in the field - traveling at speeds of up to 8 mph - the trailer hitch is first switched to the offset position. The teeth slip under the bale and then are raised to load the bale onto the main bed of the machine where it slides by gravity to the back. The first three bales load onto the trailer bed and the fourth is held by the forks. Once loaded, the trailer can be switch in-line behind the tractor for over-the-road transport. Bales are unloaded by simply raising the bed to a vertical position, and then raising the loader teeth off the top gale. Four 2 by 30-in. cylinders raise and lower the main bed of the machine. Two 3 by 20 in. cylinders control the loader teeth. In less than two hours the Bale Manager can be converted to a retriever-feeder by mounting a bale feeder-roller assembly on the front of the machine and replacing the bale forks with gripper arms. The machine simply retrieves a stack of four bales, and feeds them into the up-front bale feeder by tipping up the back of the main bed platform so the bales slide forward one at a time. Rate of feed of the bales can be controlled so that you can feed the bale out evenly in small amounts by "chewing" it off the end of the bale, or you can feed it out in widely spaced "flakes". The stacker-retriever requires only a minimum 60 hp. tractor. "It lets one man take care of all the handling of big bales - loading, stacking, retrieving, and feeding. No other machine does it so well and in such an uncomplicated way," says Siebenga, who is also the inventor of a new-style square baler (Vol. 11, No. 4) that he originally developed for Vermeer Mfg. The baler is now being evaluated by a European manufacturer. The 4-bale stacker, loader and retriever sells for $15,000. Equipped with the add-on bale feeder mechanism, it sells for $20,000. For more information, contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Charles Siebenga, P.A.D. Enterprises, 211 8th St., #2, Belgrade, Mont. 59714 (ph 406 388-7681).

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