Bale Chewer Turns Cornstalks Into Bedding

Bale chewer turns cornstalks into bedding BALE HANDLING Bale Handling (31B) 9-2-9 A "bale chewer" mounted on a tractor 3-pt. to chew up round bales of cornstalks for bedding has made it a lot easier to keep cattle sheds bedded around Stardell Farms, Inc., Fredericksburg, Iowa. Doug Kleiss says it works great. "We rolled 10 ga. steel into two 18-in. dia. drums and then welded on metal teeth. The two drums are mounted parallel to each other on a moveable frame above the bale. The bale is picked up and carried on a bale fork at the bottom of the machine." The bale chewer drums, controlled by two hydraulic cylinders, lower down over the bale, chewing the stalks up and dropping them to the ground. The drums drop all the way down through the bale till it's all been chewed up. Both drums are powered by a single orbit motor that drives two drive chains. The bale-chewing rollers are 7 ft. wide. Bale forks are 5 ft. long made from 2 by 4-in. tubing. The frame of the chewer is 6 ft. tall to accommodate the biggest bales. "It'll chew up a bale in about 10 min. to just the right lengths for bedding and you don't even have to remove the twine. It doesn't throw the stalks, it just cuts them off and drops them," says Doug. "If we were going to do it again I would use 16-in. V-trough auger flighting with teeth welded to the flighting." The bale chewer cost about $800 to build. Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Doug Kleiss, Stardell Farms Inc., Fredericksburg, Iowa. 50630 (ph 319 237-5989).

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