"Compared with the big round bale feeders we used before, we figure it easily saves us a half bale a day in wasted hay," says Harvey Lorton about the big bale processor/feeder he and his sons, Dan and Gary, built from scratch to feed round bales into fenceline feeders.

The key component in the bale processor is a 7 1/2-ft. section of a Brillion flail chopper. They also made use of the pto shaft, belts and pulleys off the chopper.

The flail chopper mounts lengthwise on the right side of a 6 by 7 1/2-ft. hopper they built out of 12 ga. sheet metal. It's pto-powered by three V-belts and a 3-groove pulley.

Once the bale is loaded, a conveyor to the chopper chain, feeds the bale toward the rotor, peeling off a 2-in. layer of hay as the bale turns. The conveyor is powered by a low-speed, high-torque store-bought orbit motor that turns a 1 1/4-in. dia. shaft. The motor, which is detachable for other uses, is equipped with a small drive sprocket, while the conveyor drive shaft is equipped with a larger sprocket for a gear reduction of 4:1.

A custom-built concave, equipped with 3-in. sq. grates, grinds hay coming off the rotor into 3 to 4-in. lengths. An unloading auger off an old Gleaner combine mounts underneath the concave to feed hay onto the processor's belt conveyor.

The conveyor is 7-ft. long and 14-in. wide and is fitted with paddles. Height is adjustable with a winch and cable mounted on the side of the unit.

"To chop a bale properly, we have to run the tractor wide open and it doesn't take very long, either," says Lorton. "We can process half a bale at a time for loading into our 100-ft. fenceline bunk in less than five minutes."

The Lortons built their bale processor last fall. It handles big 5 1/ 2 by 6-ft. round bales.