Overhead Track Makes It Easy To Feed Round Bales

Overhead track makes it easy to feed round bales HAY & FORAGE HARVESTING Bale Handling (5) 13-6-6 Feeding big round bales to cows in stanchions is no longer a problem for Minnesota dairyman Paul Beckel who came up with an overhead track system that carries bales right to the animals. "It's easy to use and it was easy to build. I've got two systems in operation and they're the biggest labor savers on my farm," says Beckel, who farms near Wadena. The system consists of a 70-ft. length of overhead barn cleaning track that originally was designed to carry a bucket. Beckel installed the track down along-side cattle mangers. The track is fitted with a two wheeled roller that supports a chain hoist that previously held the manure bucket. Beckel made a spear out of 1/2 in. dia. steel rod to push through the center of the bale he wants to feed. There's a metal loop at one end of the spear and an old-style hydraulic coupler at the other end. He shoves the end with the coupler into the bale and slips a 2 1/2-ft. long 2 by 6 board through the metal loop so that the board runs across the end of the bale to keep the spear from pulling through. On the opposite end of the spear, which now sticks out of the other end of the bale, Beckel attaches a short length of pipe fitted with a metal lifting loop on one end and a hydraulic coupler on the other. The coupler on the short pipe is joined with the coupler on the spear. Then chain from the overhead hoist is attached to the loop on the bale spear to lift the bale off the ground. Once the bale is in the air, he cuts the twines and then hay rolls off the spear like thread on a spool. "It comes off so easily you don't need to cut into the bale at all. Takes just minutes to feed fresh hay to a barnful of cows," says Beckel, who designed the bale unroller for bales of 1,000 lbs. or less. To handle bigger bales he says the track would simply have to be reinforced to handle the extra weight. Beckel built a 60-ft. bale track in an-other barn that uses a hay mow track in place of the barn cleaner track. He says it works just as well as the first one he built. Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Paul Beckel, Rt. 2, Wadena, Minn. 56482 (ph 218 631-3236).

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