Truck-Mounted Round And Square Bale Shredder

Truck-Mounted Round And Square Bale Shredder BALE HANDLING Bale Handling (31B) 25-5-8 Andy Schuepbach of Ulrich Hereford Ranch, Claresholm, Alberta, was using a pull-type bale processor to provide feed and bedding to his 500 purebred beef cattle, which are located on two farms about 5 miles apart. He decided he was spending too much time on the road, so he bought a new Brandt bale processor and mounted it on back of a 1973 GM 3-ton, 4-WD truck. The truck can haul up to three big bales at a time. It's equipped with a single fork on front and a pair of forks on back that load bales into the shredder. "It really speeds up the work. One man can now feed round bales and grain to our 500 cows in less than three hours. And it freed up a tractor for other work," says Schuepbach. The truck was equipped with a flat deck on back and an 1,100-lb. grain box mounted just behind the cab, He made a new frame for the bale processor and also mounted a hydraulic-operated bale fork on front of the truck using snowplow mounting brackets that were already in place. Then he removed the belt pulleys on the bale processor and installed a hydraulic motor in its place. The motor is operated by a 40 gal. hydraulic pump that he installed in front of the truck's radiator. The pump is direct-driven off the engine crankshaft. The rig is equipped with five hydraulic cylinders - one to raise or lower the front-mounted fork; one to operate the forks on back; one controls a deflector flap on the spout; one moves a bale guard that controls how aggressively the bale is shredded; and one raises and lowers a side wall. There are a total of three hydraulic motors. "It throws straw out about 50 ft. and makes beautiful bedding for our cows," says Schuepbach. "There's a scale built into the truck frame so we can weigh both the hay and the grain so we always know how much we're feeding. We paid $18,500 for the truck. It's equipped with an industrial gas engine - a diesel engine would've been nice but we couldn't find a 4-WD truck with one. "The bale processor's hydraulic drive isn't as foolproof as a pto drive. We can't feed too much material into the beater at a time or it could plug up. The truck has an automatic transmission, but it doesn't have a 2-speed transfer case so we can't drive real slow. Low gear works fine to feed hay. However, it would be nice to have a lower range for spreading bedding. "We originally tried to put our old HayBuster bale processor on a 1-ton pickup, but the processor was too heavy for the pickup so we bought the 3-ton 4-WD truck. We bought the Brandt bale processor because our old HayBuster model didn't handle big square bales and it was also worn out." Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Andy Schuepbach, Box 2044, Claresholm, Alberta, Canada T0L 0T0 (ph 403 625-4693; Website: www.ulrich-hereford-ranch.com).

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