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Horse-Powered Hydraulics Move Bales
Moving big round bales on hillsides can be tricky with a tractor, but a horse-powered bale mover does it with ease. This two-bale mover uses a mechanical braking system, but ground-powered hydraulics to pick up and handle bales.
"A friend wanted to use horses to bring round bales back to the barn," explains Alban
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Horse-Powered Hydraulics Move Bales BALE HANDLING Bale Handling (31B) 32-3-26 Moving big round bales on hillsides can be tricky with a tractor, but a horse-powered bale mover does it with ease. This two-bale mover uses a mechanical braking system, but ground-powered hydraulics to pick up and handle bales.
"A friend wanted to use horses to bring round bales back to the barn," explains Albano Moscardo, Noi e il Cavallo, an Italian non-profit that develops machinery for small farms. "We developed the mover to do this without relying on an auxiliary engine. The principle has been used on other animal drawn farm equipment."
The bale mover easily handles two bales. The operator activates the hydraulics to lower the bale arm to the ground and extend it past the bale as he pulls alongside. When the operator retracts the arm and raises the bale up, it rolls on to the platform. Powered rollers move it to the rear. The mover then has to travel about 80 ft. to recharge the hydraulic accumulator before picking up a second bale. Once at the barn, the rollers smoothly unload the bales.
The bale mover is about 11 ft. long, 7 1/2 ft. wide, nearly 7 ft. high and weighs 1,874 lbs. It was designed to handle round bales 4 1/2 to 5 ft. diameter and up to 1,000 lbs. The pressure accumulator can build to 2,175 psi before a bypass valve kicks in.
"It took us two years to build this prototype, and it still needs some updates," says Moscardo. "It was designed for mountainous terrain, but on flat ground, I think it could be designed to handle four to five bales at a time."
Moscardo says his non-profit plans to get the bale mover patented. He admits the high quality hydraulic components make the unit pricey with an estimated cost of more than $16,000.
Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Noi e il Cavallo, via Lazzaretto 98, Verona, Italy 37133 (ph and fax 0039+045527899; albano. moscardo@libero.it; www.noieilcavallo.org).
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