Front-Mount Bale Unroller

Front-Mount Bale Unroller BALE HANDLING Bale Handling (31B) 33-6-19 Faced with the need for a round bale unroller but not wanting to spend the money for a commercial unit, Maynard Weaver, Waynesboro, Va., came up with a low-cost solution by mounting the rear axle and wheels off a 1980 Sears Craftsman riding mower onto the front of his Ford 6610S tractor. The axle and wheels are mounted on a frame made of -in. thick by 4-in. rails, with a large piece of angle iron welded across the top. The angle iron slips into the tractor weight rack just like a weight. The 16-in. wheels, spaced 3 ft. apart and about 5 in. off the ground, spin freely. To unroll a bale, Weaver simply drives forward and pushes the wheels against the bale. "It's a simple, low-cost system with almost nothing to go wrong," says Weaver, who runs a cow-calf operation. "I use a 3-pt. bale fork on the tractor to haul the bale from my yard to the field. Then I turn the tractor around and roll it out. Once I can get the bale to start moving it'll keep onrolling out. "With my bale unroller there's hardly any waste. I can unroll only as much feed as my cattle will eat in one day, and then come back the next day and unroll more of the bale. Whenever I want to use the tractor for other purposes I just take the unroller off," notes Weaver. Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Maynard and Gayle Weaver, 517 Augusta Farms Road, Waynesboro, Va. 22980 (ph 540 337-5494; mgayleweaver@comcast.net)

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