Front End Bale Mover Handles 16 Bales At Once

Front end bale mover handles 16 bales at once HAY & FORAGE HARVESTING Bale Handling (5) 13-5-10 "Leaf loss is minimized and the bales can be stored, loaded for transport, or fed out without ever touching them by hand," says Leslie Zielicke, Fon du Lac, Wis., about the 16-bale front-end loader attachment he built along with his brother Stanley. The bale handler is mounted on a New Holland skid steer loader but could also be mounted on any tractor front-end loader. "We've used the idea for 20 years, improving it many times. The only time the bales are touched is when they're stacked on the wagon in the field. They're placed in stacks 4-bales high with 4 bales in each layer," says Zielicke. The spiked bale mover is fitted with 61 1/4-in. dia. bale spikes pointed at the front end and rigidly mounted to the box beam frame. Rigid cross supports help balance the stack during transport. A push-off mechanism pushes the stack off the teeth and into place on a wagon or in the mow. Back in storage, Zielicke sets the stacks one on top of the other up to 3 stacks high. "There's little leaf loss because bales don't get bounced around the way they do with a bale kicker, and broken bales are minimized. Once placed in the 16-bale stacks, bales can be moved, reloaded for transport to another location, hauled to a hayfeeder, or moved to make room for the new crop of hay without handling each bale separately. One man, plus a tractor driver, can put up a large amount of hay with a minimum amount of work. It takes only 10 to 15 min. to unload a wagon and stack the bales in the barn," says Zielicke. Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Leslie Zielicke, W5642 Campbell Rd., Fon du Lac, Wis. 54935 (ph 414 922-0614).

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