Round Bale Feeder Made From Old IH Grain Drills

Round Bale Feeder Made From Old IH Grain Drills DRILLS Drills (42C) 20-5-9 Old grain drills can be used to make low-cost hay feeders, says Jess Alger, Denton, Mont., who made a 28-ft. long, 7-ft. wide round bale feeder out of five International grain drills. The 4-wheeled feeder holds five round bales and has 8-ft. high sloping sides, with 15 feeding stations per side. It's mounted on the running gear from an old hay wagon. Alger uses his 4-WD pickup to pull it between pastures on his cow-calf operation. "I spent about $2,000 to build it. Commercial ones this size sell for $5,000 or more," he says. Alger used one 150 drill and four DSA drills, all of them 12 ft. wide except for one 14-ft. model. He stripped the sheet metal off the seed and fertilizer boxes and used the 1 1/2-in. angle iron frame to make a frame-work for the feeder's sides, welding the angle irons diagonally onto steel I-beams on the wagon running gear. He covered the sides with sheet metal from the seed and fertilizer boxes, leaving the bottom 3 ft. of each side open. He used the seed and fertilizer box lids to fill in gaps on the sides and also covered the floor of the feeder with sheet metal. He welded L-shaped lengths of 1-in. dia. steel pipe diagonally between the sides and trough to form the feeding stations. He split the 14-ft. drill in half and used the half sections to make the front and rear ends of the feeder. "It took a lot longer to build than I thought it would. I spent three solid months building it," says Alger. "It's designed similar to an Apache bale feeder. I use a grapple fork to load bales into it and a bucket to load chopped hay. Cows have to reach between two sets of bars - the pipes and the angle irons - to reach the hay so they don't waste a lot of feed on the ground. Most of the time I pull it with my pickup but in deep snow or muddy conditions I have to use my Versatile 700 4-WD tractor. "I bought three of the drills from an implement dealer for $1,000. I bought an-other drill from a neighbor and already had the other drill. The rear 8 1/4 by 20 tires and axle are off an old truck and the front caster wheels and support brackets are off another drill. I used 2 by 4 steel tubing to make the tongue." Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Jess Alger, Box 311, Denton, Mont. 59430 (ph 406 567-2311).

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