Poor Man's Big Bale Wrapper

Poor Man's Big Bale Wrapper HAY & FORAGE HARVESTING Bale Handling (5) 18-2-31 Finnish farmers Jan and Karl-Erik Was-berg, who say they're avid FARM SHOW readers, built their own simple, low-cost bale wrapper for making high-moisture round bale silage that they say gets the job done fora fraction of the cost of commercial table-type bale wrappers. Their "poor man's" bale wrapper mounts on the front of the tractor pulling their big round baler. Instead of a roller table to rotate the bale while it's wrapped, they simply push the bale along the ground and wrap plastic around it as it rolls along. The men made a frame out of tube steel to bolt to the front of the tractor. Just above ground level is a roller made out of steel discs that pushes the bale along the ground. A rotating arm swings around the bale with a roll of plastic. It's powered by a hydraulic motor that drives a 50:1 angled gearbox. "You run slowly forward, wrapping the bale as you go. If ground conditions make it difficult to roll the bale, you can put a tarp down for the bale to roll on," says Jan Wasberg. Wasberg says that by mounting the wrap-per on the front of the tractor, they can wrap high-moisture bales before they have a chance to dry down. Later, they transport the tightly wrapped silage bales back to the farm, handling them with a rounded 3-pt. bale fork they built that doesn't puncture the plastic. Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Jan Wasberg, Kunivagen 170 B, 66580 Finland Europa (ph 358613464337).

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