Baler - Round Bale Handling and Transport

Round Bale Handling and Transport

Round bales can weigh a ton or more, and are well-suited for modern large scale farming operations such as a dairy with 200 or more cows. However, due to the ability for a round bale to roll away on a slope, they require special transport and moving equipment.

The most important tool for round bale handling is the bale spear or spike, which is usually mounted on the back of a tractor or the front of a skid-steer. It is inserted into the approximate center of the round bale, then lifted and the bale is hauled away. Once at the destination, the round bale is set down, and the spear pulled out. Careful placement of the spear in the center is needed or the round bale can spin around and touch the ground while in transport, causing a loss of control. When used for wrapped bales that are to be stored further, the spear makes a hole in the wrapping that must be sealed with plastic tape to maintain a hermetic seal.

Alternatively, a grapple fork may be used to lift and transport round bales. The grapple fork is a hydraulically driven implement attached to the end of a tractor's bucket loader. When the hydraulic cylinder is extended, the fork clamps downward toward the bucket, much like a closing hand. To move a round bale, the tractor approaches the bale from the side and places the bucket underneath the bale. The fork is then clamped down across the top of the bale, and the bucket is lifted with the bale in tow.

Grab hooks on the bucket are a simple and inexpensive tool and method for handling large and small round bales. This is an easy do-it-yourself modification to the tractor bucket. Two hooks are welded to the outside top of a tractor front loader bucket and a 14-foot (4.3 m) logging chain which allows the user to stay on the tractor, grab bales, transport them, stack them and place them out for animals to eat. The advantage of this simple system is that it uses no expensive equipment which must be swapped back and forth on the tractor. This method is safer than some others because the operator can stay in the tractor seat. This allows a small farmer to avoid the costs of extra equipment and not have a separate tractor just for that one function. With a little practice, one can be as quick as the specialized hydraulic bale grabs. This method, developed by Walter Jeffries of Sugar Mountain Farm, also requires less maintenance and is safer than bale spears and clamps. Using this technique bales can be easily flipped from the flat to round facing orientation (often called dinner plate vs tootsie-roll orientations). While the bale is lifted the wrap can be easily removed as well.

It is difficult to flip a round bale so that the flat surface is facing down, and later flip it back up on edge, so transporting many round bales a long distance is a challenge. Flat-bed transport is difficult since the bales could roll off the truck bed going around curves and up hills. To prevent this, the flat-bed trailer is equipped with rounded guard-rails at either end, which prevent bales from rolling either forward or backward. Another solution for this is the saddle wagon, which has closely spaced rounded saddles or support posts in which round bales sit. The tall sides of each saddle, or the bale settling down in between posts, prevent the bales from rolling around while on the wagon. On 3 September 2010, on the A381 in Halwell near Totnes, Devon, UK an early member of British rock group ELO Mike Edwards was killed when his van was crushed by a round bale. The cellist, 62, died instantly when the 600 kg bale fell from a tractor on nearby farmland before rolling onto the road and crushing his van.

Round bales can be directly used for feeding animals by placing it in a feeding area, tipping it over, removing the bale wrap, and placing a protective ring (a ring feeder) around the outside so that animals don't walk on hay that has been peeled off the outer perimeter of the bale. The baler's forming and compaction process can assist in unrolling a round bale, as it is often possible to unroll a round bale in a continuous flat strip for feeding in the open, or through a feeding barrier.