Focus - Making and Handling Hay Bales

Focus – Making and Handling Hay Bales

Farms and ranches with livestock operations rank second highest in the “type of farm” serviced by AgrAbility staff around the country.¹ Certainly managing and understanding animal behavior is very important to prevent serious injuries (for more information on this topic, see the Winter 2002 Quarterly, “Livestock Management,”). An equally important livestock management topic is animal feed and nutrition needs, especially during the winter or non-growing season. Whether your livestock operation is located in a Great Plains state like South Dakota, a Midwestern state like Iowa, a Southern state like Mississippi, or a Gulf Coast like Florida, the task of making hay for livestock feed in the winter (i.e., non-growing season) and then handling the bales is similar. The length of the growing season may differ, the types of grasses and legumes grown may differ, the methods of hay storage may differ, but making or handling hay is still one of the oldest and most essential tasks of a livestock operation.

While it wasn’t always the case, the majority of hay made across the country today is baled hay. A farm implement called a “hay baler”² is used. Most of the hay is baled in one of three methods: small square/rectangular³ bales, large square/rectangular bales, and large round bales. As with almost all other farm/ranch operations over the past fifty years, continued modernization and increased mechanization has helped to reduce the labor required for making hay (i.e., number of people necessary to make hay). In the early to mid-1900s, making hay was almost a community event on the farm/ranch. The old stationary balers required that hay be brought to the implement, and operators manually tied the bales with twine or wire after it was fed through the machine. Today, tractor-pulled hay balers with self-feeding pickups, automatic knotters (devices which automatically tie a knot in the wire or twine used to secure the baled hay), and bale throwers which toss the finished bale into wagons are a common sight on farms/ranches through out the United States. For all farmers and ranchers, especially those with any type of physical disability, reducing the manual labor required to make or handle hay bales has been a welcome change.

In the next section, we’ll review the different hay bale types and focus on how small square bales are made and handled, noting some of the devices Allen Hicks uses.

(Note: There are some regions of the country where modern hay making or handling equipment is not used, due to tradition or religious beliefs. Likewise, there are also specialty farms experimenting with smaller round bales [i.e., small enough to be handled manually, similar to the old Allis Chalmers Rotobaler⁴], often used with rotational grazing as winter feed. These small round or “specialty” balers [which are typically manufactured in Europe or Japan], along with those farm/ranch operations not using modern hay making or handling implements, are not being covered in the remainder of this article.)

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In This Issue
Section 1: Client Story: Incident Makes Kentucky Farmer Think Twice About Safety Section 2: Focus – Making and Handling Hay Bales Section 3: Assistive Technology – Making and Handling Hay Bales Has Gotten Easier	Section 4: State Project Feature: Kentucky AgrAbility Project Section 5: References Section 6: Contacts