our annual hay trip to Grand Junction, 1010 miles round trip. 21 hours 9.26 mpg round trip
13,440 lbs of hay

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Saturday morning.

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Sunday morning

 

drives like a dream, stabil as can be. I put airbags on for the load and only ran 5 lbs in them.
we can't get good grass here

 

the only grass around here is Bermuda, just about as nutritious as straw. most people feed alfalfa but my daughter's arib get really hot when she gets alfalfa. plus we raise our own beef and feed them strictly grass, grass fed beef fat is an omega 3 fatty acid where when fed on alfalfa and soy it is an omega 9 fatty acid.
by the time we get the hay here we are at about 1/2 the cost of local hay and about 1/3 the cost of commercially delivered Colorado grass (which a lot is blended with alfalfa)

 

here is Arizona grass is brown crunchy stuff

 

Pretty nice load and your truck looks so good for it's age, if you can find one around here it would be half eaten away with rust..

 

Around here also there a bails of grass piled all over the place I can't understand why it doesn't get trucked somewhere that could use it..

 

Is that loaded with one of those grapples? If not, why is it not cross stacked for stability?

 

Having loaded hundreds of wagons of hay in my younger years, the hay stays in place pretty good. Also, note the load straps on the ground. It was strapped on too. I loaded on hillsides, so you had to do a good job otherwise you were picking it up off the ground and doing it again! That sucked! Dad's been rolling it for 20 years now. Haven't handled square bales in a long time.

 

With all the ties I put on it, front to rear 1 inch rope and a come along, 2 inch strap over at every other row. I hav never had a bale move.
All hand loaded.

 

Is there another way?!!

 

3 wire bales square stacked and use a squeeze to load.

 

Maybe it's a regional thing. I've always rotated the direction of the bales 90° at each level.

Yes, it's called an hay grapple. It attaches to the front end loader

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Ahhhhhh,,,, the modern advances these days! Of course we started picking them off the ground and loading. Then my Dad made a hitch behind the baler and lengthened the bale schute and we loaded them right behind the baler. When one wagon got full, pull the pin and hook to another empty wagon. Since we live on hills, it also taught us how to drive and turn down hill and avoiding a jacknife. You put your tractor in a higher gear and start out slow and watch the baler. When it starts to slide, which it will, hit the gas and turn up hill. It made for some fun rides if you were on the wagon!