Leaning Stack

We purchased our bale wagon used. This is the piece of equipment that we tow along behind the big tractor to sweep up hay bales in the field. When everything works correctly, the series of elevators and lifting platforms fill the wagon with bales of hay all stacked neatly into interconnected rows. Once filled the wagon is backed into the barn to be stacked along with all the other hay. That is all when every gear, every hydraulic cylinder, every movable elevator and every trip point is working correctly. Our wagon was well used when we purchased it and had been in some eventful, metal tweaking incidents so it doesn’t work as smoothly as could be and the bed that holds the stacked bales has a twist to it and does not sit flat.

It takes a minimum of two people to run our wagon. Mike on the tractor and a second person, usually me to walk or drive the Gator right along side to nudge uncooperative bales into place or holler for the tractor driver to stop so a big correction can take place.

Because of the uneven bed, we have noticed that when the wagon is unloaded into the barn the right side of the load tends to tip to the outside. We try to correct this issue by slipping a 2 x 4 piece of lumber under the bales as the whole load is lifted into position. Sometimes this works, but sometimes it does not and we end up having to restack the load after they have fallen every which way.

The stack in the show barn had been leaning since we harvested in June. We had propped it with a couple of boards and that held it not necessarily in place but at least kept it from falling over. That was until one of the cows used her long neck to reach past the head stanchions to a lower bale, get her teeth into one of the stacked bales and tugging at it for a nibble of hay. The stack, already leaning and begun to shift away from the stack.

If we didn’t do something soon, the whole outside of the stack could fall out past the manger, over the head stanchions and over into the loafing area of the barn. The cows in the barn were in danger of getting buried in bales.

With the two of us working on each side of the leaning tower of bales, Mike used a pitchfork to dislodge loose bales and drop them one by one into the manger where I pulled them from the area clearing a space for the next one to drop. We were able to move the leaning edge back to a secure ledge and the cows are no longer in danger and we did not sustain any loss from bales breaking or dropping over the manger and into poop.